Goals Update - January

I'll be doing a monthly goals update on the last day of every month. It will give me a time to reflect on the month and see my progress toward acheiving my goals.

Here's the January update:

1.   Blog – I’d say I’ve done pretty well at posting on the blog regularly. It’s definitely been all sorts of random things, but hey I told you it would be. Stay tuned for more blog posts.

2.   Marathon Training – I am happy to say I am on track with my training. I've been very consistent in my running, going 3-4 times a week. I am actually enjoying the running (surprising, I know!). I just hope I don’t get tired of it in a few months. I think scheduling races and having short term goals will definitely help me achieve the long term goal of running the marathon in December. I’ve got the first 5K of the year on the calendar for March 3^rd. I’ll be running the Allen Eagle 5K with Josh, my aunt, cousin, and brother…more on that to come.

3.   CPA –  I took step 1 and installed the study software on my computer and made a study plan. I was hoping to be able to take AUD at the end of February, but unfortunately won't be able to. I've got to get my name changed with the Board and on my 2nd id, so that all my paperwork matches. One day I'll finally finish changing my name on everything!

4.   Books – I'm about halfway through my first book. It was slow starting out, but it's picking up now. I'll have to read faster during the other 11 months of the year to make my goal. :)

5.   Clean out the clutter – In January, we focused on cleaning out our closets, getting rid of clothes, shoes, and accessories that don’t fit or that we just don’t wear anymore (read more here). As a bonus, we also cleaned out our den/study some. It could definitely still use some more work, but we got a good start on it. Not sure where we’ll focus in February...I’ll let you know what we decide.

Bonus: We were able to pay off $8,450 of our debt paying off my car and some of Josh's student loans. (No, we're not rolling in the dough around here, we've just made smart financial decisions.) We still have a ways to go (yay student loans!), but we're definitely happy to have this chunk out of the way!

Homemade Pizza

We've been trying new recipes around here. Yesterday, we made homemade pizza. It was delicious and so much easier than I thought it would be.

In the making...

Ready to eat!

No More Car Payments!!

I am proud to announce that as of today, January 26th, 2012, my car is paid off!! 7 months early! We have no more car payments!! Woohoo!!!!

(This may or may not be a picture of my actual car :) )

Cleaning Out the Clutter - clothes, shoes, etc.

One of my goals this year is to clean out the clutter in our apartment - giving away or trashing unused items. Over the last few weeks, we've been cleaning out our closet and dressers. We've made a pile of clothes, shoes, belts, jewelry, etc. to give away. I am happy to say that I can now open and close the drawers in my dresser without having to push the clothes down or hope that the drawer doesn't break. I can also see the clothes in my closet a little better! We still have a little bit to go through, but we're almost there!

Our giveaway pile - if you see something you want, let me know!

Crock Pot Chicken

We had a delicious dinner last night! Josh liked it so much he ate his lunch for today along with his dinner last night! What did we eat that was so good, you ask? Crock Pot Chicken. I threw it all in the crock pot before I went to work yesterday and came home to a delicious smelling, and even better tasting, dinner. Since we enjoyed it so much and it will definitely be making a repeat appearance in our house, I’d thought I’d share the recipe. It’s incredibly easy and very tasty!


Crock Pot Chicken
(Makes 3-4 servings – depending on how much your husband eats!)

Ingredients:
4 frozen chicken breasts
4 potatoes – cut in pieces with skins
1 small bag of baby carrots
2 tbsp margarine
1/3 cup of water
Lawry’s season salt
Salt
Pepper
Few pieces of onion (for flavoring)

Arrange the chicken breasts in the bottom of the crock pot. Sprinkle with Lawry’s season salt. Layer the potatoes and carrots and sprinkle with Lawry’s, salt, and pepper. Pour water in the bottom of the crock pot. Add the onions and margarine to the top. Let cook all day. Enjoy a delicious dinner when you get home!


Sorry there’s no pictures…I was busy enjoying the yummyness last night!

Sic 'em Bears!

This is a great post about the success of Baylor's athletics programs this year. Check it out!

#1 College Program in 2011-12---Look to Waco, Texas

Disneyland

Josh and I went to Disneyland for a few days at the end of December for a short vacation and to celebrate New Year's. We got up early on Thursday morning (we were at the airport at 4:30 am CST, 2:30 am PST) and flew to LA, heading straight to Disneyland as soon as we arrived.


We spent Thursday at the Disneyland Park, then turned in early since it had been a very long day for us.

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride

Walt Disney and Mickey "Partners" Statue

It's a Small World decorated for Christmas

On Friday, we used our Magic Morning passes to go into the park an hour early and rode some of the popular rides before the park opened to the public. We ran all over the park and rode probably close to 10 rides in about an hour and a half. (I highly recommend taking advantage of this if you go and it's part of your tickets - and Fast Passes too, but that's a whole different thing. If you're going to Disney, ask me about Fast Passes and I'll explain them.) After running all over Disneyland, we hopped over to California Adventure to spend the rest of our day. California Adventure wasn't nearly as crowded as Disneyland, so we were able to ride everything we wanted to ride plus some as well as see several shows. Friday night, we got to see the World of Color show and it is AWESOME!! Disney puts on the best shows!

World of Color Show...so cool!

Saturday (New Year's Eve), we got up early again to head to Disneyland. It was extremely crowded, so we spent much of the day waiting and watching shows and parades. Thankfully, on Thursday and Friday we were able to ride most of the rides we wanted to ride, so we didn't have to wait in the ridiculously long lines on Saturday. We were able to watch Fantasmic on Friday night and it was just as cool as World of Color. As it gets closer to midnight, Main Street USA becomes a big party that I would say is probably close to what it's like in Times Square on New Year's Eve. There is a big fireworks show at midnight that I'm sure was great, but we couldn't see because of crazy heavy fog that rolled in Saturday night.

Fantasmic! (It's Fantasia Mickey...can't you tell?!)

Happy New Year!!

On Sunday, we toured around LA - finding the Hollywood sign, driving through Beverly Hills, walking the Hollywood Walk of Fame, had our first In and Out burgers (way overrated), then headed back to the airport to fly home. And you've probably already read about my experience there, so I won't go into that again (I'm still mad though!).


Overall we had a great vacation, but it was very exhausting! I was definitely glad I had Monday off before I had to go back to work on Tuesday. I needed a day to sleep! I've put a few pictures from our trip on the blog, but if you want to see more, check out the album on Facebook.

2012 Goals

Happy New Year! I've set five goals (yes, goals, not resolutions) for myself for 2012. Below they are listed out with a short explanation of why I chose to make it a goal for myself and how I plan to accomplish it. Enjoy!

1. Start a blog and post regularly.

As you can see, I did part 1, but I’ve also got to keep up with part 2. I like to read everyone else’s blogs so much, that I thought it would only be fair to start my own, so here it is. My plan is for this blog to feature many things…how I’m doing on my goals, what’s going on in our lives, our travels, crafty projects I do (thanks pinterest!), and any other random things I want…after all, it is my blog. :)
2. Run a marathon.
This will be a hard one for me. I’ve never been a runner and right now, I am VERY out of shape. However, Josh and I thought this would be something we could do together to get into shape and it may even become a new hobby…maybe. Our plan is to run in the White Rock Marathon in December. Josh has made us a training plan and as long as we can stick to it, we’ll make it. We started our training this week with walking a little over 2 miles on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and today. Walking? Yes, walking…baby steps. I’m hoping we’ll be able to run in other races like 5Ks, 10Ks, maybe even a half marathon along the way to keep us motivated. Training for 11 months is a long time!
3. Be a CPA by the end of 2012 – Study for, take, and pass the CPA exam.
I have the required experience, now I just need to pass the exam! I first started taking the CPA exam a little over 6 months after finishing school, but after getting busier at work, barely missing passing a few parts, and running up and down the road to see Josh all the time, it got pushed to the back burner. When we started planning our wedding, it got pushed even farther back. But now that we’ve been married for almost 7 months, Josh has graduated, and things have settled down, it’s time for me to get back to it. Even though I don’t want to work in traditional accounting, it will help my career and allow me more flexibility in choosing what I do want to do.
4. Read 12 books – one each month.
It seems weird that I have to put reading books on my list of goals since I love to read, but I just haven’t been reading as much the last few years. I watch more TV and movies and just don’t read nearly as much as I used to. Now I’ve got my new Kindle and I’m ready to go!
5. Clean out the clutter - trash/donate any unwanted/unneeded items.
This should be on everyone’s lists. We all have stuff that just sits in a closet or box and never gets used. This will definitely be a year-long project. I’ve had some stuff in boxes that I haven’t opened in years. Some of it will get pulled out when we get a bigger place, but some of it will probably just keep getting put back in a box and stuffed in a closet if I don’t do something about it. The first place I need to start is my closet. I have so many clothes, yet I wear the same things all the time and look in my closet and say I have nothing to wear. I need to clean out the clothes that just take up space in my closet and drawers and give them to people who actually have nothing to wear.

There you have it...my goals for 2012! I'll be keeping you updated on how I'm doing with each goal and accomplishments on the way to completing these goals. Here's to a wonderful 2012!