Sunday, January 1, 2017

2017



Happy New Years Friends!

I wrapped up the last couple of weeks of the year with a staycation at home with my family.  We had a nice holiday break with a lot of planned activities.  I'll save the recap of Christmas for my next post but it was a great holiday nonetheless.

I took a look back at my 2016 Goals that I posted about last year.  I had three goals.

1) Lose another 50 lbs.  I had lost 53 lb in 2015 and aimed to lose another 50.  Did I make it?  Not quite.  I lost 38 pounds in 2016.  That puts my total weight loss to date at 92 lb.

2) Get my business off the ground.  Well that did happen and is still up and running.  I would say I am still having success but quickly needing to decide what I want to do. To be honest, I really like running my side business and it has been profitable but there are a couple of challenges -- finding places to source product and the ever increasing fees of the selling platform.  As time has gone on, it has become more difficult to make a profit.  So I have some decisions to make in the new year about what I want to do.  One thing I know for sure, I will still have a side business, I'm just not sure what it will look like.

3) Declutter.  I definitely feel that I have had some major successes in this area.  For one, I have kept the organizing that I did early in 2016 in place and have not let things go.  I have also continued to declutter room by room and not over purchased.  My closet is my best evidence.  As I have lost weight, I have bought some new clothes but I have not refilled my large closet at all.  I still have more to purge but the house has definitely come together more and the junk has decreased.


So what's in store for 2017?

Before I get to goals I want to just comment about going into 2017.  I am a bit afraid, I admit, of what this next year brings.  Not so much on a personal level but where my country stands.  I have no sense of stability or normalcy right now.  I have feelings that the ground I stand on could fall from under me at any moment.  It isn't a great feeling and even harder when you try to reassure your children that things will be ok. I really hope they are but my skeptical side says the country is in for a bumpy ride . I am also entering into my 40th year this year which is surreal (people who are 40 are old....).  Each year that passes since my dad has passed away is just a little bit harder because I just don't want to do that year without him... the feeling lessens after a couple of days but I admit I am in the thick of it right now.  So I will do the very best I can to be hopeful and true to myself and will be happily surprised if things turn out better than I expect this year.

So on to my goals for 2017.

1) Lose another 30 lb. I took a break from keto over the holidays but am ready to jump back on the wagon.  30 lb will put me at a pretty good place and is something I can be comfortable with in this body.

2) Save.  Every year we save a little more but haven't been as aggressive as we could be.  I spent the last couple of months getting my old 401K and pension rolled over to an IRA with my new company and have been working on getting our contributions aligned to allow us to be more aggressive.  I also want to work on building our savings for some big trips we want to take in the next couple of years (Japan!).  I don't want to get all personal with $$ amounts but I think this year will allow us to save our most yet.

3) Practice Mindfulness.  This is something I have been working on for the last several years but given the state of a lot of things, I feel it is important that I take a bigger role in being mindful of my decisions and how I choose to spend my time, money, and energy.  There are going to be things I can't control and best I get started on thinking about how I want to deal with those things now.

4) Reading.  I didn't post about this last year but I made a goal to read 20 books last year.  Compared to 10 years ago, this feels like nothing. These days, though, 20 books seems reasonable.  Unfortunately I came up a little short in 2016 and only read 18 books.  That isn't going to stop me from trying again for 20 in 2017.  In fact, I think I might just go read right now.

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