Achieving Stuff: February

So, the time has come to do a post-mortem on January's goals. Let me be honest: I've been dreading this for many days, but the good news is that my dread has actually motivated me to not do as badly as I thought I was going to do a few days ago. Does that make sense? Whatever works, I guess? Bueller? Bueller:

January goal recap:

• Register for a 5k — Done! I'll be running in the Chinese New Year 5k on 2/19. So excited!!
• Clean out/organize my dresser — Failure. Total failure! I need to do this in February.
• Go to sleep early & get up early — I had a period of about 2 weeks in the middle of the month where I was absolutely terrible at this. Got into a really bad pattern. But I'm happy to say that I fixed it by the end of the month (by the time we got to the wedding on the 28th) & I am back in the habit.
• Stay healthy and don't get sick — Done, need to keep this up in February!
• Spend less on groceries — I actually haven't checked my books to see if this actually happened, but I've certainly been trying to do this, and I want to make a bigger dent in it this month.
• Shoot a fantastic wedding on the 28th — Done! Now, to edit...
• Keep the house clean — Ugh. Not done. Things got a bit out of hand after our trip to SLO and my mother-in-law's hospitalization & the scare that gave us, which left us scrambling, quite honestly, for the rest of the month. Still trying to recover from that. I can't stand a dirty house.
• Get astronomical at least once this month  — Failure. Combination of my fault & weather's fault.
• Don't worry, be happy — Believe me, I've tried not to overthink things. In general I think I've done a good job at this, even when life tried to intervene mid month & throw me into a vat of overthinkingness. The good news is that life kept happening, leaving me little time to overthink.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: February goals! Actually, no one probably cares but me, and that's fine, but man, I see a lot of failure up above, and I want to do better this month. And how did an entire month go by in 2012 already? Where does the time go? Slow down, time.

February goals:

• Post a wedding photography ad on CL every day — I really want to book more weddings for 2012 and 2013, and I know it may not be the best way, but I've shot my last two weddings based on responses to my Craigslist ad, and posting every day this month will help increase my visibility.
• Go to the farmers market every Saturday — I only went once in January (sadness!). I have a photo project to work on there, so that should be enough motivation. 
• Run at least 2, preferably 3x per week  — I am running a 5k in less than 3 weeks and I really don't want to embarrass myself. Plus, I have awesome new running shoes & am super excited!
• Finish cleaning my desk area — I started this in January but very much haven't finished.
• Do another magazine purge — Yeah, sort of the same thing, but downstairs.
• Go to sleep early & get up early — I really, really am going to stick with this in February. It's only 29 days long, so I shouldn't have a problem, right? ;)  But really, for serious. 
• Clean out/organize my dresser — I can't close multiple drawers now. Out of control! My hope is that people will nag me about this so that I finally get around to doing it. Obviously having all of January to do it wasn't nearly enough to get me motivated. 
• Stay healthy and don't get sick — Duh.
• Keep the house clean — Really need to do better at this in February. Thankfully I am planning to be home more, particularly on weekends, so this should be possible.
• Get astronomical at least once this month  — Come on, weather!
• Spend less on groceries — Really track grocery spending this month. No impulse buys. Meal planning?

I really do want to get in on the meal planning trend, actually. Especially since my husband has been pleading with me to meal plan ever since we got married in 2006. I've resisted pretty violently, just as I held out on having a to-do list (or "ball & chain" as I affectionately refer to it) for years until it became impossible to live my life without one. I know that being impulsive is in my nature, but it's obviously a fallacy that being impulsive brings freedom, because we all know by now that rules create a framework for creativity & freedom to blossom. I need to give this up, one of the last holdouts in my quest to be forever impulsive. I need to embrace meal planning, and hopefully I'll see that it's not the evil thing I think it is. Right?

I just don't know if I'm ready to do it this month. Maybe in March.

Yeah, I'm a meal planning commitment-phobe. You guys, I thrive on creative cooking. Why would I want to limit myself? Cooking and eating is not a chore to me. It's beautiful therapy, it's a cornerstone of my day. Doesn't meal planning make everything boring, mechanical and predictable? Please prove me wrong. ☆