2016 New Year’s Resolutions – How I Did

I set quite a few goals for 2016, and now that the year is over, it’s time to see how I did. 

My word for the year was “less” and I wanted to incorporate that into pretty much every aspect of my life.  You can read more on that here. 

For my Goals for “Less” I decided to grade myself on the good ol’ A, B, C, D, F grading system so let’s see my report card for the year, shall we?

Goals for “Less”

Home – purge and simplify our entire house, my car, and my cube at work and donate everything that we don’t need or want.  Also start putting things back where they belong immediately after use. 

A-  I started with my master bedroom closet and worked my way around the rest of the house, cleaning and purging.  I got rid of dozens of garbage bags of trash and donations and it made our house feel about a ton lighter!  However, I never had a chance to finish the kitchen or a couple of closets downstairs, so it wasn’t a total success.  Months have gone by since my purge, and I feel like we’ve accumulated a bunch of stuff yet again, so I’m already repeating the process again.  So far the playroom is done which was a big one.  #GoalsFor2017

Master Closet Clean-out

Tops organized by type and each type organized in ROY-G-BIV order - strapless, tanks, sleeveless, and short sleeves on top rack, and three-quarter length sleeves, long sleeves, sweaters, and outerwear on bottom rack.

Bottoms organized by type and each type organized in ROY-G-BIV order - shorts, jeans, leggings, dress pants, short skirts, long skirts, dresses.

Jewelry organization - rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces.  <3

Master Bathroom cabinets clean-out.

Before and After of our bathroom cabinet.  It's hard to tell how much of a difference it made by these pictures, but trust me, the after is WORLDS better!

Nail polish organization. 

Computer – delete programs that I no longer use and clean out old files.

F  I never once even looked at my computer files.  Not even once.  As a matter of fact, I forgot all about it!

Phone – delete apps and contacts that I no longer need.

B+  I deleted loads of apps that I never used, reorganized everything, and I even put up a nice simple wallpaper so everything looks less cluttered.  I did not, however, clean out my contacts.

Photos – take fewer pictures, delete the ones I don’t need, and implement a new way of organizing and backing them up. 

A+  As a blogger, I take a bazillion pictures.  It can be very overwhelming.  This year I was pretty good about trying to capture the moment in fewer photos, and then I have been deleting all of the ones I didn’t need before backing them up.

I also implemented my new system of organizing them and backing them up and it only takes a few minutes each Sunday while the kids are napping/having quiet time.

Emails – unsubscribe to all emails that are no longer relevant. 

A+  I cannot even tell you how many websites/newsletters I unsubscribed to this year!  I cut my email volume down probably by half if I had to guess.  However, as the year went by, many other places picked up my email address so the email volume seems to have increased here recently, so I will be doing another batch of unsubscribing soon!

Social Media – unfollow accounts that no longer pique my interest so I don’t waste time scrolling through photos that I’m not interested in. 

A-  At the beginning of last year, I did unfollow many accounts on Instagram and Twitter (most of which were public figures who I no longer had interest in) so that freed up my feeds a lot.  I also unfollowed several people who I don’t interact with/they don’t ever interact with me.  (And please know that I do not play the follow/unfollow game.  If I follow you, that means I want to connect with you.  If you follow me back I’m not going to turn right around and unfollow you.)  I did, however, join a Facebook blogging group and I have since followed a bunch of new ladies, so I’m now following more people than ever on Instagram, but they’re all fellow bloggers who I’m loving connecting with so that’s not a bad thing!    

As far as the mindless scrolling, Instagram sort of helped me with this as they changed to their new algorithm in 2016 which meant that the feed was no longer linear.  Ever since then I have done way less mindless scrolling.  I also kinda hate it, too, because I feel like I miss everything that goes on with some of you ladies!

Keepsakes – purge and organize. 

A+  You guys, I went through boxes and boxes of keepsakes and purged bags and bags of old stuff.  As much as it pained me to do so, I feel much lighter and I don’t miss those things.  As a matter of fact, I’m still hoarding a good bit of stuff, so I think I might make another run-through in 2017!

Paperwork – Clean out file cabinet, unsubscribe to catalogs I’m no longer interested in, put a stop to junk mail, and file only the things that we need right when I get them so they don’t pile up.

C-  I managed to clean out about half of our file cabinet, but the other half is still stuffed full of crap.  I also never put a stop to any of the junk mail, but I did do a pretty good job of filing right away!

File cabinet clean-out.  You can't tell from the picture, but that stack on the left side is almost three feet tall!

To Do List – I have a “Master To Do List” and I would like to accomplish as many of these things as I can this year so I can cross them right off!

D  I crossed off several things from the master to do list, but considering how much is still on there, I barely put a dent in it.  Maybe next year?  Haha.

Personal Resolutions

Be the best wife and mommy that I can be.  I was pretty mindful of this this year, although, the main focus was on the kids since they’re still so small.  I, of course, made plenty of mistakes, but I feel like my overall patience improved a little, so that’s a good thing, right?

Be positive.  I just can’t stop the worrying, y’all.  I was very aware of it this year, but I just can’t stop the negative feelings from seeping in when something is going wrong.  To help you understand a little better why I do this, I think I worry because I feel like if I think of every negative thing that could possibly go wrong then it will help me be mentally prepared for anything terrible that could happen.  Does that make sense?  This is going to be a hard habit to break.  I really think it’s innate.

Complain less.  I probably didn’t improve much on this one either.  It kind of goes hand-in-hand with the one above.  When something is going wrong, I feel like if I am vocal about it, that it helps me cope better.  Although, I suppose it’s not fair to unload on other people and force them to carry my burdens, though.

Be more spontaneous.  Ummmm, probably didn’t do this one very much?  Spontaneity is just another thing that is not in my DNA.  I think both of my brothers inherited those genes and left me with nothing.  Just like I got all of the responsibility genes and left them with nothing.  Hehe.  Sorry, Zachy and Alex.

Make bed.  As I stated in my last post, we rarely made the bed anymore.  I just never made time for it since my time is so limited.  My goal was to make the bed every day that we’re home (pretty pointless Monday – Friday since we’re not there to even see it) and I absolutely KILLED this goal!  I think there were only a couple of times the whole year where the bed didn’t get made.  And I have enjoyed it so much!  A made bed truly makes all the difference in the room. 

Happiness!

Health

Improve water intake.  I probably drank about the same amount as always, close to eight glasses a day, but not quite.  This will be on the list for next year again.

Tone up.  I did pretty well with this and I feel like I’m way stronger than I was last year!  There’s always room for improvement, though, so I can’t wait to get even more fit this year.  And I did join a gym back in August, so I’m hoping to take that to the next level in 2017.

Vitamins.  I wanted to find a good daily vitamin, but this was a total fail.  I never even looked.   

For Fun

One date night sans kids each month – Totally rocked it!  We went on not 12, but 14 dates outside of the home this year!  You can see the recaps below.  And this one was so much fun, you’ll be seeing it again on my list for 2017.

Annual Benefit Ball

Elton John Concert 

Epic Dinner Date

Couples Dinner

Derby - Off to the Races

Dave Matthews Band Concert

Dinner and Drinks

Impromptu Dinner

Georgia vs. North Carolina Chick-Fil-A Kick-off Game

Date Day - Breakfast, Shopping, Lunch, & a Movie

Georgia vs. Auburn Game

Wine Tasting

Date Day & Anniversary Celebration

Dinner & Christmas Concert

Find a white wine that I like – I tried a couple of sips here and there, but I just don’t love white wine.  Any time I’m in a wine mood, I want red, and any time I’m in the mood for something chilled, I’d rather just have a cocktail.  Moscow Mule, anyone?

Try out new outfit combos and try to wear a different combo every day – Totally rocked this one, too, y’all, and I still can’t believe it!  I wore something different 366 days in a row in 2016.  I’ll be summarizing the year in fashion next week so stay tuned!  In the meantime, you can see all of the recaps below.

January Recap

February Recap 

March Recap

April Recap

May Recap  

June Recap

July Recap  

August Recap

September Recap  

October Recap

November Recap

December Recap

Try something new as often as possible – We did do a lot of new things this year… we took several new day trips, went on vacation to a new place, tried new restaurants, went to new concerts… I’d say this was a success!

Goals for the Kids

Get the kids to clean up after themselves daily – We definitely improved on this, but not near enough.  This one will be on the list again for next year.

Help Jacob to become more independent – Another success!  He now dresses himself, carries his own book bag into school, lets Maui out when we get home from school, and many other things.  I feel like 2016 was a really, really good year for him.  We still have some things to work on, but man, did he come a long way this year!

Get Jacob to poop on the toilet – Y’all, do you remember how we were having major major issues getting this boy to poop on the toilet?  Well, I’m pleased to day that 2016 was his year to finally start doing it.  You may remember that we threw him a Poo Poo Party?  Yes, yes we did.  It was the thing that finally finally proved successful.

Give Jacob a “big boy” room – Check!  You can see the tour here.  I’m completely head over heels for it… it’s one of my favorite rooms in the whole house!

Well friends, I’d say overall, 2016 was a success!  Cheers to 2017 being an even bigger success!  I’ll have my 2017 resolutions up next week!

*Linking up with Home of Malones for Thoughts for Thursday.