2010 Goal Check-in: February

I set a lot of goals for 2010, and to keep myself honest, I thought I'd do what my blog friend Sam does and do a monthly check in. It's a great way to make sure that those goals don't get forgotten in a few months and I stick to working towards them.

*I want to try and remember to call my child by his ACTUAL name instead of Bubba. It's so embarrassing when people start talking to "Sawyer" and he doesn't respond because he has no idea who "Sawyer" is!

I'm getting better, and have started to catch myself more often, but the child is still Bubzilla, Bubsie, Bubbaloo, Bubbalicious, and above all, BUBBA most of the time.

*I want to try to eat less and move more. I will NOT be going on a diet. I decided I love food too much. I also will not be implementing a formal workout plan. Moving will involve cleaning house and taking the baby to the park, among other things.

Once again I failed at this. Whoops. Must get butt in gear!

Ex BFF was (is?) a big girl. She'd make these grand proclamations of getting in shape every few months or so. She'd pay out the nose for expensive bootcamp trainers and crazy memberships to super fancy gyms. She'd start all these crazy fad diets (millet? really? for a bird maybe!) and cleanses. You know what they all had in common?

That's right - massive fails. Mostly due to them not being something that you could live with for longer than a few weeks at a time. She always wanted the quick fix but then would immediately start looking for ways to cheat and slack off. She did have some measure of success with Weight Watchers, but because it was slow and required work, she never went back to it again.

Why am I telling you this? Because I don't want to be that girl! One of the things she used to swear she was going to do, but of course never did for longer than a few days, was something called the Couch to 5K. Now, I've always said I'm not going to run anywhere unless I'm being chased for good reason, but I've been thinking about doing this lately. I even downloaded an app for it to my iPhone. My goal is to try it for March and see how it goes.

I'll let you know next month. I was really inspired by the photos one of my husband's fraternity brothers posted on Facebook. In four months, he went from all flabby and out of shape to lean and toned. It was sort of insane to see! I know women don't get results like that so quickly, but it can be done if I apply myself over time.

*I want to quit making excuses and drag my lazy butt out of bed on Sundays to go to church.

I did this! Yay me!

*I want to pick one of my many cookbooks each month and make a new-never-tried-it-before recipe each week from it.

I blew this one. I gave up eating out for Lent, so I've been cooking, but I revisited some favorites instead of trying new things. I did try the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day method for wheat bread. The first loaf was good, but the next one tasted of sourdough. Whole wheat sourdough is a little funky for my taste buds so I think I'll be trying the white bread next time.

Oh! I also made my lovely sorority sister The Bean Queen's fish tacos and made up my own risotto recipe. That's something!

*I want to take catechism classes and do my first communion and confirmation.

Halfway through these already. I will be making my first confession this month, I think. It shouldn't be too bad, right? I mean, I only have 32 and 1/2 years worth of badness to dredge up, after all.

*I want to eat out/eat processed foods less. We've been doing better about this than we were before, but we could do better.

This one has been a success, again, due to giving up all eating out for Lent. I had a frozen pot pie the other night, and we had Whitney's Chicken and Noodles (which uses canned, condensed, cream soups) tonight though. I'm also still eating a lot of freaking Hostess Donettes.

We watched Food, Inc. tonight, and oh man, did it make me think. At first, you're like, "I'm never eating meat again!" and then you remember that people got sick and were dying from eating freaking SPINACH. Nothing is safe. It makes me want to definitely renew my commitment to getting my co-op basket, checking out local farmer's markets, and reading the labels on everything. I'm also thinking of starting to buy the more expensive meats that aren't fed corn or raised in unsanitary conditions. It will cost more, but this crap is going to go into my child's BODY.

I think I'm going to re-read Fast Food Nation and maybe look into reading The Omnivore's Dilemma as well.

*I want to get the baby baptized.

This won't happen until later in the year. Maybe May or June?

*I want to have people over for dinner more often. Maybe a board game after? Is that weird?

My friend came over and I showed him how to make shrimp and asparagus risotto. We watched Up instead of playing a board game. We're getting old. It used to be that when he got home at 2 am after hanging out with me, it was because we were out drinking! HA!

*I want to try one new thing (beside the cookbook goal) each month. It could be a new food, a new craft, a new life experience - it doesn't matter, as long as I've never done it before. Then, I have to blog about it.

My first time at a restaurant supply store - HEAVEN!

*And of course, I want to work on incorporating domesticity into my life

I didn't clean a whole lot. That whole "lack of inspiration" business really kicked my butt. I need to stop making excuses and just do it.