#Hashtag2014

2014

is 

going 

to rock. 

seriously

So many things to look forward to already! 

I'm going to San Diego for the first time!

My drivers license expires!

I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed!

oh 

AND I'M GETTING MARRIED

Truth.

less than 200 days. yah. for real. 

After a crazy, crazy Christmas in seattle (both good crazy and bad crazy), we rang in the new year right: game night, drinks, dance party, a sweet mermaid trophy and of course an intergalactic unicorn shirt, all with fabulous company.

Spiced Apple Kava Kombucha + Sweet Vodka = whoops thats delicious

I love New Years Eve. For some, I know its just another night with super expensive bar covers and a chance for the mayans to tell us the world is ending. But to me its an opportunity to reflect and give thanks for another year.
The following day feels like a fresh start. So much opportunity lies in a new year. What do I want this year to hold? What changes will I make? What do I want to accomplish?

Social media is littered with resolutions right now
"I'm going to work out EVERYDAY for 8 hours while maintaining a full time job"
"I'm going to pay off all my $100,000,000 debt tomorrow with my starbucks paycheck" 
"I will never eat pasta on tuesdays with a full moon"
"I will run twenty marathons while carrying a horse on my back"
 "I will lose 50lbs off my 120lb frame"


Obviously, I'm exaggerating, but frighteningly not by much. This time of year, we feel invincible (hooray!) and like we can take on the world (yah! lets do it!). But this is why so many resolutions fail. By march 1st, we're overwhelmed, overworked, or just plain forgotten what we've resolved to do because none of it was actionable, timely, or realistic.

I prefer to make goals for the new year, things I'd like to accomplish, instead of resolutions. Is there really a difference? Maybe not. But a goal feels like something I am constantly working towards, something I can check off baby steps and see progress. I like that. Today, I am this much closer to my goal.  
So if by the end of this year, I didn't meet my goals-- its not failure, I'm just not finished. I can look at all the great things I accomplished on my way to meeting those goals. Progress doesn't hurt.

Last year one of my goals was to record an entire album. Like of music that I'd written. Ambitious right? yah. Well. Didn't happen. BUT I did record ten songs that I covered and two songs that I'd written. And I am proud of that for sure.

I also, like many, just forgot what I'd resolved to do. I'd written my goals down, but that scrap of paper got lost and found and lost and found and lost all over again.

So this year, I tried something different. I created something I could not possibly lose. 

My lovely friend Em came over for a crafting new years goals party. As a pair of wildly ambitious and crazily crafty women, we really got into this...

Puffy paint, obnoxiously bright colored paper, poster boards, oh my. 

School supplies heaven.

I broke my 2014 goals in four categories:

Life

House

Finances

Fitness

 And I made a lot of them. 

But. 

They are actionable. 

They are measureable. 

They are attainable.

AND they are on bright colored paper, with glitter, on a huge posterboard.

Life goals

• Complete the Artists Way by September 1. This is a 12-week creative development book that I've been dying to really get into. This year. I'm making it a priority
• Make Grad School Happen: Applying to the MPH program at PSU. Submitting my application materials NEXT WEEK. WOAH.
• Read 10 books this year
• Creative Cooking: try one new recipe a week
• Celebrate the small stuff: We now have a jar in our house that is slowly but surely filling up with slips of paper describing happy moments  we've experienced during 2014 so far. Next NYE, we'll read those papers:)

Fitness Goals

• WOD an average of 4x/week: Shit happens, I'd love to workout more. But four days is something I can definitely commit to. 
• Complete 60 doubleunders, unbroken: No singles inbetween, no stops. JUST GO. I got my doubleunders earlier this fall and now I want to make them extra awesome
• Handstands will be my bitch: Seriously. I am tired of being afraid of going upside down. This is stupid. 
• Deadlift more than 300lbs: My current PR is #265. I want to crush that. 
• Backsquat with 195lbs: Current is #175
• Compete at least three times: CrossFit Open, Gorilla Takeover, and ????
• Drop #25 by July 1: Okay this is my token weight loss goal/vain wedding push.  Sure, I'd love to see an ab or six, but I'm feeling strong and happy. If this happens, great, if I only drop five or ten, thats fine too. I've learned the scale doesn't really represent progress. 
• 2013: Gained 8 pounds, dropped two sizes. Say what?

HOUSE goals

• Paint the living room once: In the little more than a year that I've owned this place, the living room has changed colors three times. We need to paint again, but NO MORE after this. 
• Replace the back-fence: Somehow showing off our living room to our neighbors a block away, feels weird
• Build garden by April 1: Six raised beds, moving a couple of sheds and thrashing the shit out of some grass and we are good. 
• Finish the guest room by July 15: Paint, furnish, rid of random shit and make generally habitable.

 FINANCE goals

• Pay off US bank CC by Mar 1
• Pay off Elan CC by Dec 1
• Reduce total CC debt to less than $1000 
• Pay off the damn car by Dec 31
• Transfer $50 week to savings (and leave it there, seriously)

Woah. That is a LOT of goals. 

Let's get goin! 

CrossFit Cat thinks you should make some awesome goals with glitter pens too.