I promise I won’t start every monthly recap like this, but how is February already over? This month flew by! This month has had some extreme highs and extreme lows. There was good: such as a blossoming relationship, buying a car, and watching my mom complete two races. And then there was bad: the crash and burn of the said relationship and struggles in all areas of my life. A good friend told me to “honor my feelings” and that is what I am trying to do. Sometimes I am sad. Sometimes I am angry. Sometimes I am joyful. Sometimes I am hopeful. Honoring my feelings means being present in them. To cry if I want to cry. To laugh if I want to laugh. I don’t like being sad or angry or upset. But sometimes I need to be sad or angry or upset.
In any event, today is a new month, and with it, hopefully, a new attitude! I am sad to see this relationship end so soon, but I’m hopeful that the next guy who catches my eye will be even more wonderful. I have faith in this!
Onward to my recap on my February goals. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t do anywhere near as good as I did in January…)
February Recap
Meal plan every week and no eating out on weekdays. This was half a success. I was successful at meal planning every week but sticking to the plan? Not so great. My mom and I do not like to cook so sometimes it’s easier to just pick something up rather than spend time in the kitchen. I’m not even talking about complicated dishes here! At most, it takes us 20 minutes to make dinner. It’s definitely an area we need to work on.
Save more money than I spend. Big, fat fail. For one, I bought a car so, ya know, that’s rather expensive. And I just wasn’t very smart with my money. (More to come on this subject next week!)
Ride my bike once a week. Another failure. I only managed to get in one bike ride, due to scheduling difficulties and cold weather. It’s actually quite the process to load the bike up in the car and get out to a park to ride, but I found out it’s worth it! My one bike ride felt great! It was a windy day and my backside ached for a solid 3 days afterward (need to invest in padded shorts!) but I enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully, I can make this a regular Saturday morning routine for me.
Stop eating after 8pm. I didn’t track this goal, really, but I feel like I accomplished it. Mainly, I made this goal to stop snacking after dinner. If I’m hungry, I give myself a pass but usually, I’m not. It’s just routine for me and I eat more out of boredom than actual hunger. Success-ish?
Set up a payment plan to take care of my ER bill from 2010. I did not do this. Oops.
So 1.5 goals out of 5 achieved. Eek. In January, I made a habit of checking in with my goals every weekend. I even made myself a checklist where I could tally things up and make notes and decide on what I needed to do the following week. It was a mini-progress report for myself. I didn’t do this in February and it shows. It may sound silly, but it helped immensely and I want to get back at it in March.
March Intentions
Complete a Buy Nothing challenge this month. February was not a very good month for me, financially. I wasn’t very smart with my money and then there’s the whole buying a car thing. My bank account took a big hit, even with my tax return. I’ve wanted to complete one of these challenges for a while now and this month is the perfect time to do it. (And now that I’ve been researching cruises for the fall, this may stretch into a “Buy Nothing So I Can Afford a Cruise” challenge…)
Set up a payment plan for my ER bill. So, oops, didn’t quite get around to doing this in February. On the list for this month! Can you tell how much I am procrastinating about this?
Go back to church. Confession: I haven’t been regularly attending church for well over 6 months now. It’s mostly laziness than anything else keeping me away. I know I feel better about myself and I need the connection I find at church. It’s time to go back.
Make three meals a week at home. Baby steps, my friends. I am inspired by those of you who seldom eat out but I am not one of those people. As mentioned above, I despise cooking so I take the lazy girl’s way out and pick something up. This month, I’m making a goal of making 3 meals at home a week. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Complete the Spartan 500 in under 1 hour. This will be the third Spartan event I’ve participated in. I’m still not brave enough to complete the Spartan 1000 (400 burpees, you guys. 400!) but I really want to kick some major ass at the 500. My previous times have been around 1:11 and 1:15 so I know I have it in me to do it in under an hour. It’s the sit-ups that kill me. Time to train! (And if you’re local…. join me! Here’s the link. It costs $10 and is a killer, killer workout.)
How was your February? Any goals accomplished?
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Good luck with March!
Am excited to take a look at my goals and post a report on Monday. I do it every two months.
Not sure if you are a leftovers girl, but have you thought about cooking a larger meal or two on Sunday (or Saturday) then eating the leftovers throughout the week? So you only have to cook once!
I used to despise cooking — never have all the ingredients, I’m hungry now(!) and don’t want to cook, I could do better things with the time, etc. — but now I actually enjoy it (most of the time). You’re idea of 3 days a week.. starting small is good! Trying to do more than that would probably be overwhelming and you’re more inclined to just go out for food.
“Your idea…” not you’re… bothered me enough to reply! haha
I am a leftover girl and I actually try to make meals that yield leftovers to take for lunch the following day. I really should make more of it, though, so then I only have to think about cooking dinner a few days a week and most days – all it needs is a quick heat-up. Brilliant! 🙂
Your goals for this month sound totally reasonable! I bet you can do it.
We eat out maybe once/twice a week but I don’t necessarily cook every night. If I make a big meal on a Sunday, we have leftovers. Some nights it’s frozen pizza. Other times it’s grilled cheese. So I am cooking but it’s not necessarily four course gourmet meals. If I had more time after the work day/working out and etc. I would cook fancier meals but for now it works!
Also 500 Burpees in an hour? That’s impressive. Go, Stephany Go!
Noooo! I am only doing 200 burpees. Haha. The Spartan event has two options: the full 1000 or the Junior Spartan which is half of that. Basically, I want to do 50 jump squats, 100 push-ups, 150 sit-ups, and 200 burpees in an hour. The impressive thing? Some people can finish the entire 1000 (which is double of what I just mentioned) in under an hour. Ridiculous!
Oh hey, I bought a new car in February, too. 😉
I also had a hard time completing my February goals, but at least we have our new wheels!
Sounds like some very reasonable goals for March – good luck with them. Especially the buy nothing challenge… That seems hard!
It sounds like you and I had a very similar February in terms of goals… LOL. I actually kinda don’t want to review mine cause I don’t think I accomplished any. I like your idea of reviewing goals every weekend though. I do that with my 2013 goals and see them getting crossed off. This could be worth a shot as well!!
Good luck with your March goals! I like the “buy nothing” challenge. I can’t do that because I’ll be in NYC for 4 days, but maybe I can try a half month challenge at some point, or something… We’ll see!
I am sorry that February was a tough month for you. I like Linda’s assertion to Honor your Feelings. I can totally relate to that because I have been sort of shoving my feelings under the rug at times instead of dealing with them and moving forward….
I think you have a great set of goals for March! The no spending one will be a challenge but it will be so worth it in the end. February wasn’t a great month for me. It was stressful and I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster. I know I will remain on that rollercoaster for several months so right now I am just trying to figure out how to deal with all of the stress in my life in a healthy way… And I want to soak up this final month in Minnesota.
Honoring your feelings sounds easy, but is very, very hard. Especially when those feelings aren’t so pleasant! Shoving them under the rug is so much easier! I’m sorry your year is off to such a rocky start but I hope you can soak up these next few weeks in Minnesota – and hopefully Charlotte turns out to be a better place than you first imagined. Thinking of you!
Baby steps! That’s the ticket! I think working on cooking in three nights a week is a great start! And you will also save money for your cruise that way! Good luck! I think it’s pretty easy to make pasta and sauce with a salad or something like that!
I’m really trying to focus on One Big Change at a time. First, it was soda and I’m mainly got that under control now. And now I really want to get my eating out tendencies under control. I think by starting with 3 meals a week and gradually increasing it so I’m eating in more than eating out will help a lot!