I reread my post about my aspirations for this year, and holy cats I crack myself up. Like, some of the things are just ludicrous and others I completely forgot about and others (GALLERY WALL) are just permanent ridiculous features on this list. This is why I do this, not necessarily because I am a goal-oriented person, but because it is so fun and funny to me to see what was important at the beginning of the year vs. at the end.
Personal
Aspiration: Read 50 books. Complete! In 2022, I read 86 books! Woo!
Aspiration: Work out 5 days a week. Incomplete. 2022 was my worst year ever for exercise. My feet hurt and I felt very sorry for myself and just sat around like a grumpy lump.
Aspiration: Read a poem every day. Incomplete. I was good about this for several months and then just… stopped. I am not a very consistent person.
Aspiration: Buy some new shirts that make me feel cute and not like a slob. Incomplete. I returned the shirts I got before I wrote this post and once again find myself lamenting the lack of cute shirts – particularly shirts that are date-night worthy. I need to correct this.
Aspiration: Come up with a workable weekly schedule. Incomplete. My schedule is even worse this year than it was last year, with the addition of all of Carla’s extracurriculars.
Aspiration: Try baked oatmeal. Complete! I did try baked oatmeal and I did not like it.
Reach Aspiration: Leave my phone upstairs unless I leave the house. Incomplete. Hahahahaha. I totally forgot about this one.
Family
Aspiration: Eat more vegetables. Incomplete. I don’t think I achieved this in any shape or form. Is it possible that we eat fewer vegetables than a year ago? Perhaps.
Aspiration: Do more non-screen things together. Complete-ish, with room to improve. We played games, we went on a road trip, we did lots of skiing, we did a few bike rides, we visited a few museums. We can do more, though.
Aspiration: Do less “forcing” of my will on the family. Incomplete. I had to laugh tenderly at this aspiration, because reading this goal, and absorbing the frustrated/resentful energy that emanated off of it, it was so clear that my lack of Christmas spirit and my annual holiday overwhelm coupled with yet another open-ended school closure had just pushed me right over the edge.
Aspiration: Go on some dates with my husband. Complete-ish? I think my bar was “three,” and my husband and I have gone on… three, maybe? Or was it four? And one overnight trip to a local resort?
Reach Aspiration: Have friends over for dinner. Complete! We had one set of family friends over for dinner in 2022! Now that our ceiling has been repaired and I am not so embarrassed by our kitchen, perhaps we will have friends over again! (Probably it will be the same family.)
Reach Aspiration: Stop treating Carla’s needs as if they are mine. Incomplete. I did not do very well on this. In fact, I think I kind of forgot about it and even re-reading what I wrote last year, I’m having a little trouble understanding exactly what I meant.
Work/Finance
Aspiration: Revise my manuscript and start querying agents. Complete! I revised the manuscript, started querying, and got one request for a full and one request for a partial and many, many nos. But it’s a start!
Aspiration: Finish my second manuscript. Incomplete. I did not do this. In fact, I did the opposite which was to start another manuscript and get completely distracted by that one.
Aspiration: Get a financial advisor. Complete! We got a financial advisor, handed over a big chunk of our savings, and he is Doing Things. It’s been pretty much the absolute worst year in more than a decade for investing of all kinds though, so it’s been fun. (No.) Love reading that monthly statement and seeing our principle dwindle. (No.)
Reach Aspiration: Take a writing class. Complete. I took a very short class about query writing that turned out to be kind of a dud. But I did it. I’d like to take a more structured, traditional class about writing short stories this year. Maybe.
Home/Property
Aspiration: Install a gallery wall in the living room. Incomplete. This item will be on the list forever and ever and ever. We were so busy with the craft room last year when my husband was off and could actually help that we did not do anything about the gallery wall then. While he was home for a week this winter break, I raised it to him as a possible project and he had forgotten that he’d ever agreed to do it. ARGH. Maybe I just need to give up on this one? Despite everyone’s very good and reasonable ideas every time I bring up the gallery wall project, I cannot do it without my husband. I just can’t; he must be a part of it. And if he’s not going to participate, then it’s not going to happen.
Aspiration: Hire someone to redo our ceiling and paint our trim. Half complete! I did hire someone to come out and fix our ceiling! And he did indeed do that! The several handymen sorts of people I had over to quote us on painting the trim never called me back though, so that needs to be sorted at a later time.
Aspiration: Hire someone to fix our fridge. As complete as it can be! I did find someone to come out and look at our fridge. Turns out, he couldn’t fix it because our fridge is awful and cannot be fixed! Woo hoo! For reference, our fridge is a GE but made by Samsung. It has a GE logo on it, so when I made the appointment, I told the receptionist that it was a GE fridge. As soon as the service person arrived and realized that it is a Samsung fridge, he said, “I can’t fix this. I wouldn’t have come out here if I had known in advance that it is a Samsung, because I have experience with this kind of fridge and it is unfixable.” He did decline to charge me the service fee just for showing up, which was nice. And then he gave me a very detailed and maddening backstory about why our fridge is the way that it is. (Has to do with the type of cooling system Samsung uses in their fridges, which is very complicated but in a nutshell sucks and causes all sorts of issues including but not limited to the ones we have been having. There has been at least one class action lawsuit against Samsung for the issue, according to the service person, but as I understand it, there have been no major consequences so Samsung continues to manufacture the exact same type of fridge and produce the exact same type of problems.) He also made a couple of suggestions about how to temporarily alleviate the issue (empty it completely, let it sit unplugged for three days), which we tried, and which worked, but was indeed very temporary. So. We still have the fridge, it’s still a piece of crap, but at the time of this writing – I realize anything could change at any time – it cools and holds a lot of food and is very beautiful so we haven’t shelled out the thousands of dollars that replacing it would require.
Aspiration: Clean our basement and finalize a craft space for Carla. Complete! This happened! Carla uses it on the regular! I promise I will post about it in more detail.
Reach Aspiration: PAINT THE BASEBOARDS MY GOD IT HAS BEEN 11 YEARS. Year Twelve, still green, baby!
By my count, that’s half complete and half incomplete. Since these were aspirations and not set-in-stone goals, I am happy to celebrate the successes and shrug at the things that weren’t a big enough priority to address in 2022. But some of these may make an appearance on my 2023 list… we’ll see.
I would celebrate any aspirations you completed, even partially. You can jettison the ones that no longer fit and roll over the ones you still want to work on. For years (possibly decades) I wanted new paint, flooring upstairs in the hallway and new chandeliers but work and my husband’s terminal illness derailed those plans. Then it was finding a reliable painter/handyman. Finally, it all fell into place and although I waited way longer than I wanted to, most of my goals are accomplished. MOST because there are always things to do in a house–several upstairs rooms still need painting and I have old carpet in the living room and a couple bedrooms. Now I’ve overwhelmed myself! LOL
I love this attitude, Margaret!
I am also working on cute shirts. It is not going well. I have bought some plain black and gray ones which I am wearing with necklaces so maybe that counts a little? I have no idea.
We are also considering a financial advisor. My mom got one and he wants to manage our money too and maybe that’s an easy way to do it? This seems like an adult decision and I keep looking around for some adult to make this decision for me, someone who is clearly not qualified.
I have been working on a weekly schedule. So far it is: Paperwork Monday, Whole House Clean Tuesday, Errands Wednesday, Organizing Thursday, and Long Term Project Friday. I am doing excellent on Monday-Wednesday and I haven’t done Thursday or Friday even one time. Maybe eventually.
Your schedule sounds amazing and I would also like you to pass on any cute shirt recs please and thank you.
The financial advisor thing is SO STRESSFUL. How do people do this?
My favorite shirts so far are Barefoot Dreams ones, usually Malibu Collection and only on sale or clearance because yikes. And I wandered into a Banana Republic a month or two ago and got a gray fitted shirt which is very plain but also very soft and it somehow has a nice cut to it? But I’m utterly failing at like a source of good shirts. I’ve only managed to piece together a few random ones that I’ve found and they aren’t even nice shirts, just ones that work for me somehow.
Celebrate the successes and even the half successes. That was a mighty big aspiration list; so celebrate the wins.
Thanks, Gigi!!
I think you had some incredible wins this year! The craft room! The fridge, though frustrating, is still working! Fixing the ceiling, starting the query process, financial advisor – all such good things and such HUGE things! So yay for you!
Wow, wasn’t Jan 22 such a bleak and hopeless time. I am so glad we all made it through.
We have come so, so far, Nicole. I feel like giving Past Us such a big hug.
Strangely, I tried overnight oats for the first time this morning; oof, not my texture. I love the word “aspiration” vs. “goal” – it’s less of a checklist and more hopeful!
Hahahaha – yes, I agree with that entirely. I went with baked oatmeal because I thought it would resolve some of the textural issues I have with oatmeal… but it just wasn’t for me.
I think it is great that you are working with an advisor! But yes, the markets are horrible. That is the industry I work in so it’s what I think and talk about day in and day out. 2022 was so brutal. But we’ve added to the kids 529s at much more attractive prices so I am focusing on that. And we only look at our account balances quarterly and kind of in a very low key “how much have we lost this quarter” kind of way. But we are young and have a long time for things to rebound so try to focus on that and don’t get too depressed (easier said than done, I know!). Anyways, I’ll step off my finance soap box now. 😉
It is helpful for me to see that dates are tough for you guys to plan as well. I hear of others doing like weekly dates and I think – HOW!! Or even monthly would be a stretch for us. But I find hiring a babysitter to be challenging, especially with our pandemic baby who is oh so sensitive to care providers. I know they would adapt and be fine but I don’t know that the incessant screaming I’d hear when we leave for a date would be worth the time away?? But we are going to try for quarterly dates in 2023!!
Since you and I are (I think) exactly the same age, the idea that we are young and have a long time for things to rebound is extremely comforting. And yes, dates are tough! I hope you find a babysitter that you and the kids love.
Green baseboards!! That’s hilarious (and not a colour I’ve ever seen before on baseboards). Sounds like the previous owner’s had some interesting painting techniques and colour selections.
I’m actually making baked oatmeal today. My husband doesn’t like it, but the kids and I think it tastes like a soft, delicious, fluffy oat cookie (I use 1/2 the sugar the recipe calls for; I bet if I went whole hog, they’d love it even more)!
The entire wall used to be the same green, which I think makes it LESS weird, but still not UNweird, because who paints the baseboards???
Congrats on all the aspirations achieved! That was quite a list.
Thanks, Steph!
This fridge situation sounds dire. So are you just waiting for the day when it just absolutely stops working? Can you continue to empty it and leave it empty for three days as a fix? Where do you put all your food during that time? Do you throw it out? I’m finding myself verklempt thinking about this fridge issue. Please give me more details about how this is working out.
I fully expect it to quit working at any time. I think the bigger issue is the possibility that it could ruin our kitchen, but I think (I HOPE) that we are tuned in enough to its quirks that we would notice it immediately. The one time we did the fridge clean was after our road trip. We had barely any food in there anyway, since we were gone for two weeks, and prior to leaving I think I tried really hard to eat the stuff in our freezer. We have a smaller fridge in the basement, so I moved a bunch of things down there, but I really threw out a lot. There was a bunch of old, expired jarred stuff in the fridge and frozen meat that was probably no longer good. It was really nice to be able to completely clean the fridge though. It was SO CLEAN. I would love to do it again, but I don’t know how easy it would be, considering that both upstairs and downstairs freezers are usually full. The fridge repair person also said we could try using a hair dryer on the panel at the back of the fridge to thaw it out, but my concern would be that we would overheat the plastic and damage it somehow. I don’t know. We just need a new fridge. It’s just such an expensive purchase, and I am also finicky about what the fridge looks like, and my husband (who is not the one who cleans the ice out of the bottom of the fridge on the regular) doesn’t care as much, so… probably we will end up having an emergency and needing a fridge immediately. FUN.
Well, at least you made a much more elaborate list than me – haha. I think you did pretty good. Some things are just out of our control and some things are just – aspirational and you might get to them or you might not. You never know how a year plays out in advance.
The fridge situation is so frustrating – esp. when it has a GE logo, but it a Samsung built. Silly!
I think Samsung bought GE a few years ago? Or maybe just their appliance business? They still maintain separate brands, but fridges, I believe, are all under the Samsung umbrella.
Well, I read your 2023 list before reading this, so I knew exactly which ones were going to make a reappearance. Funny thing- I read this post and turned to my husband and asked “What kind of fridge do we have?” SAMSUNG. Is your problem that periodically it will start to make a sound like a helicopter is landing in your kitchen? The first guy who came out told is it was our fault for loading it too full, but by the fourth time, a different guy admitted that it’s not us, it’s the fridge. We have to take everything out and completely thaw the back panel- I’ve used a hair dryer. Anyway… let me know when we can join in the class action lawsuit.
Sounds like you had success on several important items, so it was a good year!
IT’S THE FRIDGE, NOT YOU JENNY. I am sad that we have similar fridge issues. Our problem is that the entire bottom of the fridge (under the deli sliding tray) fills with water which then freezes. Also, the ice machine and water dispenser both stopped working. Also, the electrical panel is out of whack so the fridge constantly makes musical noises at us.
I remember when my kids were younger realizing that I had to stop reacting as if things that happened to them were happening to me again at the same age – like, I would both sympathize and empathize, but I had to be the parent, not the newly-affected child, if that makes any sense.
That was an extremely ambitious list, and I’m impressed at how much headway you made. I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, but Aspirations is a nice way to think of it.
I actually found a couple of cute shirts that aren’t my regular style this year, bought them AND WORE THEM.
The fridge thing? Sounds horrifying.
The baseboards? You don’t even want to know how long we’ve lived here and the baseboards have seen not a lick of paint.
You have accomplished SO much this past year–kuddos to you! You make me *almost* want to make a list for myself for 2023, just to see if I can get anything done.
I did fall down the Green Wall Rabbit Hole and I’m concerned about the green baseboards. Suzanne, my friend, how do you live with them? Are you wearing blinders in that room? 😜😉
You accomplished so much this year! Even getting to the querying stage is a feat I have never accomplished so KUDOS, friend.
I know you have mentioned before that consistency is hard for you, which is why goals like “read poetry every day” don’t work for you. I don’t have any grand ideas for this, but just something that jumped out at me to consider how to set aspirations that aren’t tied to consistency. Like making a weekly schedule probably won’t work for you because you rebel at consistency like that, so maybe it’s not “I do X thing on Monday, X thing on Tuesday” but rather a list of things to complete throughout the week and every day you pick a few things to complete based on how you’rE feeling. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD. I am trying not to be an ass-vice giver, but I just want everyone to set goals that appeal to the way their brain operates. (I, too, need to understand this.)
Secondly, I really wish I could just come to your house so we could tackle that gallery wall together. I would LOVE to do that! Have you considered hiring someone off TaskRabbit to help you with it? I’m sure there are people who could do it! (Or maybe you really want to do this with your husband, so please disregard if I am again speaking out of my ass.)