A Quarterly Check Up: The Halfway Point

Can you believe that we’re already more than halfway through 2014?!

In order to actually accomplish my New Year Goals this year, I’m holding myself accountable by holding quarterly checkups on the blog. You can check out my goal list here and my first check up here.

So here we go, my ½ year check in:

Goal #1: Use my camera more and my iPhone less.
I started off doing pretty well with this one – grabbing my actual camera for Jack’s birthday, our trip to Williamsburg and even the aquarium. It all went downhill from there though and I barely picked it up on our trip to Ocean City last month. Instead, pretty much every picture came off my iPhone. Darn.

Okay, working harder starts NOW! I will definitely have my camera hanging around my neck for our upcoming Independence Day celebration and will also make it a point to take it on our next beach trip. I’m undecided about BlogHer though – part of me wants to have my nice camera, but the other part wants to pack light… Hmm, we’ll just have to see how much room I have in my carryon. Score: 2 out of 5

Goal #2: Make a workout habit.
I totally kicked butt on my very first DietBet, but then I failed on my second one. After doing so well and adding the elliptical to my morning routine, I totally fell off the wagon. I did run a couple 5ks through, so that’s good!

I’m still sticking at around 15 pounds down since the beginning of the DietBet, but as of this week I’m back on the elliptical to get to my next goal of 20 pounds down. It’s only 6 pounds away… which still feels like SO FAR away right now. Wish me luck! Score: 3 out of 5

Goal #3: Eat out less and home more.
We are still doing great with this goal and I’ve been doing a really good job of packing my lunch or eating at home every single workday. We tried out Blue Apron and I’ve also been stopping by Let’s Dish on a regular basis. I’ve even tried out a few new recipes and have become totally okay with the concept of sandwiches for dinner. YAY us! I still want to try doing some group cooking, but with the summer being so busy I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t get to this until the fall. Score: 4 out of 5

Goal #4: Take Jack somewhere new each month.
As I expected, this has been one of the hardest goals for us to consistently stick with. However, I’m super happy to say that we’ve kept it up so far! At the beginning of the year we did the mall choo-choo train (January), a bouncy house party place (February), and the Baltimore Aquarium (March).

In April we did Mommy & Me swim classes at the local gym as our ‘fun place’ for the month. It was Jack’s first try at swim lessons and it was pretty touch-and-go. I feel like the instructor pushed him a bit too far the very first week, because it was a challenge to even get him in the water by the second. I was stoked that Jack FINALLY felt comfortable dunking his head under the water by the end of the 6 week session!

We took our awesome family trip to Busch Gardens in May and had so much fun. Not only did we meet Elmo, but Jack rode every single kiddie ride in the whole park. The weekend was a perfect little getaway for us and I would really love to get back there again soon.

We also visited the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in DC on a Sunday in May. It was a pretty hot day but it was also a grand total of $0 – entrance to the zoo is free and we even parked for FREE on the street. Since we didn’t spend any money to get there, we really just wandered around for a couple hours until we got bored and left in search of food.

I’m counting Ocean City as our somewhere new for June, even though Jack went there last summer too. Although he had been to the great OC before, he still checked off something new… a bike ride with Grampy (or “Dippy” as Jack calls him). My dad and Jack rode ALL OVER Ocean City and I’m not sure who had a better time. Check out my super excited face in the background…

I love this goal because it’s just the kick in the pants I need to keep life interesting. It’s so easy for me to just stay home and get stuff done every weekend after a long week at work, but that’s no fun! On our list of fun places still to visit is a local petting zoo, the Smithsonian museums in DC (maybe dinosaurs?!), and some sort of berry/fruit picking. Score: 5 out of 5… now I have to keep it up!

Goal #5: Be more like the ant.
After months and months of paying as much as we could, we finally paid our VERY LAST truck payment in June! As of now, we own all of our vehicles which feels totally amazing! Now that the account is closed, our goal is to put that monthly payment amount into our savings account. We also opened Jack’s college savings plan and those payments start in August. So we are moving in a good direction as long as no surprises come up… and they always do, right?! Score: 4 out of 5

Goal #6: Be the best blogger I can be.
I’m working on this one – controlling the feelings of competition and jealousy will be an ongoing battle for me. I’ve been so thrilled to have a few of my posts featured on BlogHer and I’m really looking forward to attending my 3^rd BlogHer conference later this month. I also did a little site update to freshen the look and make it consistent with my brand-new business cards. I still get really frustrated with Facebook and the fact that it keeps hiding my posts from my readers, but I’ve been doing a lot of deep breaths. When you guys hit ‘share’ on stuff that really helps, so thank you so much! As I said at my last checkup, I just keep writing what is in my heart and am lucky to have the BEST readers anyone can ask for. So I’ll just keep on going and hope for the best! Score 4 out of 5

I’m really glad that I’m forcing myself to check in on my goals this year, instead of just realizing in December that I haven’t thought about them in 11 months. This really is the first time I’ve done so well on any kind of personal goal or yearly resolution… and I’m already halfway done. Now I just need to finish the year out strong!

Did you make any resolutions or goals for 2014? How are you doing so far?