Having read my list of goals, you might guess that I don’t always finish what I start.  I started a quilt for K over four years ago.  I got about 80% of the way done, and I basically stopped.  I’ve picked it up a few times over the years, but I haven’t made any significant progress on it since before K’s birth.  I also own material to start a baby quilt for A which I no longer intend to make.  The material is very pastel-y and only enough for a small quilt.  I don’t think that is going to be very practical any more.  I have a blanket I started crocheting when I was pregnant with A that is about 1/3 done.  I also have several other crafting supplies that are waiting for me to finish several different projects.  In our effort to get the house less cluttered and get rid of things we didn’t use, I gave away a full rubber stamp set with three colors of ink earlier this year.  That was part of my big plan to make my own Christmas cards.  I bought the stamps and ink in 2003.  Never used.  I didn’t even cut the stamps out to put them on the blocks!  Not a great track record.

So, knitting.  I had been hearing so much about knitting from friends that I decided to take a community ed class to learn.  I also decided to stop leaving half finished projects all over the house, so I am committed to finishing this project in time to give it as a gift.  I am doing alright.  I have a decent start, but it’s definitely not ready to give yet.

How about you?  Are any of you like me? Do you ever start a project get 40–60% of the way into it and decide it’s too hard/boring/expensive/time consuming to finish?  Do you ever feel guilty about it or are you okay with that decision?

I had also been looking around our apartment lately and thinking about all the things I had either started and not finished or intended to do but had not done.  I decided that one thing that would help me to feel better about this year was to be able to look back on it and feel good about what I’ve used my time to do.  So, here it is, my list of goals for my 30th year.

My 30th year goals

December — Kitting — I recently learned to knit.  I took a community education class.  Originally, I’d hoped to learn to knit a sweater by Christmas time for either my mom or Jason’s mom.  Unfortunately, that seems to be too hard and too time consuming for me right now.  My goal is to make a different Christmas gift.  I’ll (hopefully) post pictures after the holidays are over!

January — Finish K’s quilt -  When I was pregnant with K, I started a Noah’s ark quilt.  I got most of it finished during the summer and fall before he was born.  He was born about 4 weeks early, and after that my progress on the quilt stalled for the next 4 years!

February — Going to bed by 10:30 and getting up by 6:30 — I would like to take a month to practice getting to bed earlier and getting up about 30 minutes earlier than I need to be up and going.  I’d like to take that time to do a regular quiet time and pray for the upcoming day.

March — Read -  I love to read.  I love to read.  I love to read.  In the midst of everything else I have to do or get done, I often feel as though I miss sitting down and getting lost in a book for hours.  I love discovering new authors and rushing to the library to get the next book in a series or a new book by that author.  Because so many of my goals for this year will take time away from reading, I wanted to make sure I take time to focus on something I enjoy so much.

April — Exercise –Right now, I exercise irregularly (usually the minimum of 3 times a week) at Curves.  It’s fine, and it’s nice to get a full body work out in just 30 minutes.  I’m hoping to use this month to incorporate more cardio into the workout.  Hopefully it will coincide with spring???  Dare I make that wish?    Ideally, my goal is to workout at Curves 3 times a week and do cardio 2–3 times a week.  If I end up doing the 5k in May, I’ll need to be running that often anyway.

May — Run a 5K — I know!  Those of you who have read this blog for a while know about my struggles with asthma, running, coughing, and the frustration that comes with those things.  I would love to run (yes, run the whole way) a 5k.  If I want to run the Fargo 5k in May, I would attempt the Couch to 5k plan again.  This time, I have a new plan of attack.  Instead of leaving myself 1 or 2 extra weeks, I want to start in January and do each week of the plan twice.  That means if I get sick, I’ll have a buffer.  If I have trouble with a week, I’ll have a buffer.  Hopefully…    Hopefully, Jason will be running the half marathon again and I’ll be running (yes, running the whole way) the 5k.

June — Doing new things as a family — Because my boys are young and close in age, I sometimes make excuses for not taking them places or trying new activities with them.  We haven’t gone to the state park that is about 2 hours east of here.  Many of our friends have reported back about how great it is.  We haven’t even gone to the park that is 30 minutes west of here with them.  We also have not taken a family vacation nor have we stayed in a hotel room since A was born (not with the boys anyway).  My goal in June is to do 2 new things each week.  One activity I would like to do as a family and one during the day when I’m by myself with the boys.

July — Organize closets and storage unit –Before we moved, our house was neat, clean, and organized.  We got rid of a LOT of stuff we no longer needed.  Once we moved in here, we put things where they seemed to go.  We put the rest of the stuff in a storage unit.  I can see we don’t need much of what we kept.  During July, I want to go through closets and cupboards and get rid of what we no longer need or want.  I also want to spend some time at the storage unit organizing that and making sure everything in there is something we will want or need at our house when the time comes.

August — Organize photos and make photo books — I am terrible at this.  I have done nothing since I met Jason.  We have a wedding album, but that’s it.  I think my mom put that one together.  We have a drawer of pictures and thousands of pictures on the computer.  I want to make photo books for the boys (like the ones at Snapfish or MyPublisher) and put together one for our family, too.

September — Nothing — After having goals for the entire year, I want to relax.  I want to sit out on our deck and read if I want or sleep if I want or do nothing if I want.  I want to round out my 30th year by thinking about how great it was.

As if I didn’t have enough going on, I have a couple other goals I want to make ongoing.  I want to do better at taking pictures.  Jason’s sister participates in a photo project called Project 365 where the goal is to take one picture each day.  I’m not sure I want to commit do doing that, but I would like to think of some way to get better and more consistent photos of the boys and of us as a family.  Lastly, as if I hadn’t scheduled every moment of my life from now through next September, I want to continue developing my idea for the InnovateND competition.  Maybe some day I’ll even be able to share it!

1. I stayed with a host family in Japan for 6 weeks when I was 17.
2. I climbed part of Mt. Fuji.  I rode the subway and train by myself in Tokyo.
3. I ate things I didn’t even know were meant to be eaten!
4. I completed a double major (elementary and middle level education) with 2 areas of concentration (math and social sciences) in 4.5 years.
5. I earned a 4.0 in grad school.
6. I finished grad school in 14 months while teaching full time.
7. I married a fine man at the age of 22.
8. I have two beautiful children.
9. I (at one point) spoke Spanish well enough to earn 8 college credits on the placement test.
10. I have had two natural (drug-free) labors.
11. I have been breastfeeding for 4 years, 1 week, and 3 days.
12. I have visited 26 states.
13. I only let in one goal in my one (and only)appearance as starting goalie for a college broom ball team.
14. I took piano lessons and played regularly for 9 years.
15. I played the flute for 7 years.
16. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school and thought it was boring.  I reread it when I was 24 and really enjoyed it.
17. I joined a book club.
18. I became a La Leche League Leader (although none of my posts on this site should be construed as advice or associated with La Leche League’s stance on an issue unless I state otherwise).
19. I attended BlogHer ’09 and traveled by myself for the very first time at the age of 29.
20. I ran (and walked) my first 5K in 2009.
21. I gave up meat and most meat based products. (in process)
22. I worked at a camp in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota for two summers where I learned to hike and canoe.  For other reasons, those were two of the hardest times of my life.
23. I learned to drive a manual transmission car and prefer it over automatic in most situations.
24. I went from cooking only spaghetti with meat sauce (from a jar) and tacos to cooking a different (and usually yummy) meal every night of the week.
25. I took over the shoveling duties in our family and shoveled 95% of the time last winter (the snowiest December EVER).
26. In one year, I attended the following concerts:  Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Green Day, Brittney Spears.  I hope to attend TobyMac before that year is up.
27. I sponsor a child through Compassion International.
28. I started a blog (this one) for family and friends and realized most of the people who read it don’t know me or my family.
29. I came up with a great idea for the InnovateND competition.  We’ll see where it goes in the next couple years.

When I turned 25, I had just graduated with my master’s degree in special education.  I had a bit of a crisis over it.  For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t going to be a student.  I didn’t have classes. I wasn’t going to be graded.   I didn’t have teachers.  In order to combat my feelings of angst, I decided to take a leadership class at my church.  I guess I replaced one type of school with another.  I was also a teacher, I guess I had found my comfort zone. 

This summer as I approached 30, I thought of closing down this blog and starting up a now-that-I’m-30 blog.  I figured I would set some goals for myself, report several times a week, and distract myself until I was 31.  Then, instead of having a crisis, I would do those things I had long put off or found an excuse not to do.  Instead of doing that, I just didn’t.  I found things to busy myself, and I finally made a tangible goal for myself by eliminating sugar from my diet from now until Thanksgiving.

Just when I was feeling justified in my complacency, I got an email.  A fabulous friend of mine had commented on my sugar post.  This is a friend who was in my wedding (and I was in hers 22 weeks pregnant with K), a friend who I think about quite often, a friend I admire greatly, and a friend I had not talked to in over a year.   I was so excited to read a comment from her.  I was even more excited to see she had a blog.  It struck me as a little funny that her blog is thirty things she wants to accomplish before she’s thirty.  Hmmm…  Maybe I’m not feeling so great about my complacency all of a sudden.

So, Friends, I bet you can guess what will be coming in the next few days and weeks.  A list.  I am not nearly as ambitious as my friend, so I will not be creating the blog “30 Things I Did While 30.”  I am thinking I will be setting monthly goals for myself.  So far, I have this:   October– Procrastinate (check)  November– Eliminate sugar and refined carbohydrates from diet (in progress).  I will keep you updated as the list continues to grow.