January Report Card 2014

As my four readers (we few, we faithful few, we band of brothers sisters...) may or may not remember, at the beginning of January I made a wildly optimistic list of goals for the month which I had moderate hopes of accomplishing. Well, January has flown by and it’s time to evaluate my goal-keeping efforts during the past month. In the words of Inigo Montoya: "Humiliation galore."

Blog 2-3 Times Per Week | A+
To my complete surprise, snow storms and all, I actually wrote 2-3 posts per week for a whole month. Hooray! This might have been a painful triumph for whoever suffered through the reading of them, but hopefully persistence counts for something. :) Since this is one of my few victories and I'm making up my own grades (mwahaha) I'm going to live it up and give myself an A+.

Read the Bible Daily | A
Will and I managed to keep to our “Read the Bible in a Year Plan” for an entire month! Sometimes this meant reading at midnight, and we each had our days of cajoling the other to read when we felt like going to bed, but we made it. I missed two days of my individual reading and marking through Proverbs, but we did read aloud together every day, so I’ll call that an A.

Journal Daily | F
I wrote one entry during the entire month. It read as follows:

“1 January 2014
Happy New Year!”

Clearly a very astute observation, and a really worth-while sentiment to share with posterity.
With this one, I really just have to laugh.

Bust the Clutter | C+
I de-cluttered our front room (including the especially daunting task of sorting through the mountain of paperwork and letters that had accumulated on Will’s desk) and made progress in the dining area and den, but this definitely still needs work. Good effort but need for improvement... C+.

Read Four Books | B
This month I ended up having more time to read than usual, so although I didn't quite finish, I was actually pretty close. This month I read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (a slow-paced read, but interesting) and Cinder by Marissa Meyer (a fast-paced young adult novel based on Cinderella, set in a dystopian future where she is a cyborg from the moon... not my usual fare but I couldn't put it down), and listened to Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (always good) on audiobook while doing chores around the house. I'm only a few pages away from finishing Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage by Robert Farrar Capon (took me a chapter or two to get into, but Will and I have had a wonderful time reading and talking through it) so I'm going to be lenient here and give myself a B. I really enjoyed them all and am looking forward to next month's books. :)

Finish Writing Thank You Notes | D
I've written and mailed half of the Christmas thank you notes but still have a few left to write, and have a mountain of wedding ones to wade into. A tiny amount of progress, but I really need to get cracking on this goal as my top priority this month. It isn't a very difficult task, just an overwhelming one, and it weighs on my mind. I should probably make dinner ahead one day and just tie myself to a chair until I finish. Stay tuned....

Have Dinner Ready When Will Gets Home | B
This goal was a bit hard to measure. Some nights we had to eat later or were away from home, so overall it was difficult to keep track. I definitely had dinner ready and waiting more nights than I had previously, however, so I’m going to give myself a B for Noticeable Improvement.

Overall Grade | B-

Not shocking, considering my lofty aspirations and over-enthusiastic New Years zeal, so I'm actually not too disappointed. However, this leaves lots of room for improvement as I sally forth into the next month hopefully a tad wiser from lessons learned (though probably not much). The beauty of the monthly goal plan is that even if you have a disastrous month, a new one comes along in a few weeks where you can start fresh with just as much excitement, hope, and good intention.

Speaking of next month, I should have my February Goals up later this week. Do you all have any goals you'd like to complete in the coming month? I'd love to hear about them!