Life, News, Thoughts

29 Before 29 Goals Recap

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Original photo by Omer Wazir. This is pretty, but not my ideal frosting-to-cake ratio.
Original photo by Omer Wazir. This is pretty, but not my ideal frosting-to-cake ratio.

Today is my birthday! I’m the big 2-9 (for real, not the fake 2-9 I’ll be next year). And that means it’s time to check-in on how I did with my big list of goals of 29 things I wanted to do before I turned 29.

  1. Take a vacation with just Ian, no other friends or family. This happened! This summer we went down to Port Aransas for a little beach time.
  2. Reach 150 items in my shop inventory. As of yesterday, this goal was reached! Take a look at the shop.
  3. Go through my old old old poetry archives and re-work at least 30 poems to no-longer-embarassing status. Hmm, partially. I did a few of these (like maybe 5?) but just kind of lost steam on it. A lot of my teenage years poetry is just pretty words strung together, it doesn’t really say anything, so it was more difficult than I thought finding poems I actually wanted to rework.
  4. Bake/cook something requiring ramekins. Yes! We made little mini chicken pot pies.
  5. Improve sewing skills by creating 5 new clothing items. Nope, this didn’t happen. Not even close.
  6. Participate in NaNoWriMo and “win.” Also did not even try this.
  7. Learn more about jewelry construction. This was a little vague, but even so I don’t think it was accomplished.
  8. Get to see my little sister. Sadly, no. Though I will hopefully get to see her at Christmas!
  9. Paint the walls in at least one room a color other than the current boring off-white everywhere. This also didn’t happen – yet. It’s on my new goals list.
  10. Pay down my credit cards to below 40%. Ha. No. But I’m still working on this.
  11. Stick to a strict monthly budget for unessential shopping. Nope. It probably would’ve helped if I actually sat down and figured out what that budget should be. Or, you know, had a steady, predictable income stream.
  12. Create at least 10 typographic digital prints for the shop. I’ve got the bare bones of 1 sketched out. Moving this to my new goals list.
  13. Stay consistent with my workout regimen. This was flagging at the start, but I’ve been doing really good the last few months. I’ve been doing workouts from 30 Day Shred – not as a 30-day program, but just as 20-minute workouts that I actually like.
  14. See/attend one of each of the following: play, concert, comedian, and festival. Done and done! We saw The Lion King, The Airborne Toxic Event, Mumford & Sons, Andy Haynes, Tom Segura, Andy Kindler, and the Blanco Lavender Festival.
  15. Learn how to do food canning. Not fully there yet, but I did take a pickling workshop, and the boy’s mom has promised to teach me canning, so progress!
  16. Learn how to apply make-up correctly, even though I don’t plan on wearing it every day/full-face. Sort of? I don’t know. Someone tell me if I look like a make-up challenged clown when I go out.
  17. Go to the beach with Sienna. Yes! She went to Port Aransas with us and had a blast jumping waves. Looking forward to more beach time with her at Christmas this year.
  18. Actually read the manual for my camera. Nope.
  19. Create one new design for screenprinting each month (so, 12 total). Partly. I did a few, but nowhere near 12. I dropped the ball on this one. This is another goal getting a repeat chance on the new list.
  20. Create a few pre-made blog designs for general sale. Nope. Moved to the list for next year.
  21. Advertise on one new blog a month. Done!
  22. Open a retirement account. Hasn’t happened yet. On the list again this year.
  23. Bake & decorate a tiered cake. Done! I made a tiered red velvet cake for his grandma’s birthday when she was in town for Christmas last year.
  24. Discover/invent a new alcoholic drink that is based on cream soda as a mixer. I kind of lost interest in this one. I mostly stopped drinking soda, so this one didn’t really apply anymore.
  25. Take a cooking class with Ian. Didn’t happen.
  26. Save up and get the months-long treatment plan my chiropractor recommended. I did this! And my back/posture is so much better. I’m still going in every 2 weeks for maintenance adjustments.
  27. Find people/friends who can model the other sizes of shirts in my shop that don’t fit me so I can get product photos of everything on actual people. This is partly done. I have someone on board to model the smalls, and I can model the mediums. The shoot will probably happen in November.
  28. Try to stock the pantry and freezer with basic mixes and sauces for easy use. Nope, not even close.
  29. Learn to drive stick shift. Didn’t happen, but it needs to, so I can drive the boy’s car. Again moving to the new list.

9 fully accomplished, 5 partially accomplished, 1 no longer relevant, and 14 not accomplished. Not the best track record. But some of the ones that got accomplished were the more important ones, so I don’t feel too bad about it. I’ve also learned I need to be more specific on some goals, and less specific on others. You can check out my new 30 Before 30 goals list here.

And now, birthday! We’re going to go eat Italian food and see Margaret Cho, and then this weekend we’re having a game night with some friends. Nothing too crazy, but all things I love and should be good fun. 😀

Do you do yearly goals lists? Have you ever crossed off EVERYTHING by the time the year is up?

16 comments

  2. I’m with Manda, tracking progress means that progress gets made!

    “Paint the walls in at least one room a color other than the current boring off-white everywhere” We have been in our house for SEVEN years and it’s still all boring off-white. Even my six year old is starting to complain! But wow this is a big project…

    1. Yeah, painting the whole house would be a huge project! Not just the labor, but just deciding on colors. It’d be awesome but overwhelming. I think I’m going to start with our two smaller bathrooms, because I already know what colors I want in each, and they’re small enough I could probably paint them both in one day.

  3. Maybe if I put “learn to drive a stick” on my list of goals I’d actually do it. My husband’s car is a stick shift, he’s taken me out once in it, I know the theory but I haven’t stuck with it long enough to try it on any real roads. I always take the easy way out and just drive my car…

    1. I think even if I learn manual, I’ll still prefer automatic. Driving just stresses me out enough already, I don’t need another process to think about & added stress of stalling out. But it would be a good skill to have, especially for roadtrips so we could take his more reliable & mileage friendly car.

  4. Happy birthday!!! Want some good news? A good way to measure if your goals are challenging enough is the ole 50% mark. Did you rock 50% of your goals but miss the other 50? PERFECT! If you had reached all of them, they were too easy. Missed all but a few- yep, you guessed it- not attainable OR you really weren’t interested. So my friend, it looks like you’re kickin’ off 29 in the best way possible.

  5. Happy birthday!! I am actually impressed that you could come up with 29 such wide and varied goals. Congrats on what you did get done and what you got started on. As long as you keep moving forward, I’m sure you’ll reach the rest of them. Off to check out the new list!

    1. Thank you! I tried to look at it as part goals list, part to-do list, because ‘goals’ is sort of a nebulous term for me. I have a pretty good feeling about the new list, already working on some things on it. 🙂

  6. I love that you make a goal list! I have a Life List that is similar. I should add ‘read the manual to my camera’ to my list. Who reads those anymore?

    1. Thank you! Yeah, I still need to do that. I just feel like I’m not getting the most out of my camera currently, and the tricks in the manual might help with that.

  7. I think you did really well to tick off so many of your goals. I am nearly done with my new-years resolutions, and so far I’ve accomplished all but two of them.