A Few New Years Goals

I prefer the word goals to resolutions, for some reason it seems more obtainable. To me resolutions you got to do all at once, goals you can break down to mini bits, and when the year is done, you have succeeded even if all you did was a few tiny steps towards your bigger goal.

So here are a few goals I desire to achieve in 2011.

I would like to take my craft sales to the next level and get an etsy site going. Thinking of doing gift sets, but we will see. Great thing about etsy, its free to set up, you don't owe them anything unless you actually sell something, so its very NO risk.
Continue to sell off our excess. Got a bunch of homeschooling things set aside for the homeschooling sale in April already, and for a yard sale in spring. Also found a few more big items to list on craigslist once things settle down from the holidays.

Already registered to do another 13.1 mile race with my redhead in May. Hoping to break the 2 hr mark, made it so close last season with a 2hr and 3 minute. Break that 3 minutes up over 13 miles and I need to shave just 20 seconds off each mile and I would definately be under. But some days I wonder do I got that in me? we will have to see.

I am also planning to do another full 26.2 mile marathon with a homeschooling friend in November. No real time goal for this one but I want have a better strategy for it. Last one I ran and ran and ran till I hit the runners wall at mile 19 and ran out of steam. Then I had to bargain with my body making it run a song and then walk a song till I made it to the end.

This time I want to bring more to eat along the way, I am already looking into homemade GU recipes, the real stuff makes me gag, but I heard about a peanut butter, honey and molasses mix I want to try (I know sounds gross, but its got to be better than those packets of GU, and those energy jelly bellies I normally eat don't provide enough energy for completing a full marathon)

I also want to set up a walk run strategy in advance or a slower pace for myself so I don't run out of steam but remain slow and steady till the end of the race, cause runner's wall is horrible. It feels like tiny biting insects are eating you from the inside, and you can't think straight, and your legs tense up to the point that you sort of hop more than run. Really want to avoid that this time.

I might also do my first triathlon, just a local sprint one, but I am waiting to see how the season looks before I do. Its a 800 meter swim (0r about that not sure of distance), followed by a 10 mile bike ride, followed by a 3 mile run, and then they don't stop there like regular sprints nope I heard they finish it with a mile canoe ride (long time since this chick has rowed anything so that should be interesting if what I heard is true).




I want to keep Sunday afternoons to reading and laundry. I don't want to read just anything either. I want to read nonfiction on all Sunday's but the last Sunday of the month, which is when I will treat myself to some mind mushing fiction.

I really want to learn a few skills, like how to get my kids to really learn, not just spit out facts but learn how to search out facts and make sense of them and use them.

I also want to learn more about nutrition, and gardening (another goal to start a vegetable garden this year even if its just a potted tomato).

And those are just a few subjects I am sure I will dive into over the year.





Going along with my want to learn about nutrition I also want to help my family eat better.

Since getting Netflix I have watched every documentary they have available on live streaming on food, and how it effects us and whats in it.

It has caused me to spend more time in the grocery store, reading labels.

What I have discovered so far. Whole foods are more filling. For instance I can eat a granola bar, pakaged from the store and feel hungry still after eating it. But when I make my own using just oats, honey, peanut butter, sliced almounds and raisins, I am full right up to dinner, and for the same amount of calories, as the pakaged granola bar.

Another big discovery, organics taste better. Now at first I didn't believe this, I thought you bought organics to keep pesticides out of your body and that was that, so I started buying just those listed on the dirty dozen (a list of the most pesticides laden foods that you should try to buy organic).

Apples top the dirty dozen list and although they are significantly more in price when purchase organic I thought I would try there. I bit into one and went "wow" I have not had an apple like that since grade school, so sweet so juicy and so satisfyingly filling. But then I thought perhaps the media is swaying me so without telling the kids the apples were organic I served them up for snack. At first bite they were reporting things like "mom, these apples are delicious", "mom this is the best apple I have every had" "mom, I don't want the old apples ever again". It use to be I would buy a bag of apples and have to throw away the last few from the bag, cause they kids had found them soggy, not any more, now I have to ration them to make them last the week, even though I am buying the same amount as before.

Then I bought organic molasses to make my husbands favorite gingerbread. Now I bought this organic purely because I noticed that it had more nutrients in it than the non organic molasses primarly iron, and I am cronically low in iron and always on the hunt for more ways to get it in my diet. Let me tell ya, that batch of gingerbread didn't last long, the flavor difference was incredible.

This week I made soup with organic canned tomatoes, and again this time I didn't tell Jack, and he noticed the difference in the taste. So its not just media influenced me! there really is a difference.

So I know to some organics may not be thrifty, but to me and my family they are, cause we find ourselves wasting less food, and loving what we buy more. And since getting into going organic and whole foods I have discovered tonnes of ways to save, store brands, coupons, store sales, bulk buying all the things I have already been doing, just with organics now.

Our whole cupboard is not going organic though, not for now anyways. I am just replacing our most eaten foods that are high on the pesticide ladder with organics, and cutting out a few convience foods for homemade versions that have fewer ingredients and seem to keep our tummies full longer.

In 2011 I plan to keep learning about what organics are worth it and what aren't. Keep learning about what additives are the most harmful, and how to make foods that are healthier and more filling (cause that definately helps with a teenager boy in the house).

So what are a few of your goals for the year?