2012: Year in Review (non-athletic goals)

So today marks the first time since about a year ago that I looked at my goals posts for 2012.  Goals posts are probably more useful if you actually check back on them once in awhile so you REMEMBER what you're trying to achieve for the year.  Nonetheless, I managed to remember some of the goals, even without checking back for a reminder.

We have the Non-Athletic Goals for 2012:
1) Read MORE books, as in 50.  I think I've read more books this year than any other (unless you count those years in middle school when Babysitters Club books were en vogue and could be easily devoured in an afternoon).  I've been keeping track of them on my Book List page.  I'm not quite at 50 books - currently reading #44 right now - but I have 13 days and a fully charged Kindle so I'll be trying my hardest to get to 50.

2) Become MORE fluent in French.  The trips to Burkina Faso have helped and I've gotten a chance to do a fair amount of writing and translation exercises at work.  And if you think surveys and data collection are interesting, just wait until you hear me talk to you in French about them.  I've not joined Alliance Francaise (goal for 2013?) but we have an informal French conversation club at work that meets for lunch once a month and I've showed my face there - only once so far, but I didn't make a fool out of myself, so I will be back.  Verb tenses are still my enemy.

3)  Eat MORE fruits and vegetables.  Let's pretend the off-season doesn't count, mmmm'kay?  If that is the case, then YES - Mission Accomplished!!  The real wakeup call was in May/June when I met with Beth (an awesome nutritionist and triathlete!) and kept a food journal for her.  I was all we get weekly deliveries from the Green Grocer and eat veggies called Kohlrabi (ridiculous word to spell, thank goodness for Google!) and she is going to be so impressed by my vegetable consumption.  But in reality, I think she was more impressed (and scared) by the sheer amount of butter I manage to eat.  And those servings of fruits/vegetables, I wasn't getting nearly the recommended 8 servings, more like 4 or 5.  I started bringing more fruit to work (and actually eating it, most of the time).  Homemade fruit smoothies with yogurt and frozen fruit made a regular appearance at dessert time.  Little changes here and there.  I still have a long way to go (especially if we are looking at my eating habits this current off-season, but at least I have an idea of what habits I need to adopt/continue to eat well.

4) Get MORE sleep.  I'd go ahead and call this a decent FAIL.  Case in point - it is 10pm and I am writing this blog with my computer in bed.  Fail on so many levels.  There is always just one more thing I want to do, read, write, before I go to sleep.  I've not done enough to try to change this bad, bad habit.  It will be making a reappearance on my goals list for 2013.

5) Learn MORE recipes.  Does this count if my husband was the one who learned (and cooked) more healthy recipes and I reaped the benefits?  We still had our old standbys we relied on a few times per week, but we worked on trying new recipes here and there.  Of course, for the life of me, I can't remember a single one right now.  And please don't ask me which ones I cooked - according to Mr. Sweetie you cooked, but nothing new and exciting.  Also per Mr. Sweetie - you didn't cook alot of cupcakes this year.  At least there is that.  Instead I just bought them.

6) Call my family MORE often.  Hmmm.  I like to think I called more often, but my parents just have such active social lives that they were never around to pick up my calls.  You people of the AARP set -  working hard and partying harder.  I can't keep up.

7) Take MORE pictures.  I got an iPhone this year and discovered Instagram.  I'm proud of the fact that I am not one of those who takes tons of filtered photos of my food, but I do have a vast number of cat and dog pictures.  And photos of Metrobus doing something wrong at least every week.  Fortunately for you, I've not photo-bombed this blog with all of them.  You're welcome.

Here's one.  I couldn't resist.  How YOU doin'?

I'll proclaim 2012 a pretty good year, on the non-athletic side of things.  Besides making an effort (even if I failed overall) at achieving these goals, I made some really great new friends, said YES more often to dinners with girlfriends and bike rides with friends.  Even though I still take a fair amount of time for myself, I feel like my life was so much richer because of all the times I said YES to spending time with friends, even if it meant getting home late or something like that.  Completely worth it every time.  I thought 2011 was great, but 2012 managed to top all.