Not To Be Trusted With Knives

First Quarter Check In – Goals for 2024

June 30, 2024 by Beth

As I set out to start writing my Q2 check in for 2024, I noticed that my Q1 check in wasn’t on my blog, but I was sure that I’d written one. So I checked my drafts and I had, in fact, written one, but hadn’t hit “publish”. So I’m pushing it now, a full 3 months later.

Somehow the first quarter of the year has gone by! Since one of my goals is to do a check-in on my goals every quarter, it’s time to do the first of those check-ins!

1. made 24 new foods/beverages – it’s quite unusual for me that I’m way behind on this goal. So far I’ve only made 3 new-to-me foods/beverages

I made some honey simple syrup (#1)in order to make a new cocktail that was created to serve at my birthday part in honour of my beloved Watson. I couldn’t find any good cocktails named The Watson, so I had Chat GPT invent one for me (#2). It was actually pretty good.

The third thing I’ve made this year is Jager sauce (#3), which I made to go with schnitzel (which I have made before). I seem not to have saved the recipe, but it was something like this.

I’m only at 3/24 (12.5%) done this goal, so I have some catching up to do!

2. read 24 books – this one I’m on track for. I’ve only finished 5/24 (20%), but I am almost done another book (The Hidden Lives of Trees) and halfway through another (The Artist’s Way), so that’s pretty much on track. I’ve gotten back into listening to audiobooks from the library, so I hopefully I’ll stay interested in doing that and keep up this pace. Here are the books that I’ve finished so far in 2004:

3. read 7500 pages – I’ve read 1917 pages, which is 26% of my goal, so I’m ontrack for this one!

4. 26 blog postings – I thought I was behind on this one, but I just did the math and I’m actually on track. As soon as I publish this posting, I’ll have published 7/26 (27%)

5. 52 journal entries – Behind on this one. Only 7/52 (13%)

6. 260 mindfulness meditations (5 per week) – I’ve been doing OK on this one, but only because I have been doing meditations as I go to bed. So I’ve done 78/260 meditations (30%), but I haven’t always stayed awake for the whole meditation. When it comes to meditation sessions that I’ve done not at bedtime (and stayed awake for the whole thing), I’ve only done 3. Some of my bedtime ones I’ve stayed awake and done the full session, but I don’t know how many as I haven’t been tracking that very well.

7. learn 12 things – I’ve learned 4/12 (33%) things so I’m slightly ahead on this goal. I also have a list of things that I’m planning to learn, so I’m confident I’ll be able to achieve this. The three things I’ve learned so far are (1) how to tell the right side vs. the wrong side in crochet, (2) how to block crochet pieces, and (3) how to do a mattress stitch to sew two pieces of crochet together (can you sense a theme here?) and (4) how to make a fillable pdf for that does calculations.

8. crochet a stuffed animal – not done yet, but I’ve acquired a few patterns!

9. do stretches 260 times (5 days a week) – I’ve only managed to do stretching on my gym days (and like one time after a hockey game), so I’m at 35/260 (13%). I need to figure out a way to get into the habit of stretching on my non-gym days too. And now just for the goal, but because my QL, my TFL, my quads, my calves, and pretty much every single muscle in my neck and forearms are hella tight and achy all the time.

10. practice French 365 days in a row – I screwed this one up, as one day I completely forgot to do this and only realized it just after midnight. *face palm*. Duolingo has a thing called a “streak freeze”, where you can skip a day without losing the streak you are on, and I had earned a few of those, so one of them got cashed in and Duolingo thinks I’m on day 576 in a row of French lessons, but I know the truth.

11. eat fish or plant-based protein at least once per week – I’ve only done this 7/52 (13%). This is at least in part beacuse we’ve been trying to eat everything in the stand alone freezer so that we can defrost it, which means we haven’t yet started ordering our fish from Skipper Otto (which is frozen) this year. But we do have some fish in the freezer that needs to be eaten and could make some vegetarian meals, so this is something to focus on doing more often again!

12. make a charitable donation every month for a year – I’m one ahead on this goal, as I did two donations in January. First, I made a donation to VOKRA in honour of my beloved Watson in January. Second I made a donation to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention in memory of a colleague’s loved one. In Feburary I made a donation with my annual membership to the BC Humanists and in March I made a donation to Kidsport New Westminster as part of a fundraiser.

13. work on at least 1 joke per day (doesn’t have to be a good joke!) – have *not* done this one at all. So I’m going to re-start this goal and try to do this every day for the remainder of the year! Some of my friends and I from my stand up comedy class are trying to establish a process for writing together and I think having the accountability will be helpful to motivate me to write more regularly.

14. do 20 comedy performances (including open mics) – So far I’ve done 3 performances – an open mic at Funky Winker Beans in Vancouver, an open mic at Townhall Abbotsford (a pub, not the actual town hall), and an audition show at Chill X Studio. I didn’t get selected from the audition show, but it was a good experience and I learned some things. I haven’t done any open mics since then, but I’m hopeful that now that the semester is coming to an end, I’ll have more time for comedy writing and doing open mics since my teaching responsibilities will be done until the fall.

15. do a quarterly check-in on my goals – as soon as I click “publish” on this posting (which, if you are reading this, means I have done), I’m exactly on track for this one!

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