My word for this year is
Balance replaces discipline, which was the word for the
last couple years, and which I didn't really achieve, though I did try. The two words are related, so I feel like it's a continuation of one to the other.
I haven't updated
my goals and their progress since the
end of June. I achieved some of them, but the rest got lost by the wayside when I got pregnant. The new year is a good time to re-evaluate and update my goals. Writing them down does help me to remember them and not just let them slide.
This year I'm focusing on four areas: running, food, finances, and time management.
Running
I talked about my postpartum exercise plans and the races I want to run
here. Since then I've had to change things up a bit. Mr M now has a training thing that overlaps the spring half marathon I'd planned on running. Logistics are such that I'm not doing it without him around to help with the kiddos. I found a couple other half marathons in the area, but they're earlier in the year and I don't want to run a half without properly training for it.
In changing up my race schedule, I've also added some more races. If I'd been able to do the New Year's Day 5k, I'd have a race scheduled every month this year! Having monthly races scheduled will keep me motivated in my training and help me work towards my fall half marathon. I'd really like to be properly trained and prepared for it and I think the monthly races should help me stay on track. The races listed below without links are the ones I haven't done before, except the half marathon. Since we'll travel to get to that one, I don't mind linking to its site.
January-
New Year's Day 5k
February-
4 mile (give or take a bit) Mud Run
March- a 5k
April- an 8k
May- a 5k
June-
a 5k
July- a 10k
August-
4 miler
September-
Great Smokey Mountains Half Marathon
October-
Halloween 5k
November-
Turkey Trot 5k
December- a 5k
And looking ahead to 2015:
January- New Year's Day 5k
February- 4 mile Mud Run
March- a 5k, 10 miler, or a local half marathon
April- an 8k or a local half marathon
May- a 5k
June- a 5k
maybe a Ragnar Relay race in June or September and a semi-local half marathon in November
Food
Now that The Little Mister is here and the holidays are over, it's time to get the food situation back in order. I haven't been feeling too bad with how I've been eating, but it's only a matter of time before it does start causing problems. So it's time to clean up the bad habits I picked up since the morning sickness started almost a year ago. The two major issues: sugar and grains. The Little Miss and I need to make more progress healing our intestines, so we're going back on
GAPS. Since I'm nursing and have to be careful about detoxing and going too low carb, we'll skip GAPS Intro and go straight to full GAPS.
I indulged a bit too much over the holidays and my weight has crept back up, so I'm hoping that eliminating grains and sugar will jump-start my weight loss. I really want to get my weight down where it should be. It will be a challenge to balance nursing, running, and GAPS, but the end result of better health will be worth it.
Mr M works with a bunch of guys who are paleo. Since he wants to lose some weight and make things a bit easier on us (like not eating things we can't have in front of us), he's going to give it a try. Full Gaps is similar to paleo, so we'll be mixing the two up, seeing what works for us.
One key to making this work is planning out our meals. I've done this in the past with great success, but it got dropped when I
stopped cooking last year. I've started planning menus again and am remembering how nice it is not to be staring in the frig at 5 pm, wondering what to make for dinner.
Finances
We've been piddling around for several years now, saying "we'll get out of debt this year", but not managing it. This is the year it actually happens. We've had a loose budget for years, but now we're tightening it up and tracking everything more closely so we can eliminate unnecessary spending. Our food budget (or lack of one) is a big offender.
We've been shopping at Whole Foods, Kroger, Sam's, Target, Amazon,
our CSA, and a local online grocery service. It all adds up really quick.
I'm changing things up so that our bulk dry goods, including TP and diapers, come from Amazon. Their "Subscribe and Save" option allows you to auto-ship certain items every month, every other other month, etc. If you have 5 or more items in each month's order, you get a 20% discount on the overall cost. In addition, Amazon occasionally offers coupons for some of the items, and the coupon can be stacked with the discount. We have a Prime account, so shipping is free, and the items end up being about the same as we would spend in a brick and mortar store. Some months it's a little more, some months it's a little less, so it all averages out. The added advantage of not being tempted to buy things not on my shopping list as I wander through the store means we save even more more.
About a year ago we started buying from
a local CSA, but we were still purchasing items from Whole Foods and Kroger. We recently found a local online grocery service that sources items from Whole Foods and small local stores and producers. So now we purchase pastured eggs, grass-fed meats, and some fruit and veg from the CSA, and the rest of our fruit, veg, grass-fed dairy, grass-fed meats, and any other food items we need from the online grocery service.
The CSA delivers to our house once a week and we pick up our order from the grocery service at a location that's only 10 minutes from our house (about 20 minutes closer than Whole Foods). They deliver to that location twice a week, and deliver to other locations in the area on other days, so we have options if we need something but don't want to make the trek to Whole Foods. The interesting thing is that some of the items that come from Whole Foods are cheaper this way than in the store. The service itself is free (they make their money from the grocery stores and producers), and again, I'm not buying things not on my list, plus I'm spending less on gas, so we're saving money.
Organizing our shopping around Amazon, the CSA, and the grocery service requires actual menus and planning, which helps our budget and helps me be more organized. My goal is to avoid stores as much as possible, so planning ahead and being organized is a must.
We've enjoyed them, but we'll be selling the truck and trailer and buying Mr M a more economical vehicle. The truck gets atrocious mileage when used for commuting (which Mr M does), and we've decided we want to upgrade the trailer to a small RV. It'll take us a couple years to save up for the RV, but since we need to sell the truck, we need to sell the trailer too. All this will allow us to save money on gas and vehicle payments. The trailer is paid for but the truck isn't. When we buy a car for Mr M, we'll be paying for it outright. The money we save can then be put into savings for our future RV.
Time Management
Over the past couple years, my time has skewed a bit heavily towards projects around the house. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the vast majority of what I wanted to get done is now done. This is a good thing since newborns are a lot more high maintenance than 7 year olds, and take up a lot more time :) Our
adoption file is on hold till fall, but once TLM is 1 year old, we can reactivate our file. Depending on the timing, we could potentially end up with two little ones very close in age, which will further decrease my project time. So it was good that I was able to get as much done as I have the last year or so.
With the big projects finished, I now need to improve the balance between my activities. Schoolwork with LMS, caring for TLM, housework (which I dislike, so it gets pushed to the back burner), meal prep, church responsibilities, time with Mr M, projects (I still need to work on some things), running….
So, lots to work on, but I've started making baby steps on each of them, so the goals are totally do-able.
