Quarterly Check In on the Yearly Goals

As I was realizing that we are through the first quarter of the year (!) I had a vague memory of stating that I'd probably check in on my 2016 goals every quarter. And I must admit, I hadn't even glanced at them since I wrote them. I did have a few in the back of my mind, but there were a few surprises on there that I'm not doing too shabby in checking off the list. Maybe I'll add a few more bullets...

2016 Goals
End the run streak when the time is right/obvious.  
There has been no obvious stopping point, so I'm on track for TWO WHOLE YEARS (WHAT) by this Memorial Day. Yes, I even ran my minimum mile every day on our weekend vacay.

Read 55 books.  So far, I've read 14 books this year which is spot on for my target! (My goal this year was to read at least one more book than I did the year before (47 books in 2014), and I HANDILY succeeded by reading 54. So yeah, one more book than last year.)

Do the Book Riot read harder challenge.  Eeeep. I haven't been doing as well on this challenge. I think I have about five books checked off the list, but I might have to be more deliberate if I really want to get through it it this year...

Run 5 races, including one trail race.  I haven't made very good on this one yet! I'm registered to run the 520 Go Long 10K this weekend, but I may have a conflict, so we shall see. Either way, it's not going to be a race - more of a fun run and to participate in probably the only race that will ever take place on the floating bridge!   

Aim for one PR.  Again, I'm not making much headway on the racing front. After the bridge run, I do have the Brooks Trailhead 15K on the calendar for May. Although, I don't think that is a distance I want to try for a PR. Nor is the Rock n' Roll half in June. So I may aim for a 5K in the fall, and just continue to enjoy maintaining my fitness and being laid back about my running workouts.

Plan a girls trip with my high school buddies.   Yayyyy! It's on the calendar and my plane ticket to Denver is booked for this summer. One of my friends relocated from Chicago to Denver last year, so we're all meeting up there this summer to check out her new home and then take a drive to stay and play in Beaver Creek.

Plan another summer family road trip. This is also planned/booked! We've headed West, and headed North, now we're gonna go South to Oregon and check out Hood River for a couple of days. And maybe do a better job on the family car ride selfie...

More picture taking and maybe a small weekly or monthly roundup.  And this is why This Weeks Eats has become Everyday Life and Menu Plan! The menu planning is so helpful for me to have here, and I look over these posts often for ideas and links. It's way more fun to have little photo album to go along with it and may be a cool thing to print out one day.

Get at least 5 new meals into regular rotation.  There have been at least 10+ new recipes I've tried this year, and I'll probably make one or two of them again. But the Thai Sticky Chicken Fingers recipe we made this week is one that will DEFINITELY go into regular rotation.  

Try new restaurants with the hubs. Do vacation restaurants count?? I suppose we even went to an old favorite when we went to San Diego. We're old and set in our ways. GET OFF MY LAWN.

Have more fun with makeup and find the right routine, colors, etc. for me.  D'you know that at Sephora, you can get a sample size of pretty much anything? I went and got a few tinted moisturizers/BB creams to try out over a few weeks and have definitely fallen into the Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer camp (the oil free with SPF 20). Love. Love. Love. My other favorite thing, because I just can't get into eyeshadow on a daily basis, is the Clinique Chubby Stick Sculpting Highlight. I drag it over my brow bone after putting on mascara and call it good.

New goals!

• Get my littlest riding without her training wheels.  There has been so much focus on how well she's swimming, that I've sort of let the biking go by the wayside. Although, I think her brother finally ditched them at age 6, too. So, hopefully she'll be on board.
• Register for one summer camp.  Can you tell I'm sort of 'summer focused' right now?? It's that time of year when the brochures come out, the plans start getting made and you start to freak out about what to do all summer long.  
• Reorganize our 'bonus room' and finally turn it into a play room.  The kids have gotten more into playing the Wii in our living room, and we got them an XBox for their birthdays this year. But I really don't want to have them all up in my grill every time they play, and it makes us nostalgic for our Midwestern upbringing where we had BASEMENTS. They are rare in our neck of the woods, so we're thinking about turning our guest room/loft into a game room/play room - but store the double bed for when Grandma comes to visit, of course.

Until next time!  Hopefully I'll remember to check back in sometime in July...