{2014 review} health, wealth and happiness - part 3

So let's carry on with the 2014 review.

I wonder if anyone else is interested in these posts. Ha - I'm mainly writing this down for me.

Health and fitness

1. My weight loss goal wasn't reached - I'm too scared to look at what I weighed in the beginning of the year but I weigh more now!
2. I've been excellent with consistently going to weekly cardio, but the toning only happened for those 4 months I was off work.

Some stats? Sure thing :)



56 workouts at the gym, 52 photo walks with the big camera (plus about 8 - 10 with just the iphone) and 36 Spanish dance lessons. That's a whole lot of active (compared to previous years) that I'm happy about.

The Fitbit and I are getting along just fine these days. You get 100 points on Discovery for walking 7500 steps so I never aim for 10 000 anymore. I found I used to "kill myself" getting to 10 000 and then I had really sore feet for a day or two afterwards. Now I aim for 7500 and that's just nicely comfortable. I need to get to my goal this month and I'll feel like a rock star!




Fun
Reading

I set a goal for 70 books, 15 non-fiction, and I'm reading number 80 right now...... I've read the MOST amazing book recently which deserves its own post.

Most importantly, I finished all but ONE of my physical book novels so I'm SUPER chuffed!



Recipes

I tried out 26 new recipes (the goal was 25) and a fair amount of those were from the Se7en blog :) EASY peasy.

This was year 2 of me trying new recipes and I love it so I'm continuing next year.



Photo walks

I did 52 walks (accurate because of my photo organising system) with the big camera, and about 8 - 10  with the iphone (this is when Connor says, "no PHOTOS, just walking").

This is one of my most favourite things we did this year. I especially loved the winter walks because I love walking in the cold, and I realise that I've done two this month because it's so darn hot.



Project life

I've kept up with my monthly project life. It's built into my monthly goals and my monthly photo organising system so it just ticks along.

Kendra likes looking through the album every month :)

 

40th birthday party

Did this this year. Don't know if I'll do another birthday party next year. If I do, I'm going super small.

And I went to Ballito for 5 days. Now this was a super fantastic idea - I thoroughly recommend going away for your birthday to a happy place.



Last but not least, business

Financially, my 4th worst year ever. Yes. Somehow I couldn't care less?

However, I am very proud of 3 things:

1. I wrote a weekly newsletter for about 50 of the 52 weeks this year. Amazing. It's quite a bit of work.
2. I also wrote 31 days of enough time, a blog series turned book. I'm super proud of this - it's some of my favourite thoughts on time management
3. And then I wrote a new time ecourse, Help! I need more time. This one is soooo good. Actually, I think I'll take it myself again :) It has way too much content for what I was charging (the people who took it even said so!) though so I only ran it once. I need to brainstorm this with Beth to see what I can do with it. Maybe make it into 10 weeks? I don't know.

I also want to mention another little thing that worked so well this year - dates with each kid.

LOVED the individual time with them, and they love it too.

Now I want to leave you with something sweet. On Saturday I KILL it in the gym (a bit of showing off with all those 16-year-olds) and sometimes like this Saturday, my blood pressure was a bit too low so I felt ill afterwards.

We were all going to go to my favourite store (Mega Mica) - that's not sarcastic - I love hardware stores. And PAINT!

But because I wasn't feeling well, I decided to stay. And so I said to Kendra, "Baby, can I ask you to do me a favour? Will you stay with me and take care of me?" And she smiled big (my little nurturer) and said, "yes, of course, Mummy". She bounded out to D and said, "Daddy, I'm not coming with you - I'm going to stay home with Mummy" and of course, we exchanged raised eyebrows because THE CUTENESS!

She brought me water and Panado, and we had a lovely time of quiet girl stuff on the bed :)

Tell me how it went with you in these 3 areas!

{2014 review} Faith, family, work and house stuff - part 2

Go grab yourself a cup of tea/ coffee/ hot chocolate... it's a long one :)

 Some of you know I set goals in every area of my life, and I even cheat in one area I call "fun" because it's about 5 areas in 1 :)

I've done the detailed work through each goal so I thought I'd just share the high- and lowlights here.

God

I've never been great at consistent Bible-reading but this year, in July, I created a whatsapp group with Julia and Robyn, and we've been reading various chapters for the entire second half of the year.

They are amazing Bible partners and friends - one of us will share any scriptures that spoke to us, to encourage the others, and we needle each other along so that we catch up if we're behind, etc.

I honestly love it!

Thank you, J and R - this group is one of my highlights this year - I'm so grateful to and for both of you.

In other God news, I really had to trust that He would be there to catch me when I "just resigned".

All the things I was slightly concerned about (money) were totally unfounded and instead, I ended up using much less of my savings cushion than I'd anticipated. I've already replenished all the savings I used up and am now better off financially than I was before leaving (and of course, emotionally!)



PDM course

Earlier this year I ran a course at my church to train people to discover the congregation's passions and gifts.

It's been slow moving getting going but those 5 weeks of training were AMAZING. I just loved it!

House stuff

I knew going into this year that things would possibly be going pear-shaped so obviously I went out spending madly.

We bought a nice kitchen table, had new carpets put in all the bedrooms and bought a new bed.

And just when I was ready to get other things done, I resigned and froze the spending.

But I have a big list for this year...

Work

Well, work was "interesting".

My word was "shine" and I remember saying to Julia, "did God give me that word for the tears shining on my face?"

I was on those little white pills on any days I had to interact with those people. Fortunately, I worked away for a couple of weeks in a different Jhb branch, Pta, CT and Bloem. All of those days = no little white pills. Main office = a pill a day. Very sad but let's move on.

Then I had 4 glorious months at home with the babies. I worked on my business, blogged and so on. Now that I think about it, it feels like I didn't do enough but I did what I needed to do.

I honestly didn't intend to go back to work so soon but the opportunity came up and it was a good one so there I am :) So far, so good. Am still cautiously optimistic nearly 4 months later.

Hopefully next year there'll be no need for any tears!

I'm so very grateful for that CT work trip - even though I worked my butt off during the day, and some nights til after midnight, I got to travel to CT for the first time in over 4 years and see THREE amazing friends. More importantly, I'm so glad all the diaries worked out.

Thanks so much, friends, for your hospitality. It was so needed and welcome at such a dreary time in my life.



Let's end off on a good note for now, and I'll keep the health and fitness stuff, the category called fun and my business stuff for another post.

Family

Our 4 holidays - well, I do think this was the most we've been away ever. I do this nerdy analysis of our money every year and I remember last year thinking the places where we spend the most money is on holidays... and that's exactly how I want it :)

This year we spent 26 nights away from home - 10 in Ballito, 4 in Drakensberg, 5 in Ballito, and recently 7 in Drakensberg.

Now this is a subject for another post but I'm counting on all of you for super-practical ideas for holidaying with school kids!

I set monthly goals for dates with D, dates with each kid, and me getting in photos with the kids, and on posting pics to the kids' blog, and having those in writing reminding me every month makes me more intentional.

I also set a goal for a fun thing as a family every month and we only missed twice so I'm counting that as a win. Mind you, 4 of those were the holidays :) And Montecasino Bird Gardens are STILL on the list!

How did these life categories go for you?
What was the biggest highlight?

PS These pics were all taken with the Nikon

View from the rooftop

Sorry, guys, I know I published a blank post last night.

It's because I typed the subject and I hit enter instead of clicking in the block to start uploading pics.

Oops.

Anyway, tonight I had big plans to blog on health and fitness - riveting stuff for me as that is a big focus for 2015 - but I got sidetracked reviewing my 2014 goals and setting goals for 2015.

I can't imagine how HOURS could just fly by like that ;) so I'll leave you with some pretty pics of the view from my work's rooftop.

Do you have a favourite photo?
Also, is anyone busy reviewing their 2014 goals?

I'm going to be writing a lot about this over the next week as it is LITERALLY my favourite subject ever!

(also, I have to set the example since I'm writing blogs on Organising Queen next week ;))

2014 round-up - part 1 - the friendship version

I collapsed on the bed earlier thinking about what I had to do tonight and said to D, "wait! is this already the last Friday of 2014?!"

When he said yes, I realised I have TONS of posts still to do and I've run out of time so best I start.

Let's talk about 2014 and friendship.

It's been... odd... and good and some things have been unexpected and some things have been so very lovely.

First, the numbers (be prepared to be shocked. I am!)

40  - no. of friends' names on my spreadsheet - last year's people plus new friends
85 - friendship/ social connections over the year (1 party where I see 3 friends counts 3)
* 49 - 1:1 connection time (in other words, no parties or multiple friends date)
6 - new friend meet-ups (two in Cape Town and 4 up here)
6 - friends I didn't see at all. 1 is not local so understandable, 3 I have let go of, and 2 I need to make a plan.
17 - number of friends I only saw once. A lot are not local ;)

(* I have 3 friend dates scheduled for this week. All 3 are 1:1 so I've included them here but I'll come back and amend if any of them flake on me!)

  
Interesting thoughts:

• Amazing how I agonised about the people from my old company before leaving... and the people who have stayed in touch are the same people that always did. ONLY THREE! But 3 very good eggs :)
• Makes complete sense but the months where I had more than 4 one:one friend dates are the months I felt most connected and happier. When you see friends at parties and such, it's just not the same. It's still good, but not the same.

What worked?

1. I had a monthly goal to have at least 2 socials. Most months were too easy but some months I just about managed it.
2. On average, it works out to 7 per month which sounds crazy now that I type that. I think 4 - 6 is my personal comfort but of course, the birthday months of July and August throw everything out the water - it is CRAZY.
3. Oct and Nov are traditionally very busy months in SA because it's warm, everyone comes out of hibernation and lots of babies are born because there are a lot of birthdays.

And what's the plan for next year?

1. Unsurprisingly, I will still have a monthly friendship connection goal but next year I want to do more at-home "entertaining" if you can call it that when it's one or two friends because eating out is getting way too expensive.

2. I keep thinking if I'm paying R130 for a main course and a cup of tea... and I'm a tee-totaller and I drink ONE cup not multiple cappucinos, etc. then I don't even want to think about other people who drink and have numerous coffees and eat.

Multiply that out by 4 dates a month, and it's a good monthly unit trust investment, which is where I prefer to put my money :)

When I was out from work for those 4 months, most of my allowance went towards eating out!

3. I'm going to extend a few invites and if nothing comes of it, then so be it... because I suspect I might be the one fuelling the fire for some of the friends on the list.

4. I'm also thinking of doing something really cute involving good, old-fashioned letters in the mail... I'm good with following through on projects, but it is a 52-week commitment.....

If you made it til the end, congrats and thank you :)

Now tell me, how did 2014 stack up in terms of your friendships?
What were the highlights and lowlights?
What, if anything, are you doing differently next year?

PS feel free to write your own post and link to me.

{Lovely things to do this year} Two things off my list

Well, you know what my favourite time of the month is... but since the last day of August was wifi-less, I did my thorough goals review this afternoon. I did the business version earlier so I could do my post on the organising blog.

Overall, I got 86% which is a bit lower than I normally get, but is understandable considering I was out and about a lot more, plus the holiday away.

My average for the year is still 90% so I'm happy.



The obvious highlight was my birthday lunch and 5 days away! I thoroughly recommend it. Thoroughly.

I counted and we've now been on holidays away from home for 20 days of the year. I love it!

SUCH a difference to last year's birthday when I was hauled over the coals for not doing something I didn't even know I was supposed to be doing. Thankfully, a friend INSISTED that I still come out for a tea and cake. I needed the breath of fresh air and normalcy to save the day!

BTW, my one work colleague who left last year went back to that crazy team. I told her she is MAD! I would NEVER do that to my mental health again. Never.

Moving on.



The fitbit.

Daily steps are supposed to be 10 000. I hit that maybe twice a month.

So I decided to approach this as I do every goal - SMALL steps :) (pun totally intended)

I made a goal in August of 5 500 steps on average in a day. So some days I got to the 7 - 9 000 range, and other days, when I was very productive at my desk, I got 4 000 steps in.

My daily average for August was 5 769. My July average was 5 611. My June average was 4 628. So I'm getting better.

For September my goal is a daily average of 6 500.

Aside from the fitbit goal, I have a few others:

• Arrange this creative meet-up thing...
• Get a new cell phone contract
• Do all my filing
• Finish the root canal (I went for part 2 of 3 today - it is torturous. Next time I'm taking a calmette and some headphones so I don't hear the "sanding" or whatever you call it. I had gooseflesh all over my arms.)
• Sign up with a personal trainer

And last but not least, the two things off my lovely things list (it has 24 in total) that I was able to cross off?

1. Finish August Break 2014
2. Get a wonderful, new job.

Yes, friends, I kind-of fell into a job. I really like the people, the company, the building, not so much the location yet, the money, the leave, the work (!!!). I checked my offer against the list I prayed over. All boxes ticked. I checked against my list of core desired feelings. Again, all boxes ticked. Turns out when you get clear and specific, God can do things really quickly. Who knew?!

This won't surprise some of you but I got REALLY excited at the free money (money the company contributes towards a provident fund / 401K). I love free money!

So I start on Monday.

I'm slightly apprehensive in case things go pear-shaped like before, but this time, I'm not putting up with nonsense.

Even K said to me, "Mummy, when you start your new job, will you please make sure your boss doesn't make you cry?"

!!!!

They remember EVERYTHING.

The new boss phoned me the minute my signed offer landed on his desk - he was so excited, etc.

So back to work it is!

What's news on your side of the world?