Goals 2022 Update #2

And just like that half the year is over.  Seriously, this year has gone by so fast.  I must be getting old, mainly because I've started talking about how fast time is going.  There's been a few not great things going on in this quarter, though at least we had a nice thing in our wedding, which has made concentrating on reaching our goals a little less of a priority than they might otherwise have be.  That being said, we've still managed to make some progress and I still feel that things are going pretty well.

Financial Fitness

The plan for this quarter was for me to have paid into my pension every pay day for six months, which I've managed to do, and for us to have saved up half of our four months emergency savings, which we have also managed to do.  I'm very proud of us for that and hopefully we can keep this going for the rest of the year.  It definitely feels like we're actually doing well on this front.  I've also put a lot of thought into what type of secondary income I could do.  It's mostly crafting type of things, but I now really need to experiment with these so that I can work out what would actually suit me best.

My plan for the next quarter is to have a good look at more ethical banks to move my own current account to.  It really is time that I took this step.  I also want to use this quarter to really look at the secondary income ideas to see how much of a possibility these could be.  It will entail me having to find the additional time to do it, but it should also be fun and hopefully worth it in the long run.  The last goal for this quarter financially is to have paid into my pension every pay day.  This could be the first year that I actually manage to do this for a full years pay.

Sailing Around the World

The plan for this quarter was to research what type of boat we would like and what would be suitable for just two people to sail and live in.

This coming quarter I want to research about electric motors for sail boats and all the components that you need to have to make this actually work.  Whilst electric motors on boats aren't common they're also not completely rare either so it should be easy to find out about them.  I also want to look at actually booking our sailing lessons so we can see if this really is a viable thing.  However, we will have to see how the finances are doing first before we think about that.

Long-distance Walking

There wasn't anything for us to do on this goal this quarter as we're not really going to do any of these until our financial goals are reached.  However, we have started looking at Offa's Dyke as something for us to do next year.  There aren't any goals for this next quarter either, but if we do have any spare time I think I'll keep researching Offa's Dyke.

Learning New Skills

I was meant to have practiced skateboarding at least twice a month this quarter, but it really hasn't happened......at all.  It really is just getting myself out the door that's the problem.  If I could just get myself to do that it would be fine, but it's just so much easier (with less possibilities of breaking something) to be lazy.  I'm not giving up on this yet though, so next quarter I want to aim for at least once a month.  You never know, it could happen.

The last goal was surfing.  I had no plans on this for this quarter either, but I do want to at least start lessons in the coming quarter.  For my birthday my husband brought me a gift card for a local surfing school, so I'm going to use this to book us a private lesson.  We can then take it from there.

All in all it's been a mixed bag when it comes to reaching our goals.  The main one this year was the finances and we're doing well on that front so I'm happy.  If we can get the other goals to follow that would be good and, seeing as there is still half a year to go, that is entirely possible.  I just need to concentrate a bit more and maybe 'relax' a little less.

Goals for 2022

I don't think I'll be alone in saying that 2021 didn't exactly go to plan.  In fact, if you read my last blog you'll see that my financial goals really didn't go to plan at all.  This was partly because I just got tired in the second half of the year and couldn't motivate myself to carry on with these goals, but I also think that it was partly because they weren't connected to any long term goals, which meant I didn't have much of an incentive to complete them.

So, what are my long term goals:

• Financial fitness - which is basically the same goal I've had for the last few years, but, whilst we've been very lucky in being able to work these last couple of years, this pandemic has made me very aware of how important building some financial security is.  It would also allow us to carry out the other long term goals we have that are much more enjoyable.
• Sail around the world - I've always wanted to do this and it is very possibly a goal that will never happen.  However, I thought it might be worth aiming for something big and at the very least we might be able to sail to some other countries.  With the way travel is at the moment (and even how it had become before Covid 19) this has also now become a much more enticing option.  It would be good if we could sail to New Zealand and back - and yes, technically that would be around the world but not if the return journey was the same as the outwards journey.  I had always had the attitude before that this would basically be an impossible goal, but now I'm thinking I should just give it a go.  If it doesn't work out it doesn't work out, but at least I can say I tried.
• Long-distance walks in the UK - there are so many multiple-day walks in the UK we really want to do and will hopefully be filling our future with. Not only is it something we love doing, but I feel that it's a really good way of getting to know the different areas of the UK.  
• Keep learning new skills - I've put this in firstly because I enjoy learning something new, but also because it's important for brain health to keep it as active as possible.  It can also come in handy if you learn something useful.  What I have in mind for this year isn't exactly helpful, but it should hopefully be fun.

And that brings me to my 2022 goals.

Financial Fitness.

I'm going to attempt this again, but this time I'm going to keep in mind not only the long term financial security but all the other things this will help us achieve.  By the end of 2022 I want to have:

• Gotten rid of my credit card debt (again)
• Fully paid up our sinking funds for Christmas and car repairs.
• Finally put together our four months savings
• Found additional sources of income, at least one
• Paid into my pension on a monthly basis
• Find an alternative, more ethical bank (not strictly a financial fitness thing, but it's connected to my finances and I would like my money to do positive things whenever it can)

This is pretty much the same as last year, but if we get these completed it then gives us room to start saving up for our next long term goal.

Sailing Around the World.

This is very unlikely to be something we're going to be able to accomplish in one year and if I think about all the things we need to do it's actually quite daunting.  But baby steps.  This year will be the very basics:

• Find out about and hopefully start sailing lessons.  It's been a very long time since I've done any sailing and even that was only on a dingy
• Research the type of sailboat we'd want and also look into the possibility of an electric motor
•  The additional incomes would also come into this as well so that we can carry on earning as we travel

Long-distance Walk in the UK.

Theoretically, I would be looking to organise a walk this year.  However, now doesn't quite feel like the right time with things still being as unsettled as they are with Covid and our finances still needing a reboot. So this year will be more about getting information about these walks instead so we can start organising them from next year onwards. This will be quite a simple one this year:

• Build a folder to 'collect' all the walks into
• Research what multiple days walks there are in the UK
• An odd one is to find another sleeping matt.  I'm finding when I camp now my hips hurt in the morning, which is fine for just a two-day walk but not if I'm doing anything long distance.  

Learning New Skills.

Attempting to learn how to skate was a bit of a disaster last year, basically, because I didn't put any time into it.  It was entirely my fault. So this year:

• Learn how to skate
• I'd also like to start learning how to surf

There are a lot of goals I've given myself this year and realistically I won't get them all done by the end of 2022.  On top of this, I'm also getting married and there's all the organising that needs to go into that.  But I wanted to aim high and actually start working towards some long term goals that we have.  Even if I don't complete all of these goals, I'll have at least started in the right direction.

Podcasts I'm Listening To - Learning Whilst Moving

At the moment my work means that I am do two long drives (around 3 hours each) a week in areas where radio reception is very poor at best.  Whilst I have been using some of this time to listen to the CDs I have left to decide whether or not I really want to keep them, it also seemed like a perfect time to do a little bit more learning by listening to some podcasts.  These are the ones I've found so far and listen to on a regular basis.

• No Such Thing As A Fish - produced and presented by the QI Elves, this is a weekly podcast where they each bring up their favourite fact for that week.  As you can imagine, it's very educational but it's also very, very funny and I often find myself laughing out loud as I drive - something that's probably very disconcerting to other drivers around me.  The thing I love most about this show is that they talk about things I wouldn't normal think to look up and so I learn so much more than I would just left to my own devises.
• The Ground Up Show -  this is one of the first podcasts that I actually started listening to on a regular basis and is produced and presented by Matt D'Avella (who I also watch on YouTube).  Here Matt talks to different creators about the processes they use and what they've learnt along the way.  It's obviously not as facts based as No Such Thing As A Fish and not every podcast feels like it's necessarily relavent to me.  However, I've still learnt things from each show, even when I wasn't expecting to, and I like the relaxed feel of Matt and his guest talking.  It's particularly interesting to learn about how each individual overcome something they were going through to get to where they are today - a nice little reminder that not everyone always has it together all the time.
• Science Vs - is another facts based podcast and will also have you unexpectedly laughing at topics.  This is a Gimlet podcast and it takes all the trends and opinions that are out there at the moment and breaks them down using facts.  The subjects can be very varied from week to week and can be quite hard hitting.  And, again, I like the fact that I'll be listening about subjects I wouldn't normally choose to look up myself.  I'm finding handing this decision to someone else a very useful tool.  Probably my favourite one so far has been about Sharks and the completely misguided information that has been put out about them.  Like the idea they can smell a drop of blood in a swimming pool - not actually true apparently.
• Nature's Voice - this is the RSPB's podcast.  Produced on a monthly basis I've found it a pretty good way of getting the latest information about current, mostly bird but also other wildlife news.  They also have little features and interviews with people working in the field and, whilst most of the ones I've listened to so far have been UK based, this is information about projects going on further afield as well.  It is quite a dry podcast, but I don't mind that.
• Pulse of the Planet - this is a really lovely little podcast, and I say little because each show is only 2 minutes long.  Produced daily, you get a sound portrait of Planet Earth covering the rhymes of nature, culture, and science.  The subjects vary greatly and you can find yourself listening to serenading moths one day and a Texas rodeo the next.
• Normal To Nomad - is a pretty new podcast (they first uploaded on the 16th July 2019) and is produced and presented by Elsa Rhae and Barron Link.  I actually found these guys on YouTube as well where they've been documenting their life in the US living in a Scamp with their dog Kamp.  They only have five shows up at the moment, but it looks like they'll be posting on a weekly basis so this'll add up quickly.  There is lots of information on their channel about living this type of lifestyle, but I love how specific these podcasts are, honing in on one specific subject.  It works well with the more varied subjects they cover on their YouTube videos.  I'm glad they've started podcasting.

There are some new podcasts that I've started listening to and am enjoying so far but can't really give a proper review about.  They are:

• Sustainable World Radio - Ecology and Permaculture Podcast - I've only listened to one episode of this, which was an interview with Dr Monica Gagliano about her research into plant cognition, but it was interesting and not a subject I would necessarily have picked so I'm keen to listen to more.
• Warming Signs - this podcast looks at the most pressing environmental issues of the moment, interviewing experts and using facts to look at what's really going on.  One of the shortest podcasts on this list, I've found this a really good, unbiased way of learning a little bit more about the subjects I'm interested in.
• Sustainababble - I've only listened to two episodes of this podcast and already I love it.  Very funny, but full of facts and information, this is a weekly podcast that looks at a variety of environmental issues and exposing what they call 'eco-guffs'.  Definitely worth a listen and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I've also been finding myself listening to these podcasts as I potter around the hostel I'm staying at whilst sorting out my gear and getting ready for the next day.  It's a great way to give myself something interesting to do whilst carrying out those mindless tasks.  What's not to love about that.  Oh, and if you're wondering, I listen to them on Google Podcasts.  At least for now.

Goals for 2019 - Update #2

So there goes June whizzing past us and that's half the year gone already.  Here's how my goals went in the second quarter.

Healthy Eating

I have found that I don't find eating healthy particularly difficult when I'm at work. Mainly because I'm stuck up a mountain away from the temptations of the shops and can only eat the food I've taken with me.  All I have to do is make sure it's healthy.  Also, when I'm at the hostel I tend to only eat the food I've brought along as well, which is made up of mostly fruit and vegetables and only one 'bad' item.

At home I've been good at making large, mixed salads which I can munch my way through throughout the weekend.  This is because it occurred to me that salads are pretty easy to make, healthy and tasty (and yes I do mean that), and really not much more work than getting a ready meal from the shop.  There is also a lot less waste when you make it yourself.

I am definitely still eating a lot more high sugar food than I should be, even for the little treat you should really allow yourself now and then.  It's not necessarily a problem with the work that I do as I burn so much energy, but I still want to work on reducing this to just a treat once or twice week.  Regardless of how much physical activity you do processed sugar really is something you can do without.

Next quarter's mini goal is to get my sugery treats down to two occasions a week.

Reducing Waste

I think it's safe to say that I've been pretty good at reducing my waste in almost every aspect of my life bar food.  And it's not just the snacks I've been buying. It has been unbelievably difficult to get vegetables without a whole lot of packaging wrapped around them.  Fruit has been a lot easier to deal with, but vegetables seem to require it for reasons I don't really understand.

I have been looking into this and have found a few online stores that sell dry food in bulk and plastic free packaging.  So that will be my first port of call when I next need some dry goods.  For fresh food I think it's going to have to be farmers markets and stores.  At the moment I have quite a long drive from home to work and I have noticed a couple of places on route that I think will definitely be worth having a look at.  I'm not sure if they'll have all the food I need with my dietary requirements but it's definitely worth a look.

Next quarter's mini goal is to buy food either in bulk or from a farmer's market wherever possible.

Learning New Skills

Work

As I put in the last goals post I have a drystone walling course booked for July and I'll write more about that then.  The walking that I do during my work day has increased quite dramatically since I started work at Glencoe and that means that walking and practising navigation during my time off is much less likely, just to give my legs a rest.  However, I have been given a few chances to go off route a bit when at work and this has been helping me get to know more about the terrain in the area and what challenges there are when navigating through it.

My current boss is also big on identifying mountain fauna and often shows me the vegetation we pass as we are doing our work so that has turned out to be a great unexpected opportunity as well.  If only I was better at learning names.

My mini goal for the next quarter is just to get the most out of the drystone walling course that I can.

Home

Lastly is my attempted to learn BSL at home.  It started off well and I had gone through the alphabet and numbers, and had begun to look at the signs for different colours when I got into some technically difficulties.  Neither my phone nor my tablet have the software needed to view the video footage showing you the signs.  However my laptop did until it stopped working.  At the moment I am laptop less, and probably will be for a while, whilst I work out exactly what I want to get and can afford.  I did manage to use my local library's computers a couple of times to do the classes but I haven't been able to get there as much as I would like.  That is still an option though and is probably just something I need to block in on a weekly basis.

Next quarter's mini goal will be to get in at least one section of BSL learning a week.

This year has definitely been a less successful year then last when it comes to achieving my goals.  But it's alright to have off years and as long as I keep moving forward I will be happy with what I've achieved.  I may not be as far as I would like but it's still better than where I was at the start of the year.

I hope all your goals are going well.  And, if like me, they're not quite working that your still moving forward the best that you can.

Goals for 2019 - Update #1

I can't believe that the first quarter of the year is over already.  Where did the time go?  It hasn't been the best start of the year with a little bit more emotional stuff happening then I was expecting (like we can ever expect that), but I'm trying to see it as a positive.  After all, if the year has a bad start it can only really go up.  So here we go.

Healthy Eating

I'm just going to put it out there - I comfort eat.  In fact it's my main way of dealing with unpleasant emotions and stress.  I can even use it as a warning light that something might be bothering me more than I realise at the time and will probably be rearing it's ugly head in the near future.  So my attempt to healthy eat didn't set of to a good start.

However, I didn't want to let this put my whole year out so I drew a line under it in March and crawled back onto that wagon.  Since then I have made almost all my breakfast, lunch, and dinners from scratch (including sort of making my own gluten free bread) and doing my best to only snack on fruit, nuts, and pop corn.  

I still have my little sugar addition, mainly Coke Cola and ice cream (which has the added minus of containing dairy), but I'm working on that and this will probably be my focus for the next quarter.

I also found out during this time that I was iron deficient.  This is definitely an issue that can happen when you are a vegetarian (or vegan) but the symptoms I've been having started long before I started that journey so there is clearly something very lacking in my diet.  I had thought I was getting all the iron I needed, but I have obviously miscalculated somewhere. I am now off the tablets I was given and have started taking a good hard look at my diet to see where I can make the improvement I need.  This is another good incentive to make my diet as healthy as possible.

Reducing Waste

As I said at the start, reducing my waste is closely connected to eating healthier as my groceries are where most of my waste comes from.  I have noticed this especially when it comes to the unhealthy snacks and ready meals that I have brought when not making my own food.  I have also noticed, in this last month, that as I've improved the health of my food the amount of waste I have produced has reduced dramatically. 

There is still a major issue with plastic being on a lot of the vegetables that I buy, especially as there's not always an option of picking up plastic free fruit and vegetables.  However, I'm going to carry on looking into this so that I can keep improving as the year goes on.  I will also continue to look at other areas of my life to see where I can make improvements there too.

Learning New Skills
Work

I decided at the start of the year that the first thing I wanted to look into was learning drystone walling and, after being in contact with the Drystone Walling Society, I found some training in my area.  I unfortunately missed the training at the beginning of this year (my fault entirely, things got very busy and I let it slip by), but have booked myself on a course in July.  I really can't wait for that to happen.  

I have also been starting to practise my very rusty navigation skills when out on the mountains and this I want to keep developing until I feel very confident out in the wild.  This is definitely a good skill to have based in the amount of time I spend outside.

Home

The British Sign Language (BSL) cause has been brought for a mere £19.99 and I've already started the first few lessons.  It has been as challenging as I was expecting it to be, but I am really enjoying learning this new skill and have been practising whenever I can, even when just pottering around my home.  Hopefully I will start to get the hang of it very soon.

So it has been a little bit of a bumpy start, but it's a start at least and I'm still happy that I managed to get done the amount that I did.  I now have another three month to keep improving.

I hope your goals are going well too. 

Goals for 2019

Last year I posted my goals for 2018 to act as an extra incentive to achieving them.  It was a mixed batch when it came to success, but even though I didn't achieve all of them it has been a good way of seeing where my weaknesses are and what I need to do to actually be successful in the future.  I've decided to publish my goals again this year and hopefully I'll do a little better job of actually achieving them.

Healthy Eating

The first is the one I failed at last year, but is the one that would have the most positive impact for me.  I don't know what it is about food, but like many people I really do struggle to be as healthy as I should be.  Don't get me wrong my diet is probably seen as being healthier than most, but with my PCOS and the work that I do it is extra important that I take care of what's going into my body.  My main nemesis is sugar, mainly in the form of a sweet, dark, fizzy, caffeinated drink I will not name, and as sugar is an addictive substance the connection to it is hard to break.  However, I have noticed a huge difference in how I feel when I'm eating a diet low or without it and a diet that has sugar in it.  Without I feel more awake and, ironically, have more energy.  I can actually concentrate on things and am so much more productive.  With it I'm slow and lethargic, and emotionally I just feel blah.  It's time to give processed sugar the shove.

I also want to keep on moving towards a vegan diet.  As I said in my last goal update for 2018 I'm vegetarian already and, due to the PCOS, am basically dairy free without really eating any animal products at all when I'm at home.  Whilst I don't want to force other people to make the meals we eat together vegan (as they are already making vegetarian, gluten free meals for me) and do want to make sure that no animal products come home with me.

Waste Free

I've decided to add this goal as it actually coincides with my healthy eating goal.  That probably sounds a bit strange but I noticed last year that practically all the waste I produced last year came from the food I was getting.  I already have re-usable bags, water bottles, and coffee mugs I take with me everywhere.  I have metal straws instead of plastic and use bamboo toothbrushes which I dip into a tooth powder kept in an recyclable glass jar.  I've managed to use pretty much all the packaging that my orders have come in over the year.  However, when I look in my recycling bin and my rubbish bin they mostly contain packaging from food.  I've also noticed that most of the products I buy full of sugar are the products that contain the most packaging and, by eliminating those, I should automatically reduce how much waste I'm bringing into my home.  But I also need to be more smart about the fruit and vegetables I buy, picking those without any packaging especially as these seem to come in that plastic which is very difficult to recycle.  

I just need to be more aware of my behaviour, especially when I'm food shopping, and hopefully the deterrent of waste will be an extra incentive to buy or bring with me something healthy.

Learning New Skills

This goal is sort of a two stage goal as I want to learn new skills both for work and for my personal life.

Lets start with Work.  I love the job I do and I hope to be able to do it for many years to come.  However, it's not the most stable of jobs and there can be times when there is no work available, so it makes sense to have a few extra skills in your belt to ensure you are always able to earn money.  I want the skills to be in a job that is still outdoors and related to my work as a path worker, such as dry-stone walling or hedge laying, but these can be difficult skills to learn (or even find out where to learn).  However, as my work allows me to have extended periods of time off it should be do-able.  January is going to be spent researching what and where I can learn these skills and the rest of the year will be spent learning and perfecting them.  Who knows, I may have a whole set of useful expertise by the time 2020 comes around.

And at Home.  I want to learn something that will challenge my brain a little when I'm at home.  I had thought about learning a new language, but I've always really struggled with that in the past (probably not helped by my dyslexia) and I don't know if I would just get down-heartened.  I also wanted a skill that would be useful to someone else as well and it occurred to me that I could learn a language that would fulfil that criteria as well as being based on actions (and therefore in my head pictures) instead of words.  That is, of course, learning sign language and there are quite a few places where I can start the learning online - making it perfect for the way my life is now.  I'm actually quite excited about this goal as it will be quite a challenge.

So, those are my goals for next year.  There aren't too many of them as I don't want to feel overwhelmed and just give up straight away, but they will to be the challenge you want them to be.  I will, of course, bore you with updates on how I'm doing throughout the year.  Do you have any goals for 2019?  I you do let me know and we can go through the trials together. 😀