Happy 2014!

Belated Happy New Year! Welcome to 2014!

2013 had its ups and downs. On the upside, we had a good trip to the UK in June, our newest grandson was born at the end of June, I got to visit some friends in Nashville in July, and we just returned from visiting my beloved sister-in-law and her family in Texas over the holidays. On the downside, we had a home burglary over the summer, I gained back all of the weight I lost in 2012, and the general compound effect of myriad minor stressors just adds up after a while.

Hopefully 2014 will be better.

My treadmill/walking streak ended at about 590 consecutive days at the end of December - I didn't have treadmill access, and a couple of long travel days made taking the time to walk outside tricky. So, time for a new streak to begin!

As with every year, it's time to review last year's goals and make new ones! Without further ado:

2013 Goals

• Read 5000 pages - 9122 pages certainly blew that out of the water. Perhaps I should increase my goal for 2014.
  
• Do 10 101List items - Believe it or not, I did manage to finish 10. The aforementioned 9122 pages put my total since January 2012 at 17,000 pages, well over the 15,000 page 101List goal for a last-minute finish.
  
• Rauros to Isengard (Aragorn's path) - Done in January!
  
• Isengard to Minas Tirith (Aragorn's path) - I've completed 525 of 786 miles. Not done, but I should be able to finish next year.

The generic goals are still good, so I think I'll keep them, but I feel I need to add some new ones. I've been hearing a fair bit about 30-Day Fitness Challenges, and since there are 12 months in a year I should be able to do 12 of them. I just need to decide on which ones.

For the record:


2014 Goals

• Read 7500 pages (increasing from last year)
  
• Do 10 101List items
  
• Isengard to Minas Tirith (Aragorn's path) Starting at 525/786 miles, so maybe by summer.
  
• Rauros to Isengard (Merry and Pippin's path) (backtracking a bit to the Breaking of the Fellowship)
  
• Complete 12 30-day fitness challenges

There are other goals as well but those fall under the 101List bullet.

Regarding stitching, I completely missed the November and December WIPocalypse updates. I do like the monthly update idea, though, so I will try to get back on track with those. I'll try to get a stitching update posted by the weekend.

Here's to 2014, may it be better than 2013!