Wishes & Goals 2010 Check-Up - March

February was a bad month.

Well, ok, I guess it depends on how you look at it. February felt like a bad month because I was starting to slip - unlike January, where every time I snacked I opened up my calendar to update it, now I was scribbling it on a scrap of paper if I remembered or doing it from memory. Instead of doing my pushups as soon as I got home from work I procrastinated until the end of the day or sometimes pushed them to the next. I also started tracking my weekends, which almost always involve going to bed after 2 (though I do end up getting about eight hours of sleep), not drinking enough water and barely squeezing in three meals, let alone two snacks. And now, here I am reflecting on the month a week into March (though I do have a legitimate excuse)

I was also burning out. It took me a long time to admit that because unlike in university, when the source was obviously juggling the demands of homework, studying for exams and writing/editing for the McGill Tribune, now, work is not a huge burden (not having to take it home makes a huge difference for me), but I'm having trouble balancing things that I enjoy - kickboxing, blogging, reading blogs, spending time with friends (ok, mostly B.) - all while trying to get to bed earlier! I'm now trying to slow down and lower my expectations of myself in terms of how much I want to get done each day (this article I had to pre-read for the Learning Retreat was also very helpful) but it's something I'm still working on.

But if you just look at the calendar in terms of the goals/wishes, it's really not that bad...

My Goals for 2010
Lights out between 10:30-10:45 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and between 11:30-11:45 on Sundays and Tuesdays for at least three of those nights per week by the end of February.
I didn't achieve this goal, but I'm now up to getting to bed on time two nights on most weeks (versus one night all month) and on average I've been getting to bed earlier. Having a "bed time" helps as opposed to trying to figure out whether I'd slept for seven hours. Sunday nights and Thursday nights seem to be my problem areas - and after getting an average of eight hours of sleep while I was away at the conference then coming back and staying up till 2 AM yesterday, the elephant in the room is the computer and if I don't make any significant progress this month I might really have to turn on those computer controls. We'll see.

Each snack must contain a vegetable or a fruit by the end of February. Success! There was only one day where I didn't have some vegetables or fruit when snacking. I've been really conscious about stocking the fridge at work and/or bringing some in my lunch, though sometimes I cheat and don't eat my fruit at lunch so I can save it for the PM snack (haha!) For March I'm hoping to stick to the status quo, though already I don't seem to be doing so good because I was away and let myself be at the mercy of whatever was being fed to me. They had fruit available as a snack at the retreat, but by the end of it I was sick of the familiar pineapple-melon-strawberry combination and didn't bother eating during some of the scheduled breaks.

Be able to do 100 full, proper pushups without stopping by December 2010.
As you can see, there was some improvement at the beginning of February and then I plateaued during the second test. I am a week overdue for the next test (I was sharing a room with a stranger so didn't do any pushups while I was in Winnipeg... and was also busy with last minute stuff so didn't do any the night before I left either) so we will see where I'm at this week. I was wearing a short-sleeved blouse at work and the kinesiologist complimented me on my triceps so I guess there has been improvement since I started.

Buy a house/condo within walking distance from my work by fall 2010.
I got my long-awaited expense cheque from work as well as some extra money during Chinese New Year, so was able to throw in the equivalent of about 90% of my paycheque into my savings account this month. Despite all this I think it is unrealistic for me to expect to save enough by fall 2010 so I am going to just reword this goal to focus on the action of saving money. I will save at least ⅓ of my paycheque every month in hopes of buying a house/condo within walking distance from my work by 2011-2012.

I will keep track of my water intake every day - including weekends! until the end of February.
Success! At work it was easy because I know that the glasses at work hold 12 oz (I measured it using our coffee machine) and I generally eyeball how much I drink from my water bottle at home. But on weekends when I'm over at B.'s I'm taking sips from glasses of different sizes and it's hard to keep track; the situation was the same while I was travelling... I brought a water bottle with me but there was no place to fill it! The pitchers on the table only offered enough for one glass per person, and even then I don't think I finished my glass every day. So now that I figured out that on a good day I can squeeze in about 48 oz of water, I think that's a good number to aim for on all days... eventually... So my goal for March is to Drink at least 48 oz of water at least three days a week.

My Wishes for 2010 (could've been moved up to goals, but probably won't be because they're quite a handful already!)
Do a thorough "room purge".
Unfortunately it was a -1 for this wish as I realized that I hadn't cleared out the cabinet under my bathroom sink... there are a few more unopened packages of bath products that I should donate.

Recipes/Techniques I wanted to try this year: I made a modified version of a granola recipe that Cheryl of Backseat Gourmet submitted to Blog Aid and never posted on her blog... I don't think that counts.

Blog Stuff
Continue upward trajectory of posts per year.
I posted less in February 2010 compared to February 2009, but in total I have more posts so far in 2010 than at this same time 2009. So that's good.

Include nutrition information to recipes whenever possible.
I have been including nutrition info for new recipes, but haven't spent any time going back in the archives.

Link up all restaurant reviews to Urbanspoon.
This did not take as long as I thought it would! I think I managed to do all my archives in about three days and now I'm
That's pretty sweet!

Rewards
I ended February thinking that I didn't achieve any of my goals this month (filling in that all-red day on the 21st was a little disheartening) so I didn't really think of rewarding myself. However on Tuesday afternoon before I left work I was deciding what to bring with me to read on the plane to Winnipeg. I'd just led my first session of the Craving Change workshop and one of the things we spoke about was nurturing ourselves and all the participants wrote down one way they were going to nurture themselves this week without food. So instead of bringing the International Dietetics & Nutrition Terminology Reference Manual with me, I brought the latest issue of EatingWell instead.

I don't have my hopes up for March either - travelling this past week definitely threw a wrench in my goals, and I'm going on another trip toward the end of the month. Now that I know some of the pitfalls of travelling, however, I do have the chance to prepare myself... but will I?