2010 - Taking Inventory

Tonight we had our "Old Year's Service" at church and the Pastor reflected on "taking inventory."   It was a great message that encouraged me in several ways. It also reminded me of my goals for this past year and I thought I should revisit those before I adopt new goals (or continue the old ones) for 2011.

2010 goals from previous entry:

1) feed my family in the healthiest way possible for as cheap as possible

the verdict:  still a work in progress.  i believe this will continue to be an up and down process for us. sometimes i am "gung-ho" and declaring that my family will consume green smoothies daily for the rest of our lives and then other days i have no drive and my kids end up eating boxed mac-n-cheese and the thought of a green smoothie makes me gag. it also seems there is always new information about what is "healthy" and a lot of things conflict with each other.  what i do know for sure:  fresh fruits and veggies are ALWAYS healthy.  I think this fact will make it's way into my 2011 goals.
things i did do for this include: 
 -religiously reading labels and evaluating if it is something worth buying nutrition-wise
 -for months i made my own yogurt.  currently on a break from this as the last time i made it a couple months ago it sat in the fridge until it was inedible and eventually thrown out.  i plan to start making it again in January as i believe it is pretty healthy (and frugal!)
 -i tried to remove as much processed food from our diets as possible.  no more crackers for snacks unless i make them from scratch (did this a couple times... A LOT of work for so-so crackers) no more pop for chad and i, little to no high fructose corn syrup, i started making our own granola bars (another thing i have ceased to make for awhile but plan to start up again), i try to use organic whenever possible and "healthier" baking ingredients like whole-wheat flour and sweeteners such as honey or pure maple syrup.
 -i read several books (or am in process of reading them cause they are HUGE textbook like books) including, Real Food by Nina Planck, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (hoping to go see her speak in February!!!), The Green Smoothie Diet by Robyn Openshaw and The World's Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan
 -i make a weekly menu plan to avoid the "it's 5pm, what do we have for dinner tonight, I'm too tired to make anything, let's just order pizza" as much as possible (still happens though!)  which makes us eat a more well balanced diet and it's cheaper.

2) lose the baby weight

the verdict:  nope.  didn't happen.  extreme frustration with this as i feel like my body is rebelling against all efforts i make.  pretty much makes me want to not even try.  but I'm pretty sure this will turn up in my 2011 goals as well.
what i did do:  in the late winter/early spring i started exercising and was up to jogging a mile straight (hadn't done that since high school) but then the bathroom reno happened and i quit.  i went through various phases of changing my diet and did a "cleanse."  this fall i did Jillian Michael's "30 Day Shred" and then continued to exercise regularly once I was done with it.  we got a new treadmill (though we are on our second new one and it still isn't working properly, ugh!) and i am back to jogging again but my frequency is not as high as it should be.

3) make our house a home (various house projects)

the verdict:  another one that will always be in process.  but i will say that this house feels much more like "home" than it did a year ago.  new projects will always be there though. 
I'm not going to list out what i did do, cause honestly, other than our main floor bathroom reno, i don't really remember everything. 
Churning in my brain is a blog post that would involve documenting where our house is at now and what i hope to do with it over the next year but we'll see if that ever comes to fruition.

So that was as far as I got on official goals for the year.  I am glad that I at least put effort into each one continuously throughout the year even if none of them were "completed."  (I don't think 1 and 3 could be anyway for as vague as they were) 

This next week, I believe will be spent contemplating what I dare hope for in 2011 ;)