February Goals

And a recap of January goals

Ah, February. Celebrating love in a cold month, cutting out pink hearts on grey days...l'amore! Right? And there's so much more to do this month! But first, a January recap:

Recap of January Goals:

Writing

Post at least 4 times a week. Success! Actually, for the most part this month I posted five times a week - Monday through Friday at 7am. (You might have even noticed my consistency!) Except for a couple hiccups with one delayed post and then no post last Friday or this Monday it's been a good success.

Photography

Come up with a plan for 2017. This is something I'm working on. It's ever-changing which seems to be part of the problem. Well, at least it's moving forward.

Try another different style. I've been playing around with a number of settings in Lightroom which has been lots of fun actually. Not all my playing makes it onto the blog, but there's been some subtle variations between different photos as I experiment a bit more.

Complete at least one photography class. I got super excited and ambitious about expanding my knowledge around the holidays and signed up for a bajillion classes. I made it through one of them! Several more to go!

Running/Fitness

Plan my spring race calendar! Oops. I mean, I've got it narrowed down to a weekend or two for my half marathon race and I've got one good race in mind. But I haven't actually signed up for any races yet. (I'm a procrastinator.) 

Climb at least once a week. Successful for three out of the four weeks! Hey, that's improvement.

Practice yoga twice. Success! (Set the bar low and you'll win every time) ;)

Go on two hikes. This is a bit disappointing. I only went on one hike to Raven Rock (which was a great hike, don't get me wrong!). So I fell short of my goal and am really behind on my 52 Hike Challenge. Time to step up in February!

Travel

Plan my trip to Denver! Ughhhh fail, and I actually need to reschedule my Denver trip anyways. Bah.

Plan a trip to Florida. Also fail. I didn't do any of this.

Personal

Make a dish from "Run Fast Eat Slow." I didn't quite do this, but I'm so close! It turns out this one salad I make for lunch regularly is super similar to a dish they've got in the book, so does that count? And I did go through the book this weekend and went grocery shopping for a couple recipes to make this week. Progress!

Read a book. Not quite, but I read half a book! I'll finish it soon.

Finish catching up on "Runner's World" and "Backpacker" magazines. Haha, nice try. I knocked out one more issue of RW, but there's still a pile there (and I got new issues this month, sooo....)

So there were some big wins this month, some total flops, and some half successes. Time to look forward to February!

February Goals

Writing

Post at least 4 times a week. Yeah! Let's do this again!

Work on another fiction short story. One thing I've been slack about though has been my fiction writing. Time to work on the next piece!

Photography

Complete another class. I'm not kidding, I could do one class a month and be busy taking classes most of this year! Good thing I love learning and improving my photography ;)

Go on a photo walk with the sole intention to randomly shoot photos. I take my camera with me plenty of times when I'm out wandering (like on all the Sunday Stroll sessions, etc.) but I haven't taken it to a community or urban area in a while to just spend an afternoon shooting. Time to check out a new place with my camera in hand!

Running/Fitness

Keep pushing with the half marathon training: The training group is slowly cranking up the mileage, hooray!

Go shopping for new running clothes: Wait, can shopping count as a monthly goal? If you hate shopping and you've meant to go shopping for the last two months then yes! I've got some threadbare gear I need to swap out. I just need to force myself to go shopping (and NOT go shopping right after a run when I'm all nasty and sweaty and shouldn't be touching clean new things...bad Liz).

Climb at least once a week. It's gonna be a success one of these months!!

Practice yoga twice. I'm doing this again because I'm still checking out different class offerings. Hopefully I'll find something I like soon and I can make it a regular part of my workout.

Go on two hikes. Well, really I should go on six or seven hikes if I'm going to catch up on the 52 Hike Challenge, but I figure I'll double up on some weekend hikes come spring. I just want to get outdoors and hike as much as possible. :)

Travel

Reschedule my trip to Denver! Oops.

Plan a backpacking trip in the spring. My company is closing for a couple days for a spring break, so I get to plan a fun trip, yay!

Make a list of other places I want to visit this year. And it has to be reasonable. I can't list half the countries in the world like I'm always tempted to whenever I write a list of places I want to visit.

Personal

Make that dish from Run Fast Eat Slow! Haha I'm so close! I've got all the ingredients!

Read a book. Halfway there - I've got plenty of time to finish it :)

Sleep more. This might fall under "running/fitness" but it's an overall need. Gotta sleep! Oh, let's aim for at least 7 hours per night. That would be a nice start.

There you have it! Goals for February. Do you set goals, and do you have any goals for this month?