Thursday, March 5, 2015

Monthly Personal Challenge Link-up: February Results

Not Entirely Perfect

February is obviously always the shortest month of the year, but this year it seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye.  I thought I could cram a bunch of things into those 28 days, and I guess I sort of did ... But some of my create goals suffered as a result.

I was actually really excited about all of my goals this month.  I was going to better myself by spending more time on some of my favorite hobbies.  I was optimistic that I'd do more in February than I did in January.

And then life happened.

I won't say that I completely failed last month because I didn't.  But I didn't do as much as I wanted to.

To recap, my goals for February were:

1.  Create a blogging schedule for at least the next 2 months.

2.  Make an effort to write creatively at least once a week.

3.  Come up with a new way to list out the week's meal plan (preferably making some sort of graphic using PicMonkey).

4.  Create an original recipe.

5.  Finish Eric's very long overdue wedding anniversary present.

Here's how I did:

1.  I didn't even make an attempt to work on a blogging schedule.  I'm kind of pissed at myself for blowing off one of the more important things on the list, but I just wasn't motivated to do it.  So I didn't.

2.  I'll give myself a pass on writing creatively at least once a week, even though I didn't technically write much at all.  I spent a lot of February thinking about some of my ideas for novels, narrowing my focus, working through some character development, and laying out a couple of specific "scenes."  I actually only wrote a couple of times (the rest was mostly making notes or working through things in my mind), but I feel like I deserve a pass since I was at least working on some creative writing projects.  All of the things I was doing were important (at least in my opinion) and are getting me in the right frame of mind to begin the process of piecing together a manuscript.

3.  I haven't even bothered to make a meal plan in weeks, so my meal plan graphic didn't happen.  I really need to get back in the habit of making meal plans.  When I don't, we usually end up eating out a lot (or just eating random shit we find in our kitchen).  Not good.

4.  I'm going to give myself a pass on creating an original recipe even though I'm reluctant to do so.  The idea itself wasn't completely novel (though I guess a lot of recipes are just variations of something else), and I used a recipe for a sauce I've made before (which was originally slightly adapted from another recipe).  However, I didn't use a specific recipe for the overall meal, I used my own judgment when it came to measurements and types of ingredients, and the sauce was one I've never seen with these ingredients ... So I'd say that's something.  It's a stretch, but it will do.  I'll be posting it on the blog soon (probably next week for Tasty Tuesday).

5.  I'm about 95% done with my gift for Eric, so I'm going to give myself a pass on this as well.  I still can't say what it is since he reads my blog, but I can say that all I have left to do is look it over to determine if any changes need to be made, make any necessary changes, and submit the order.  It took a lot of time, but the hard part is over.  I hope he likes it as much as I think he will!

As I said earlier, February was just okay for me.  I wish I'd completed all of my goals (especially the blogging schedule since that's so important!) and that I'd done a little more creative writing (as opposed to spending so much time planning), but I wouldn't say I completely failed.  I just didn't do as well as I would have liked.

But now it's time to move on.  This month's theme is "relationships."  I have a couple of goals in mind, but this post has already gotten long enough and, as I mentioned last month, I like separating my results from my new monthly goals.  I'm weird, I guess.

I'll be back either tomorrow or Saturday with my goals for March.  I think this will be a good area for me to focus on because I've been pretty awful at keeping in touch with some of my friends lately.  It sucks, but unfortunately that's what happens when your friends are scattered all over the country (one of my friends isn't even living in the country right now ... She's in school in Europe, so it's even more difficult to find a good time to talk to her).  Anyway, I'm excited to come up with some ways to strengthen the relationships I have with the people in my life (and maybe throw in something for my relationship with myself as well!).

7 comments:

  1. I think you did great for February! Even some progress is better than none. And understand ya, sometimes you just aren't feeling it and that's totally ok. That's Mr philosophy actually :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think as long as you make your own riff on a recipe, you're good. Basically everything has been done in some form before, right? I think you did well overall!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I made a content calendar in January! I love it. It has helped me a lot with blogging and keeping content going.

    ReplyDelete
  4. […] I said in my last post, the focus for this month’s personal challenge is […]

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks! And yeah, I need to remember that sometimes it's okay to just say, "I'm not into this" and move on. That's one of the hardest things for me to do. I can be really hard on myself, especially if I've set a goal that I don't achieve. (I'm sure that's true for a lot of people, though!)

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's the way I was looking at the whole recipe thing. I wish I were an amazing chef and could come up with innovative new recipes, but I'm not ... I'm just your average home cook. At least I'm trying, I guess!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That's exactly what I need to do. Now if only I could find the motivation to do it!

    ReplyDelete