Welcome 2019! While I can't say that 2018 was a cakewalk, at least compared to other recent years it wasn't all bad. (Some of the bad things in 2018 I just think of as continuations of bad things that happened a few years ago... namely in or around November 2016).
Time to check in on how I did on my goals from last year!
Health goals:
Another successful Dry January (these actually seem to get easier the older I get). On exercise - I did pretty good on the arm exercises for about 1/3 of the year (January, February, June, and parts of March and July) and I got 5000 steps in more often than not. I also naturally get a lot of stair climbing in at work, so that helps. And I did actually lose 15 lbs so that realistic goal was actually pretty spot-on! I gained a few pounds back at the end of the year, but still ended up at an overall loss for the year so I count that as a win. I didn't monitor my blood pressure as regularly as I should have, but for the most part it's been good (losing weight certainly helps!). I still didn't get an eye exam, but I did sign up for the vision insurance at the annual enrollment in 2018 so I at least made movement towards getting it done.
Home stuff:
Still some things that need tending to at the apartment that I haven't put in work orders for, but the big thing this year was that they finally replaced my air conditioner! I can't believe how much my electricity bills dropped after that... I also still need to take some stuff to Half Price and the creative reuse place. I did get a batch of stuff out to the charity shops though, but there is still more! And although I didn't put it down as a specific goal, I did finally put some shelving in my storage space and organized it a little better.
Digital stuff:
I'm still working on updating old passwords and clearing out old accounts and adding 2FA, but I did get quite a bit done. It's just that I have a lot of old accounts around! (And who knows how many more may be out there from the days before I started using 1Password).
Financial goals:
I ended the year with less debt than I started it with, so that's always good! I did reduce my monthly bills, especially right at the end of the year when I finally dumped my old cable/internet/phone plan and switched over to AT&T fiber internet which they installed in our complex over the summer. I'm not quite sure how much I'm going to save yet, but I know it will be cheaper than what I was paying. And oh sooooo much faster! I also did pretty good on reducing the impulse shopping, but I still could use a little more will power in that arena.
Entertainment:
I set my Goodreads goal for 20 books since I was planning to clear out a huge backlog of other things and I did meet that goal (actually went over by a couple). And on the backlog - I completely caught up on reading BBC History magazine, cleared out the podcast backlog, and finally watched all of those final seasons of TV shows that I hadn't gotten around to. (Pro tip - watching a bunch of series finales in a short amount of time is a great way to put yourself through the emotional wringer). I didn't listen to the few non-Audible audiobooks, but I did mostly catch up on the backlog of most of the YouTube shows I subscribe to. (There are still a couple that I didn't finish.) About the only thing I didn't really make a dent in is all of the games in my Steam library and on my iPad. And I still have a bunch of unread comic books but I keep chipping away at the pile.
So, all-in-all, I'm pretty happy with the stuff I managed to accomplish in 2018!
Now, on to the goals for 2019!
Health goals:
Pretty much the same - Dry January, continue to monitor blood pressure, try for semi-regular arm exercises and step count goals and keep losing weight. If I could lose another 15 by the end of the year (for a total of 30 from the high that I started from on June 1, 2018), that would be good. I'd be happier with even more if I could actually keep it off! And I WILL get an eye exam this year!
Home, digital, and financial:
Again, pretty much the same - get some lingering small repairs done, take stuff to Half Price, continue updating old digital accounts, and finish the year with less debt than I started with. (One possible exception to this last one will be if I end up buying a new car in 2019 - that will mostly depend on how long my current car holds out.) One new thing I'm going to add is to finally take a serious stab at properly organizing my digital photos and uploading more to Flickr.
Entertainment:
I set my Goodreads challenge to 25 this year since I'll probably get more audiobook listening in. And overall I've decided this will be the year of Star Wars! Since Episode IX will be coming out this year, I figured it would be a good time to finally catch up with some unread expanded universe books (both new stuff and a few older, now non-canon, things), comic series, and the Clone Wars and Rebels animated series. And I'm going to continue chipping away at my comics backlog (which includes a fair amount of Star Wars, so that will cross off two things at once). I also hope to get back into stitching and cooking a bit more, which I had kind of started to do in the latter half of 2018. Now I've got to keep it going!
I got a nice paper daily calendar/journal from a co-worker for Christmas so I'm going to write down some of these things as I do them, even though most of them are also recorded digitally in a variety of places. But it will be kind of nice to have it all in one physical place as well. I anticipate a very busy year at work, so balancing all of the above things with that work is going to be tricky. I earn a whole lot of vacation time now because I've been at UT for so long, so I need to try to start taking the occasional day off here and there more instead of trying for larger chunks (which can be quite impractical in my current job). Although some of those individual days are hard to do too sometimes!
Those are the main things I can think of right now so.... 2019 - let's do this!