2021 goals

Hello friends. Once again I haven’t felt like sitting down and typing up a blog post after being on the computer all day for work, but it’s the weekend now and I think it’s about time I posted my goals for the year! Once again, I’m splitting them up into sections.

Reading goals

Read 104 books (Good Reads challenge goal). That probably sounds like a strange number. It’s two a week, which seems sensible. Of these:

• 10 should be non-fiction – I failed at this again last year but I’m giving it another go.
• 20 should be from the BBC Big Read list – I only managed 2 last year and I’m way behinf, do I am upping my game.
• 52 should have been physically on my to-read shelf before the year started – I have way too many unread books that I really should be getting to before buying even more! I think making half of the books I read ones I already own seems fair.
• 6 should be in German – I only managed to read one book in German last year. Six is such a small number, but it means I only need to read one every two months. Surely that’s doable!
• 24 should be rereads of books I already own and need to read again before deciding whether to keep them (the aim here being to hopefully clear some space on my shelves). That’s only two rereads a month – there’s really no reason I shouldn’t be able to manage that!

Cleaning goals

Deep clean once per month. I actually did really well with this last year so I want to continue. This will include:

• Cleaning the bathrooms/kitchen including mopping the floors
• Changing the bedding
• Cleaning the oven (at least using the “cleaning” function even if I don’t manage to wipe it down)
• Washing the dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher
• Hoovering and dusting the entire flat
• Taking away recycling, etc. as needed

Some of those things obviously need doing more than once a month, but the aim is to have one day/weekend a month where everything is done and the flat actually looks semi-decent.

Health goals

• Have at least one portion of fruit or veg with lunch (a glass of juice or a smoothie counts). I haven’t been doing this so far – because I only just thought of it – but starting from February I’ll give it a go. I failed at having fruit/veg with every meal last year but maybe I can at least manage to have some with lunch? And we always have vegetables with dinner so that should increase my intake at least a little bit.
• No more than two cups of black tea per day. I started doing this because cutting down on caffeine is supposed to help with fertility and will continue until I successfully give birth to a living child.
• Drink at least two pint glasses of water per day. Last year I forgot I had made this goal and I’m not sure whether I consistently managed it. Trying again this year.
• Go for a walk once a week. I actually managed this last year! There were only 2 weeks that I didn’t go for a walk (with good reasons) and since there were also weeks that I managed more than two it balanced out well. So I will be keeping it up this year. I should really think about getting some other form of exercise as well, but we’ll start with the walking and go from there.

Social/life goals

• Write at least two pen pal letters every month. I did a reasonable job with this last year – in September I only managed one letter, but I wrote at least two every other month. Having this goal definitely helped me keep on top of things and not leave people waiting months for a reply so I’m going to keep it up this year.

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com

Learning goals

• Go on Duolingo at least once a week. I asked Jan to think of a goal for me and he suggested a language one, so this is what I’ve come up with. Again, I haven’t actually been doing it ye because I’ve only just come up with it, but starting from February I will give it a go!
• Learn to crochet. Last year I made myself a goal to take an in-person class/course and the one I was going to do was crochet… but then the pandemic started before I could sign up. I still want to learn to crochet and I’ve already bought a book so I’ll be trying to teach myself this year. Wish my luck!

And that’s it. They all seem achievable and, for the most part, fun. (Not the cleaning ones. Cleaning will never be fun, but will always need to be done).

Do you have any goals for the year? Is there anything new you want to learn while you’re being forced to stay at home? Let me know!

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Brain dump

This is one of those posts where I choose the bullet point option then just spill whatever thoights are buzzing round in my brain that aren’t enough to make an entire blog post by themselves. Basically, it’s one big confusing mess. Here goes…

• I recently received a letter from my favourite penpal (yes, I’m in my 30s and have penpals. Don’t judge!) saying she doesn’t want to write to me anymore. Apparently she doesn’t like the style of my letters because she wants to have a “conversation” with her penpals and she doesn’t get that with me (this is me translating – we write wrote 😦 to each other in German). I suppose it’s mainly my fault because I keep getting busy/distracted and not writing for ages, which makes it difficult to keep up a conversation. And also I guess I fail just as much at conversation on paper as in real life. Oh well, I’d just better try harder with my remaining penpals!
• Our Biomüll bin was full recently so Jan decided to throw some banana skins in the normal rubbish (people in Germany – that’s actually allowed here!). The bin was still almost empty at the time and still isn’t full so now I’m attacked by a swarm of fruit flies every time I open the bin. I am never buying bananas again!! I don’t even like them that much…
• Autumn is coming!! At least the supermarkets think it is. I walked into Coop the other day and the first thing I spotted was pumpkins. I *may* have got a little overexcited and immediately picked up a butternut squash despite the fact that I’d only gone in for milk, cream and bacon, parmesan and bacon bits. Time to have pumpkin with 90% of my meals again! Om nom nom. (I am also in the processing of cooking chestnuts in caramel sauce for lunch – autumn, you bring the best foods!)
  
• Remembering how long it took my last year, I decided to start my Christmas cross stitching last week. How are there only 16 weeks until Christmas?!
• We were looking at flights last night for our trip to England in October and I realised I haven’t been home for over a year – and that was only the briefest of brief visits for my grandpa’s funeral. That’s more than a year since I’ve seen my dad, grandma and little brother! Crazy! (I saw my other brother, my mum and my sister at the wedding in July, but obviously only my mum’s side of the family attended that).
• Our tickets for The Lion King musical arrived! We go the day after tomorrow. Excitement!

Right, that’s all. I need to eat my lunch now… then it’s back to work for me. I have loads to do this afternoon.

This has been your mid-week catch up. Or something. Goodbye!