Okay 2017 was not good to me in terms of accomplishing our goals. I blame Lorelai entirely (primarily in a good way). This year I accomplished fewer of my goals than any other year, and I'm okay with it...but that gives me better perspective and more motivation for accomplishing our 2018 goals. First I'll revisit the failure that was 2017. (click here for the post where we looked back on 2016 and set goals for 2017) We truly had no idea what we would be up against this year with becoming new parents, and we learned a tremendous amount.
4. Date night once per month. I know there are going to be so many changes in our lives when we are parents...I feel like this could be a small start to making sure we are spending time with each other. Nope. Not even close.
2018 we expect will be a lot of finding our new norm, and hopefully rather than just feeling like we are trying to keep our heads above water like we did in 2017, we will really spend time enjoying having our little toddler this year.
2017 Goals
1. Take a trip out of the country with Lorelai. We are still hoping for Canada or Mexico on this one! Can I just say...no one told me babies often sleep TERRIBLY on vacations. Lorelai takes DAYS to adjust to a new sleeping place, no matter what we try and going to a different country was discussed literally once a week in our house, and we just could not do it. We are disappointed to say this is the first year since we were married we did not get out of the country once...but we had just as much of an adventure staying home this year.
2. Set up a college fund for Lorelai. I know basically nothing about setting up a college fund...and I'd like to make some informed choices about how we will be saving for Lorelai's college. CHECK! Yes....I can check this one off. Thank goodness. We talk about saving for a child's college in this post here.
3. Meet with a Financial Planner. I've had this on my list 3 years in a row....and I'm officially taking it off my 2018 goals for now. I haven't made it as much of a priority as I would like.
4. Date night once per month. I know there are going to be so many changes in our lives when we are parents...I feel like this could be a small start to making sure we are spending time with each other. Nope. Not even close.
5. Be on a strict budget for at least 3 months. We've never done a traditional budget, but I'd really like to try one. We mention how we do our budget based on priorities (here) but I'd like to do a strict written budget and see how it works for us. Going to 1 income is going to be an adjustment! Nope, but we did set for January 2018 to do our very first No-Spend month! Read about that here and join our journey!
6. Pay Down Our Mortgage. This one may be tough since we are just learning how to live off 1 income...but I'd love to see us get our mortgage down to $80,000. We are starting 2017 owing about $96,500 (compared to the $112,000 we took out in July 2016). This goal would mean we would be putting an extra $10,000 in 2017 towards our mortgage...lets see if we can do it! I will say, we got close to this, but shocked ourselves by finding a new home in the meantime. Life changes, and our priorities changed with it!
7. Join A Parent Group. I have no idea what this will look like in reality, but I've never been super awesome at socializing. However, for Lorelai's sake I know Kevin and I really need to get better at that. Who knows, maybe I won't hate being around a bunch of moms as much as I think! And again...Nope. Who knew this was such a hard thing to do. Perhaps another time. I will say I have a wonderful group of ladies who I can go to for just about every mom question I might have.
8. Complete Another 5 MBA classes. This may be a stretch because I know life is changing so much with a baby...but I know it is not going to get any easier. I have 6 classes left for my MBA program, and I'd love to keep moving forward on these! YES! Okay so I did do this...and MORE! I completed all 6 classes I had remaining and graduated from the MBA program.
9. Go on lots of walks. Its going to be hard to quantify this...but taking Lorelai on walks after work is something I always envisioned when we had a baby. This could be "read to Lorelai every night" or "sing to her every day" but right now I want to focus on walks. We didn't go on as many as we would have liked, but did go on a lot of walks this year. We miss our very walkable neighborhood at our old home.
10. Lose the Pregnancy Weight. I'm just like every other mom out there....I'd love to spend this year focusing on getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight on top of everything else! I can't wait to get back to being able to walk down a hall without being breathless...because I'm at the height of large-and-in-charge preggo right now. Pregnancy was NOT good to me. I will say I lost about 40 lbs, but unforunately I gained more than that during pregnancy! Here is to 2018 and making this a priority!
2018 Goals
1. Lose the Pregnancy Weight. Yep, we are bringing this one back... let's do this!
2. Date night...once a month. I'm trying, really I am.
3. Complete 5 "Classes"- Yes, I PROMISE I am finished with working towards a degree, but I want to make it a point to still try new things. We already are signed up for an awesome Calligraphy Class in January!
4. Get Involved at Work. This one has been hard for me, as I love to just do my work and go home. I realize that isn't the way to move up in the world. I'd like to actively participate in at least two "groups" at work.
5. Help with a Church Event. Life this year got a little crazy, and we would like to get back into giving more time as a family to assisting with a church event.
6. Video Loreali twice a month. We purchased a video camera to not just take quick snapshots of videos on our phones, but to really video her as a child. We would like to make this a priority.
7. Take 2 Roadtrips with Lorelai. We are thinking perhaps Oklahoma City and Chicago!
8. Take at least 1 plane trip with Lorelai. I have a few work trips this year, and are thinking of tacking on a family trip to one of those. New Orleans comes to mind!
9. Take at least 1 plane trip without Lorelai. Yep, that's right. We want to leave our darling daughter, as we have not yet gone without her overnight.
10. Pay down $15,000 of our mortgage. Right now, its tough to put a goal on this one, as we are still adjusting financially to all the changes these past 12 months (Kevin leaving his job to stay at home, having a baby, and buying a new home) but we wanted to set a goal irregardless!
2018 we expect will be a lot of finding our new norm, and hopefully rather than just feeling like we are trying to keep our heads above water like we did in 2017, we will really spend time enjoying having our little toddler this year.
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