Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013!

A lot has been happening in my life since I mysteriously stopped blogging in November last year. A whole lot, but we will catch up on that later in a 2012 review post.  I'm planning on getting back into blogging, archival of milestones and as a motivator to keep me going in the new year.

As for goals, I have a few broad ideas that I'll be refining in the next few day or weeks. I want to concentrate on being a better ME. I want to get into better shape, eat healthier, have more mental focus, and improve my confidence. The reason I don't want to get into specifics is because 2013 will be a year of discovery for myself. I don't want to have unattainable goals such as, I will do yoga 3 days a week. What if I decide I don't like yoga all that much? Instead my goals will be as such.

• Discover ways to become more physically active on a regular basis
• Discover eating more fruits and vegetables (ie one per meal), and be open to trying new foods
• reDiscover the joy of drinking water (reduce refined sugar consumption)
• Discover strengths and weaknesses in my skills and talents (what do I do best? What keeps me happy?)
• Discover and refine better coping skills
• Discover expressing gratitude
• Discover the world in the eyes of a child
• Discover the joy of organizing (and being organized)

In addition, there's the budget review and forecast of the next year. If you aren't creating financial goals along with your other resolutions, I strongly encourage you to do so. This week, I discovered that somehow the weekly savings we'd set up for BG was cancelled in June. Looks like we have 6 months of savings to catch up for her. Were it not for the review, I'm not sure when I would have discovered the error. Along with the above goals, the family is focusing on reducing and/or eliminating revolving debt. We are still working on the unexpected furnace and heat pump replacement costs, but also some other stupid debt that we've accumulated from a lack of financial diligence on my part. (It's so much easier to grab fast food meals when you're too busy or tired to cook.)

I'll touch base on these a bit more in the near future, on how and what I am doing to accomplish them.

Cheers! 

Happy New Year!

March Goals

Recap of general 2011 goals:

debt-free
focus on photography
BF for 6 months at least
be near my pre-pregnancy shape by the end of the year

Debt Free
Prepare taxes and use at least 75% of refund towards any outstanding debt.

Photography
Have at least 1 photo shoot for Baby Girl

BF for 6 months at least
Seek cause and support for pain and develop a plan to help Baby Girl attain a wide latch more frequently

Nutrition/Fitness/Body Image
Strive to add more fruits and veggies to diet.
Begin walking regularly once released by doctor.

February Goals Recap

February Goals:
Debt Free - No unnecessary clothing purchases
No problems here. I still look occasionally, and the Steals Network and Zulily sometimes makes it really hard not to buy nursing wear on discount. Still, I don't need it and plan to make do with what I have! I still could probably use a few nursing tanks/camis.

Photography - Weekly photo update, artsy photo shoot and designed birth announcement
This I've been failing at. Adjusting to a new schedule has made it really hard for me to do a weekly shoot, that and not being able to walk upstairs to the studio for the first few weeks. I'm actually feeling pretty bad about this because I wanted to document her weekly changes. I suppose I'll stick with monthly instead.

I did get one artsy shot in, and hope to get another in soon. I'm still working on the birth announcement but also hope to get that in this weekend so it'll be done by the end of the month.

Breastfeeding - Buy nursing bras, finish Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, and attend LLL meeting
Bras were purchased the day after Baby Girl's birth and I have finished The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and still refer to it occasionally. The LLL meeting was cancelled due to the blizzard that swept through the midwest and kept us housebound for most of a week.

I really needed more help than I sought. Luckily I do have some resources on Twitter and the love and support of family to get through the trials of breastfeeding. In the future, I'll be posting more. Just know it's been a difficult ride but we are managing.

Pre-pregnancy Shape/Nutrition - Nutrition and proper body image expectations
I am currently hovering at about 5 pounds above my pre-pregancy weight at about 3 weeks postpartum. Its been hard to keep up with the nutrition when others cook for you, but at least I am eating regularly! I'm still wearing the clothes that I'd been wearing throughout most of my pregnancy. There are a few pieces that I cannot wear because they are too large. Most of my other clothes are packed up still, so I am not sure if they fit or not.

February Goals

Recap of general 2011 goals:

1. debt-free
2. focus on photography
3. BF for 6 months at least
4. be near my pre-pregnancy shape by the end of the year

February Goals:
Debt Free
I am in a style rut! I'm tired of winter, the cold and the grey dreary skies. Its all just too BLAH! Unfortunately, I feel like maternity wardrobes reflect that. I NEED COLOR!! It really doesn't help that most affordable maternity clothes are black or grey. I have caught myself too often searching online for clothes to wear this spring. My goal for this month is to cut it out! I'm not going to know what I am capable of wearing in a few months so why concentrate on it now and make myself miserable with what I am forced to wear now? So, no unnecessary clothing purchases for me during the month of February. The exception being anything necessary, such as nursing bras.

Photography
I will be doing a weekly photo update of baby once they arrive. No doubt that it will happen in time for me to have a few weeks worth of photos by the goal recap. I'd also like to attempt an artsy infant photo shoot or two. My new muse! I've also started thinking of designing my own baby announcement/photo card. My goal is to have it finalized and ready to send to the printer by the end of the month.

Breastfeeding
Buy a few nursing bras. Hopefully by the time this us posted, I'll already have taken care of this! If not, then I have to get this accomplished ASAP. Also, I will finish The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding book and attend my first local Le Leche League meeting.

Pre-pregnancy Shape/Nutrition
I will continue to watch my nutrition and focus on recovering from birth, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Nothing too drastic to mention here. I will focus on not concentrating on my body image these last few days as this is only temporary.

January Goal Recap

Recap of general 2011 goals:

• debt-free
• focus on photography
• BF for 6 months at least
• be near my pre-pregnancy shape by the end of the year

January Goals Update:
Budgeting/Debt-free
Budgeting is going well despite the unknowns. We are looking into a few small projects we want to undertake in the next year before completing the budget. Some ideas include installing a privacy fence, maximizing investments, and overpaying on the car loan.

After a few rounds with Chase and my own research, I have determined that we can get our MIP (mortgage insurance premium AKA PMI for non-FHA mortgages) waived in a few months by meeting the required 78% loan ratio. Feel free to skip this part if you're not interested in finances...basically one of the advantages of an FHA loan is not needing the usual 15-20% down payment on a mortgage. To counter the risk, banks require "insurance", which is added on to the mortgage payment. The major risk to them is if the value of the house goes down and you default on the loan, they lose money. It is roughly 6-8% of a portion of the loan in addition to the interest the loan already charges. Part of the federal regulation on the loan requires the bank to waive this fee when requested after the loan ratio reaches 78%; once 22% of the loan is paid. We've been overpaying our mortgage, so we will be reaching that point in a few months. Yay!

Photography
The photography goal is coming along. I've decided to use Picasa as my general photo storage/online backup and use Flickr to display more of my artistic work. Hopefully I'll have everything converted in the next few months. There are a LOT of pictures on Flickr and I'm not sure how I want to remedy removing the clutter just yet.

I refreshed my laptop to fix some issues I have been having and I'm in the process of reinstalling software. Eye-fi SD card is pretty cool. If you recall from the January Goals post, DH bought this for me for Christmas. It allows me to keep my camera and card in my studio and have the images automatically sent to my laptop or even online. All it needs is a wifi connection! Pretty cool!

Breastfeeding
BFing goals are lagging. I am only half way through my book and haven't decided on a Pediatrician yet. Bad Randi! I really need to stop dragging my feet on this! I still have a few days left in January and I'm going on leave soon, so I still have a chance, lol.

Pre-pregnancy Shape/Nutrition
I'm trying and somewhat failing/succeeding in the nutrition lately. Too many sweets around! My hunger seems much more out of control lately and I am wondering if it related to the increase in sugar consumption. The past week we have been pretty good about staying home instead of going out to eat. That helps both the financial and nutrition goals. I gained 3 pounds in 1 week and I'm afraid to see what the scale says at this week's appointment. I just hope I don't cross the 150 threshold, or I might just cry.

January Goals

Recap of general 2011 goals:

• debt-free
• focus on photography
• BF for 6 months at least
• be near my pre-pregnancy shape by the end of the year

The Colts made it to the playoffs! We decided to save some money and opt out of purchasing playoff tickets. Plus, we never know when sea monkey might arrive! Instead, I am looking to find some place fun/exciting/loud but smoke free to enjoy some football!

We have a surplus from our utility budget for 2010 so the money for January's utility bill will be directed to what's left of our debt. I'll have a better hold on the status of all things financial when I've had a chance to feel more prepared for baby and have a chance to figure out the 2011 budget. Like 2011 resolutions, it'll be rather loose since there's a lot of unknowns. Doubtful if we undergo any major projects this year.

For photography, I'm working on getting my computer better set up to process pictures. DH gifted me an Eye-Fi card that I've been getting acquainted with this week. By the end of January want to decide on the status of Picasa and Flickr and getting a handle on automating the upload process and which site to use for my more professional front.

As for breastfeeding goals, I have 2, to finish The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, and to nail down a Pediatrician that is going to be supportive. Other than preparing myself, I don't feel like there is much I can do on this front.

This is the same for my last goal. I am continuing to be mindful of my diet and not indulge too much in empty calories, in order to keep away from bad habits. It is hard considering the amount of candy around the house because of the holidays.

To be honest, it is bit frustrating to keep myself from planning out every change I want to make for 2011. The Type A in me is struggling to get out. So many times I wanted to plan a 365 photo project but I know I cannot commit myself to such goals when I know more important things are around the bend! Maybe one of my goals is it force the Type A part of my personality to relax and have more patience ;)

Reflection

Its that time of year again, where people get introspective and reflective and look at the past year's deeds and misdeeds and decide to change for the better in the upcoming year. In respect, it is like starting with a clean slate. December 31st marks an end, what happened in the past 365 days stays behind, forgotten and started anew. Count me in with the myriad of silly fools, usually.

It has dawned on me recently that there are only a few days left of 2010, and I haven't gotten all retrospective or inspired by the coming new year. I don't know, something about having a baby in the next few weeks has grabbed more of my attention. Then I tried to look back at the past few year's worth of resolutions, and remembered that I deleted my old personal blog in favor of this one, oops! Then I realized that I did manage to cross post part of the resolutions I made, and can be found HERE

Recap:
Ambition
Success! I was promoted, received a raise, I lead a part of a major company project, I lead my own project, exceeded all of my work goals.
Failures :( towards the end of the year my workload was reduced, I feel partially because of my pregnancy status. It is hard to get in on projects that have a completion timeline that conflicts with my medical leave. In the mean time I picked up a lot of training and worked on some independent projects.

Debt Free
Would have been accomplished if it weren't for this $2,500 deposit I need to make to the birth center before Christmas. As soon as I can submit it to my medical flexible spending account after the baby is born, we should officially be debt free. The deposit and the fact that it will shortly be recovered made us decide not to pay it out of our emergency fund, so it is still intact.

Improve Health
IE, I will work out more and have an improved score on my wellness screening, LMAO. Medical visits went up because of the RE and the OB, but I only had 1 GP visit for my eye, similar with DH. Being more active worked out in the beginning, until we both came down with the flu (or h1n1, not sure which it was) and then it was hard to get back into it. I walked as much as I could when the weather got nice, but then I was either feeling too sick or too tired from pregnancy that I just never got back into it. I still tried to get out and do as much as I could, but I failed any workout routine I might have tried to establish. On the food front, it has improved a lot but we still have times where we are really busy and rely on take out too much. I journal about 75% of my diet, just to keep tabs on where I am needing improvement. As for wellness screening, the results were laughable. This year's will need to be thrown out. While the self reported section scores increased, the rest really showed inaccurate results. Who knew cholesterol and white blood cell count rose so much, and blood count dropped so much? So, the screening has me at risk for heart disease, anemia, and infection/cancer! Nope, I just have a not so little parasite!

In The Family Way
Mixed results, but who cares?! So, my goal for a 2010 baby didn't quite make it. Per usual, I am just a little late to the park. Time will tell if we have a 2010 baby, but I'm not seeing any progress in that direction. I'm still thinking I have 3 weeks left, but hoping for 5 and a few days for my dad's birthday. So, the end result being that we are in the family way, where have you been if you're just seeing this?! 11 and a half months after officially trying, we fell into the family way. I blame/thank the RE. We had our first appointment where we discussed tests and procedures and determined that as far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with me and that a non-medicated IUI was the way to go. Luckily I was able to call a few weeks later to get in for my first beta!

Resolution:
Well, this is difficult. There are too many unknowns in the next year that I am wondering if it is even smart to decide on resolutions right now. Instead, I am planning on posting a monthly goal/set of goals that align with some really broad ideas for the next year. I'd like to continue to live debt-free, focus more on my photography, BF for 6 months at least, and I'd like to be near my pre-pregnancy shape by the end of the year. Sound do-able? I think it is, and it'll also help my goal of blogging more. I'm looking forward to seeing how my goals grow and change over the course of the year.