2010 Goals Wrap-up!

I am so thankful for this blog, if only as a way to keep me accountable to my goals.  As you may remember, last year at about this time I wrote up my Goals for 2010.  I have looked back at that post countless times.  This year I might just print it off my future post on Goals for 2011 and post it near my fridge for easy access.  Here's the wrap up on how each of my goals went:

Spiritual:

• I did actually read through the entire old testament once and the new testament twice.  This was quite the under taking and I have to admit that I would get very behind and then play catchup.  Either way, it really kept me reading and studying the Word.  I find that reading through the entire Bible helps me see the amazing way that everything is connected.
• My husband and I took a class at our church last spring, but I have to admit that after a while we quit going.  We didn't realize that it was a DVD series and it ended up causing more marital strife than what it was worth.  I would end up staying to late at school and then we would be running late which would cause lots of stress for my husband.  I only include these details because I want others to know that sometimes a good thing is not a good thing for everyone.  Anyway, this last fall we did successfully go to a class that was wonderful for us.  I had to rearrange my schedule at school, but then it worked and was a blessing!

Personal:

• The BEST goal of last year was to visit with each set of grandparents at least once a month.  This has completely changed our relationship with some of our grandparents.  I know this is not doable for everyone, but I highly suggest investing this bit of time.  I admit that we might have missed a visit to grandparent every now and then, but even though we missed some we still visited many times more than we did the year before.  I can't even describe how wonderful fulfilling this goal has been!
• I still have not had extended family over for dinner:(.  Just called me a scared Sally!
• I did read The Millionaire Next Door and would highly recommend it to anyone!
• I didn't do such a good job at exercising twice a week.  However, this summer I ran a lot and actually ran up to 3 miles without stopping!  Woot woot!

Education:

• I did not take any Master's classes.  There are many reasons for this that I may write about at some point, main thing is its ok that I didn't take any.
• I did read How the Brain Learns Mathematics.  It was fairly interesting.
• I don't know whether I have tried one new hands on lesson a week.  This year I have been teaching new classes, working with other teachers who have taught these classes to create a new curriculum that takes into account the shifting order of classes for students, we are in the process of textbook adoption so there has been a lot involved with that, I have been improving my communication with parents, working on my classroom website, and also revamping how we assess our students.  Furthermore, due to budget cuts my classes have nearly doubled in size which makes me wary of things that require a lot of moving around (not enough space!).  Needless to say, all of that has been taking TONS of my time, so I always do my best to create "curious" lessons, but whether every week there is a "hands on" lesson, I don't know.
• I did not take any online Spanish classes.  I have taken quite a bit of Spanish, so a lot of the online stuff was a bit too low level.  I've really been thinking about investing in a few used Rosetta Stone disks.  We'll see though.

Blog:

• I did not really do any of my blog goals.  Somewhere through the year I realized that I was taking up husband/family/student time to write in this blog.  I decided that I needed to reorganize my priorities, and so this blog is completely back burner.  I can definitely see myself doing more with it in the future, but for now, it is really a way for me to be kept accountable:).

Financial:

• My husband traded in his small truck and this really really old truck and finally bought his dream kind of new truck.  It is exactly what he wanted.  He had been looking for years for this truck (he was looking at this truck when we were dating!).  We're lucky in that he does not have to drive very far to work, so this truck should last him a long time.  It will be handy in the future when we build our house.  Needless to say, we did not technically meet our financial goals:
• 2010 Small Goal: 89%  Actual:  72%  Started at: 48%
• 2010 Large Goal: 59.3%  Actual:  48.4%  Started at:  32%
• Good news!  Being the math person that I am I calculated the cost of the truck as a percent of the goal, and figured that we actually were saving at a higher rate per month than my goal rate.  I consider this goal met!

Stay tuned for 2011 Goals!