March Goals + February Goals Update

So I really messed up in February. I completely didn't get to do most of my goals. Life just caught me up and I just didn't get to most of them.

Update on Mini-Goals for February:

1. Finish setting up the house - Done for the most part. Still need to organize but we've covered the major sections. I still need to get to some boxes in the garage but we're there for the most part. 
2. Walk 30 miles in February  - Didn't get to this at all. 
3. One post a week on the blog - Didn't get to this at all. 
4. Create a facebook page for my blog - Didn't get to this at all. 
5. Read one age-appropriate book to AGirl - Read Super Why! "The Princess and the Pea" to AGirl. 
6. Read 5 books to A2Girl - Tried to read a few books to her but she just wouldn't let me. She loves reading "Sleep baby sleep" book over and over again.
7. Create budget for February and stick to it - Really messed on this one because we had some unexpected expenses come up. 
8. Read 2 books I already own - Didn't get to this at all

Update on Habits for February:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water every day - Didn't get to this at all
2. Shine my sink every day (not necessarily at night but clear it out at least once in a day) - I have been loading the dishwasher every day but not necessarily shining my sink. So still working on this habit

Mini-Goals for March:

1. Walk 30 miles in February
2. One post a week on the blog
3. Create a facebook page for my blog
4. Read one age-appropriate book to AGirl
5. Read 5 books to A2Girl
6. Read 2 books I already own
7. Substitute a smoothie for breakfast 4 times this month (once a week)
8. Organize and get the guest room ready for long-term guests
9. Start a 529 plan for A2Girl 

Habits for March:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water every day
2. Shine my sink every day (actually shine the sink)
3. Exercise 15 mins every day (walk, yoga, anything)

February Goals + January Goals Update

Update on Mini-Goals for January:

1. Setup the new house to a livable state - We have been living in the house for a month and it's mostly livable - only haven't started cooking here yet. So I'm moving this goal to February. 
2. Participate in a cultural event locally (dancing to a song on stage in front of people) - Done. This was a big deal for me as this was my first time ever dancing on stage and I was really scared to do it but I did it. I was very proud of myself. 
3. Walk a total of 40 miles  - Didn't really get to exercise this month, pushing to February
4. One post a week on the blog. - Done
5. Create a facebook page for my blog - Pushing to February
6. Read one age-appropriate book for AGirl that we already have - Done. Read "Hands are not for Hitting, Thump Quack Moo to AGirl"
7. Read 10 books to A2Girl - Didn't quite get to 10, mostly because she doesn't let me finish a book. Probably read the "Sleep Baby Sleep" book 10 times so going to count this as Done. 
8. Create a budget for January and stick to it - Didn't make it this time because we bought flight tickets for the summer and that was quite expensive. Dipped into savings for that one. 
9. Read 2 books I already own - Read 3 books from the library but didn't get to read 2 books I already own. I needed an escape and tend to read romance novels. Read 3 Stephanie Laurens romance novels, so going to count move this to February as well. 

Habits for January:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water every day - Need to work more on this one. Moving to February
2.  Brush my teeth every day at night  - Need to work more on this one. Skipping this habit for now and moving to March. 

Mini-Goals for February:

1. Finish setting up the house
2. Walk 30 miles in February 
3. One post a week on the blog
4. Create a facebook page for my blog
5. Read one age-appropriate book to AGirl
6. Read 5 books to A2Girl
7. Create budget for February and stick to it
8. Read 2 books I already own

Habits for February:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water every day
2. Shine my sink every day (not necessarily at night but clear it out at least once in a day)

My First Ever Dance Performance!

One of the items on my list of things to do at least once is to get on stage and perform a dance. And I finally did it!

On Saturday, there was a Tamil cultural festival for Pongal, a festival in South India. A lot of performances were there and we (about 14 moms including me) performed a dance to the song "Jimmiki Kammal". We practiced for a few months once a week and it was a great feeling to do it on stage.

The best part of the dance was the camaraderie between all the women and the laughing and fun. I'm going to miss it now that it's over. I feel a sense of great accomplishment that I faced my fears of going on stage and doing the dance without any major missteps.

This was the song to which we danced:

Goals for January 2018

I have a lot of goals and habits for this year that I want to work on but I'm going to try to focus on the most important ones. I realized that goals and habits are two separate things and have their own place. Though I have a master goal and habit list I'm working with, I'm going to start with mini goals for each month and one habit for each month.

Mini-Goals for January:

1. Setup the new house to a livable state. The house should be functional at a basic level of being able to cook, get ready, do homework for the kids, etc. 
2. Participate in a cultural event locally (dancing to a song on stage in front of people)
3. Walk a total of 40 miles 
4. One post a week on the blog. 
5. Create a facebook page for my blog
6. Read one age-appropriate book for AGirl that we already have
7. Read 10 books to A2Girl
8. Create budget for January and stick to it
9. Read 2 books I already own

Habits for January:

1. Drink 8 glasses of water every day
2.  Brush my teeth every day at night

While these mini-goals and habits may seem silly or basic to other people, I believe that by putting it out there, I'm going to try to achieve these. 

Here's to hoping for a great 2018!

February Goals Update

February was a busy month - my health is not doing so great and had some challenges with that. I didn't make too much progress on my goals but I didn't expect to anyway with everything that's going on.

Goals for 2016:

• Blogging:
• One post a week: I did 8 posts in January. 

• Family:
• Get my daughter potty-trained: Still working on this. Making some progress. The sticker chart didn't work but she is doing better with peeing in the potty if I take her. She still doesn't tell me when she needs to go. She still wants to poop only in her diaper - improvement is that she asks me to put a diaper on her when she wants to poop.
• Get her ready for Kindergarten: Have been spending more time reading to her and asking her to identify letters and doing puzzles with her. Also have been listening to stories that she comes up with - she is so imaginative. 

• Professional:
• Learn one new technology over the course of the year: No progress on this

• Home-making:
• Organize the entire house top-to-bottom and room-by-room: Spent time organizing one of the guest bedrooms and some more organizing of the master bedroom. Spent some time decluttering some parts of the study. 

• Financial:
• Create a budget every month and stick to it: Did a good job sticking to February's budget. Didn't save any money due to some unexpected expenses.

• Personal Goals:
• Read 12 books this year: I read some fan fiction and also read the Getting It Together ebook. I will do a separate post on that. 
• Do some craft projects: I did my second adult coloring page :)

January Goals Update

January was a busy month and was a good month for the most part. I didn't make too much progress on my goals but I didn't expect to anyway with everything that's going on.

Goals for 2016:

• Blogging:
• One post a week: Done. I did do 6 posts in January. 

• Family:
• Get my daughter potty-trained: Still working on this. Making some progress but still on-going. I'm going to start a sticker chart in February and see if there's any improvement. 
• Get her ready for Kindergarten: Spent some time everyday coloring with her, reading books, introducing alphabet and talking with her

• Professional:
• Learn one new technology over the course of the year: No progress on this

• Home-making:
• Organize the entire house top-to-bottom and room-by-room: Spent time organizing my daughter's room and the master bedroom. Both are still in progress but some significant work was done. We bought a new bed for her, moved some furniture around and organized her closet. 

• Financial:
• Create a budget every month and stick to it: Did a good job sticking to January's budget. 

• Personal Goals:
• Read 12 books this year: I did do some reading but mostly fan fiction and a few romance novels
• Do some craft projects: I did my first adult coloring page :)

Goals for 2016

Happy New Year!!

It's a new year and I'm excited about starting fresh again! This is one of the best things about life - you can always start over - no matter how many times you've done it before.

Last year, my blogging fell off around mid-year because of some personal issues I was dealing with but this year, I'm determined to start again. I have a lot of plans for this year but I'm going to try to be realistic as well. I'm going to be facing a lot of challenges and changes in my personal and professional life and I will blog about them as they happen. But keeping them in mind, I'm going to be ambitious but not disappointed if I don't end up meeting them.

Goals for 2016:

• Blogging:
• One post a week: I want to try to blog at least once a week, hopefully even when life is extremely busy

• Family:
• Get my daughter potty-trained: This is going to my major focus for the first half of the year. My daughter's 3 and a half and we need her to be potty trained soon. She's half-way there already and we just need to push her to the finish-line.
• Get her ready for Kindergarten: I want to spend some quality time with her and teach her stuff and play with her. 

• Professional:
• Learn one new technology over the course of the year: I would like to learn some new technology like Selenium or write an iPhone app. Basically, I want to learn something new and implement it in some way. 

• Home-making:
• Organize the entire house top-to-bottom and room-by-room: This has been a long time coming and I have to get this done this year. This will involve some purging and re-organizing. 

• Financial:
• Create a budget every month and stick to it: This is going to be challenging but is also very important to our family's financial health.

• Personal Goals:
• Read 12 books this year: I want to spend a little more time getting back to reading this year
• Do some craft projects: I want to try some craft projects which I've been wanting to do for a few years now

July Goals Update

July was a busy month mostly spent with family and some travel to NYC & NJ. I didn't get a lot done but was still a fun month with spending lots of time with family. My sister and her kids are visiting us for last 3 weeks and it's been great having them here. We did a road trip to NYC and NJ and visited family. It was hectic but fun. We also spent a significant amount of time planning for my daughter's birthday party which was so much fun!

1. Lose 12 lbs: *sigh* This goal has gone completely to pieces. I'm 140 pounds now - I've put on weight since my parents are here visiting me. Over the next 5 months, I'm going to have to try harder to lose weight. 
2. Learn swimming: On hold for now
3. Read 12 books this year:  Got a little more light reading done this month - Read the  "The Heir - Windham Book 1" and "The Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy". 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Went for a Girls' Afternoon Out with my friends to a graffiti paint bar, which was a fun experience and something I would definitely do again. 
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: We went to NYC and NJ and saw the Statue Of Liberty. That was fun! And she had loads of fun playing with her cousins!

Parenting Goals:

1. Potty Training: This has been going well and over the next few days, I'm planning to start pushing it just a bit more. 
2. Teach her to recognize ABCs: Not much progress on this.
3. Drinking milk from a cup: Not much progress on this. 

How has your progress been on your goals?

June Goals Update

June was a fun month for me with travel to Disney and preparing for my parent's visit. They arrived in the 3rd week of July and life has been really busy since. I didn't get a lot done but was still a good month with spending lots of time with family. My husband switched jobs and that's been a change in our routine that we're still adjusting to. I also caught Conjuctivitis and had to wear glasses for a week which gave me massive headaches.

1. Lose 12 lbs: *sigh* I'm still at 136. However, as per my 30-day walking challenge, I'm trying to hit 10k steps. 
2. Learn swimming: Honestly, I'm not sure if I can do this. I'm too nervous about getting my vertigo back again. But l want to do this - so I'm going to try. 
3. Read 12 books this year: Was so busy with Disney trip and preparing for and visiting with family that I didn't read much. I read Family Fun May 2015 magazine and a lot of online reading but that was it. I need to do better this month. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Lots of time on gardening and not much other than that. 
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: DisneyWorld was quite an experience for her and with my parents visiting, she's been a little overwhelmed. So we decided not to do too much this month. 

I'm starting a new section below for my parenting goals. I'm hoping the accountability will inspire me to do more.

Parenting Goals:

1. Potty Training: Been going well. I'm seeing some progress - most days, she goes in the potty in the morning and night when I ask her to. At daycare, she's been peeing more in the potty. While she's still not fully ready yet, she's beginning to get there. 
2. Teach her to recognize ABCs: More progress on this too - I would say she recognizes about half of the alphabet and numbers from 1-10. I've given her foam letters to play with in the bathtub and have been teaching them to her in the bath. 
3. Drinking milk from a cup: Not much progress on this. 

How has your progress been on your goals?

May Goals Update

Overall, May was a good month for me. I didn't get a lot done but was still a good month personally. We're having some personal changes - good ones but it did cause some disruption.

I've been walking 30 mins most days and it has felt really good.

1. Lose 12 lbs: *sigh* I'm still at 136. However, as per my 30-day walking challenge, I'm walking 10k steps most days. 
2. Learn swimming: Waiting for my summer plans to get fixed before I can register for classes.
3. Read 12 books this year: Am really disappointed I didn't read much this month since I was preparing for our Disney World trip - I read a bunch of travel books on DisneyWorld and online websites. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Spent some time gardening this month - planted seeds in seed starting pellets and did some potting outside of new plants.  
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: Took AGirl to DisneyWorld. We had a great time and she had a blast meeting princesses and going on rides. She went on her first 3D show and really enjoyed it. 

I'm starting a new section below for my parenting goals. I'm hoping the accountability will inspire me to do more. 

Parenting Goals:

1. Potty Training: I've been asking her to sit on the potty in the morning after she drinks her milk. Towards the end of the month, she started to go some of the time. 
2. Teach her to recognize ABCs: Didn't spent too much time on this. 
3. Drinking milk from a cup: She drank from straw cup a couple of times but she hates it and takes forever to drink from cup.  

How has your progress been on your goals?

April Update On Goals

It's May, finally! And the temperature is in the 70s!! Yay!!

April was not a great month for me. I got 2 rounds of a nasty virus (cough, cold, etc) and so did my husband. So we were sick most of the month and just getting the essentials done.

Some good things that happened was that I started walking around 15-20 mins a day at work whenever the weather was good and I was feeling OK. It just felt really good to be out walking again. I've also been doing a lot more cooking and experimenting with new foods.

1. Lose 12 lbs: Not much progress on this. I'm still at 136. 
2. Learn swimming: Waiting for my summer plans to get fixed before I can register for classes.
3. Read 12 books this year: I read Eighteen Acres, Early Potty Training and Parents Magazine August 2014
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Didn't get to this. 
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: I spent some time outside on our lawn with my daughter this month and I started my seeds indoors and introduced this process to my daughter. 

I'm starting a new section below for my parenting goals. I'm hoping the accountability will inspire me to do more. 

Parenting Goals:

1. Potty Training: We want to potty train AGirl by the end of summer as a soft goal. While I feel she's not completely ready yet, I want to start the process and lead her gently into it. 
2. Teach her to recognize ABCs: AGirl already recognizes her numbers most of the time and a few letters - A, B, O, W. I've been pretty nonchalant about this so far and want to start getting her to recognize all her letters by the end of summer. 
3. Drinking milk from a cup: AGirl loves her milk but she refuses to drink it from a cup or even a straw cup. She only drinks from a spout sippy cup. She was on a soft spout sippy cup all these days - I finally switched her to a hard spout sippy cups. My next challenge is to switch her to straw cup. 

How has your progress been on your goals?

What I've Been Reading Lately

Money mistakes in your 30s :- I'm in my early 30's and I'm guilty of at least half of the items on this list. I do spend too much money on my daughter and we have bought more house than we really need. Also, while we do save money, we are not really saving for my daughter's college.

How To Break Free Of Emotional Eating :- One of my goals is to lose weight this year and I'm finding this particularly hard. One of the reasons is because of emotional eating. One of the other reasons I overeat is also when I'm bored at work. Now that spring is almost here, I'm hoping to start going for daily walks - hopefully, that should help.

March Update on Goals

I can't believe it's April already! 25% of the year is already gone!

March was a good month for me. I've felt much better and my daughter's sleep-trained for the most part. I'm still working on getting her to sleep longer than 5:15 in the morning but it's been a huge improvement in my sleep. My cleaning's been more on-track with trying to clear clutter before it builds up. There's still room for lot more improvement but one baby step at a time. I've also been doing more baking and cooking than before.

1. Lose 12 lbs: This was a sad fail for me. I just fixed my weight machine and I checked my weight - it's 136 pounds. So I've put on another 4 pounds and now my goals is to lose 16 pounds.
2. Learn swimming: Waiting for my summer plans to get fixed before I can register for classes.
3. Read 12 books this year: I read The Frog Princess, 20 Minute Meals and All You October 2014 magazine this month. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Didn't get to this.
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month:  I took Agirl to the Children's Museum in Acton, MA. It was a great trip for her - she had a lot of fun. 

How has your progress been on your goals?

February Update on Goals

February wasn't a very good month either. I was still dealing with health issues and with my daughter's sleep issues and snowstorms, I didn't get a whole lot done from my goals. I did focus a bit more on cleaning my kitchen and dining table everyday (which gets very cluttered) and trying to contain my daughter's toy explosion. Also, I have been doing more cooking than I've done before.

1. Lose 12 lbs: My weight machine still is not working. I need to buy batteries for it but because I've been over-eating this month, I'm almost scared to check myself. So I've gone backwards in this goal. 
2. Learn swimming: I need to fix my vertigo issues before I can try to learn swimming. My vertigo is because of inner-ear issues and I don't want to make it worse. 
3. Read 12 books this year: I finished Should I Be A Stay At Home Mom and read The Total Money Makeover. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: No time for this. 
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: Couldn't get to this mainly because of the weather and my health issues. Hopefully, I'm going to make up for this in March.

Hopefully, I'll get more done next month. 

January Update for Goals

January wasn't a very good month for me. I had a bunch of health issues along with vertigo and combined with my daughter's sleep issues and snowstorms, I didn't get a whole lot done - mostly because of lack of time. Still, here's my update. 

1. Lose 12 lbs: My weight machine stopped working. But I don't believe I've lost weight. 
2. Learn swimming: I need to fix my vertigo issues before I can try to learn swimming. My vertigo is because of inner-ear issues and I don't want to make it worse. 
3. Read 12 books this year: I did read one book "Cinder and Ella" and half of another book - Should I Be A Stay At Home Mom. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: Didn't have time to get to this.
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: Unfortunately, didn't get to this either becoz of the weather and AGirl falling sick.

Hopefully, I'll get more done next month. 

How to Set a Target Body Weight for Better Chances of Diet Success

This article was a great read and very informative. Especially considering one of my goals for 2015 is to lose 10% of my weight over the course of this year.

Since I've given myself a year to lose that weight and keep it off, according to this article, I'm on the right track.

How to Set a Target Body Weight for Better Chances of Diet Success

Goals for 2015

I've been thinking out my goals for 2015 - professionally and personally. I'll talk about some of my personal goals for the year and give a monthly update on them at the beginning of each month.

1. Lose 12 lbs: To get to 120 lbs by the end of year. I'm 132 lbs right now. Losing 12 lbs in a year seems like a reasonable goal. 
2. Learn swimming: I've been wanting to learn swimming for the last several years. This year, I'm going to do it. 
3. Read 12 books this year: I'm aiming for mostly non-fiction books but fiction books can count too. 
4. Do 12 craft or knitting activities this year: These can be anything creative like photography or doing something for the house. 
5. Introduce a new experience to AGirl once a month: This can be going to the zoo, museum, playground, dance class, etc.

I have some other goals as well but these are not as measurable and I will mention them now and then when the time is right. I hope to be accountable for these 5 goals and see how it goes.

Goals for 6/11 - 6/18

Here's an update on last week's goals and next week's goals.

Last week's Goals:

Home:

1. Go to the library and pick up some books for Anjali
2. Pay medical bills
3. Make at least 2 updates on my daughter's memories book (Made 4 updates)
4. Finish baby blanket I was making (no progress on this one)

Work:

1. Learn about the competitor product and do some research into it (Did some work on this and now it's no longer a priority)
2. Write at least 3 blog posts for my deals blog
3. Write at least 3 blog posts for this blog

Personal:

1. Read 2 chapters of Vicki Iovine's Girlfriend's guide to Toddlers
2. Give blood test for yearly checkup
3. Make Prasadham for temple (not able to get to this)

Goals for 6/11 - 6/18:

Home:

1. Finish baby blanket I was making
2. Make at least 2 updates on my daughter's memories book
3. Switch out my daughter's toys with ones in the closet so she has some fresh toys to play with
4. Clear and clean laundry room closet
5. Finish a pet project for my daughter
6. Call health insurance company and figure out medical bills
7. Call pest control company to check on clearing out ant hills

Work:

1. Brainstorm goals for next few months and outline of goals
2. Write at least 3 blog posts for my deals blog
3. Write at least 3 blog posts for this blog

Personal:

1. Visit Indian Parlour
2. Read 2 chapters of Vicki Iovine's Girlfriend's guide to Toddlers
3. Make Prasadham for temple
4. Go for 30 minute walk for at least 5 days

Goals for this week 6/4 - 6/10

This is my first post on a series of weekly posts I'm hoping to maintain. My inspiration is from Money Saving Mom and I would like to do weekly posts on my goals for the week and next week, be publicly accountable for how I did on those goals.

Like MSM, I will split my goals into 3 broad categories - Work, Home, Personal.

Work is going to include any work projects I have, professional growth, any pet projects I have like my deals blog.

Home is going to include home-making, being a good mother and my relationships.

Personal is just all about me - my personal growth, books I want to read, projects I want to do, stuff I want to do for myself.

Though I hope I can meet my goals every week, life will sometimes get in the way. I'm going to start out slow and hopefully pick up steam as I get better at meeting my goals.

Home:

1. Go to the library and pick up some books for Anjali
2. Pay medical bills (have been putting this one off)
3. Post at least 2 updates on my daughter's memories blog
4. Finish baby blanket I was making

Work:

1. Learn about the competitor product and do some research into it
2. Write at least 3 blog posts for my deals blog
3. Write at least 3 blog posts for this blog

Personal:

1. Read 2 chapters of Vicki Iovine's Girlfriend's guide to Toddlers
2. Give blood test for yearly checkup
3. Make Prasadham for temple