18 Goals in 2018 | Final Check-In

As you may have noticed, blog content has been a little sparse these last few months. Life has been busy and I've been studying my tail off for one of my professional licensing exams. As of Monday, I'm happy to say that all that studying paid off because...I PASSED!!! It was absolutely the best way to end 2018, even if it did mean that my blogging fell by the wayside. 

If you'd like to get caught up, I posted my 18 Goals for 2018 after the last New Year and my last check-in was way back in June, so let's see what I managed in the last six months! 

PROFESSIONAL

1. Obtain a job that allows me to incorporate my blogging experience. COMPLETE! Okay, so blogging is completely irrelevant to my new job, but I'm back to work full-time and loving it so I'm crossing this one off the list!

READING

1. Read 42 books (36/42). FAILED. I did pretty well toward the beginning of the year, but as life got busier, reading was another thing that I just couldn't make a priority. This makes the second year in a row that I didn't completed my Goodreads Reading Challenge. (I think having two little boys will do that...)
2. Read 3 books published before 2000 (3/3). COMPLETE! In chronological order, I read The Great Gatsby (1925), Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your 20's and 30's (1996), and Tuesdays with Morrie (1997). I also read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1997), and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), but didn't include them in my count since they apply to my next goal...
3. Re-read the entire Harry Potter series (4/7). FAILED. For whatever reason, I decided to re-read the series completely out of order. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and the Deathly Hallows were the three I never managed to finish. 

FINANCIAL

1. Pay off a credit card (1/3). COMPLETE! We still have two cards to pay off (one of which is reeeeally close. But since my goal was just to pay off one, I'm counting this as a win!
2. Pay off medical bills from Crosby's birth (0/3). FAILED. We're so much closer to having all our medical bills paid off than at this time last year, but they're still a work in progress.
3. Complete our household budget every month (12/12). COMPLETE! Okay, technically I didn't complete a household budget every month. But I did create a really good system for staying on top of all our bills and tracking our debt snowball process on a monthly basis, so for my purposes- it counts.

BLOGGING

2017 was a phenomenal year for this little blog of mine, so I really wanted to keep the momentum going in 2018. I couldn't have foreseen how all of my life changes would impact my blogging, so suffice to say that this category was pretty much a fail. 

1. Earn over $2,500 from my blog. FAILED. Once I started working full-time again back in June, this was no longer a priority. I received $250 for a sponsored post I did back in May and that's virtually the only income I got from my blog in 2018.
2. Have a post receive 5000+ pageviews. COMPLETE! I actually had two of my Goldfish posts that garnered over 5,000 pageviews, but the overall winner was none other than Crosby's Moana-themed 2nd birthday party!
3. Meet another blogger friend in real life. FAILED. Nothing yet! Maybe next year?
4. Hit 1,000 Facebook and Instagram followers (604/1000 and 783/1000). FAILED. Although I got nowhere near my goal in terms of my social media reach, I did increase my numbers from last year. But also, like all my other blogging goals, this one stopped being a priority halfway through the year so I didn't put any real effort in.

HEALTH

1. Run a half marathon. FAILED. This is the one goal that I'm honestly really upset I didn't accomplish. I was doing soooo good with my training and managed to fit in a few 10-mile runs in preparation for the Half Marathon I signed up for in July. However, about a week before the race, due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to start running my Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings by myself and had to skip the race. Fortunately, I requested to defer my race sign-up until next year so I didn't lose all my money, but I really lost motivation after that and since I was also working two jobs, I just couldn't keep up with my training. I don't know if I'll realistically be able to run my race in July 2019, but I sure would love to try!

HOME
Making our house a home is just about my favorite thing to do in the world. I'm so excited that I managed to complete all three of my house goals for 2018. I hope I can keep the streak going next year!

1. Paint and finish decorating our master bedroom. COMPLETE! I haven't posted any pictures like I intended to because I still have a shelf to hang and maybe a few little touches to put on the walls, but for all intents and purposes, my bedroom is finally painted and no longer sporting bare walls.
2. Install railing on our front porch. COMPLETE! I received a bonus check in the fall and managed to strong-arm Chuck in to putting it toward installing a railing on our front porch right before Halloween so we wouldn't have trick-or-treaters tumbling down our steps!
3. Paint and finish decorating our living room. COMPLETE! There are little things here and there that I'd still like to add or change, but I got our living room to a place where I'm really content with it. Check out my Living Room tour!

TRAVEL

1. Take the boys to Sesame Place or Planet Snoopy. FAILED. I thought we might try to fit this in on our East Coast-trip in June for my friend's wedding, but we just didn't have time. We'll make it happen eventually!
2. Have a kid-free weekend getaway. FAILED. Although we did have a kid-free overnight trip to Louisville for our anniversary, I'm not counting it because we were there less than 24 hours. 
3. Have a girls' weekend for my 30th birthday. COMPLETE! One of my college besties had her bachelorette party in Ocean City, NJ the weekend after my birthday, so I bought myself a plane ticket and enjoyed an absolutely fantastic girls weekend! Check out My 30th Birthday + Laura's Bachelorette Party recap!

TOTAL GOALS COMPLETED: 9/18

Stay tuned for my 2019 goals- I've got some good ones!