I’ll go ahead and say it: 2023 was a pretty good year for me.

For the world? Less so. And actually, for me personally, it was filled with a LOT of ups and downs, the downs more recent (finally getting covid, followed by RSV, followed by sinus infections).

But then there was all the family time, the progress on our home, the new friends, the old friends. The beach days, the pool days, the storytimes. Walks to the park, walks to nowhere in particular, rock collections, preschool drawings, WIP ideas that went nowhere, long conversations, evening cocktails. Eggnog next to a Christmas tree.

And the book, of course. I love the progress I’ve made on it, I love my cover, I love all the exciting things happening around it that I cannot share yet.

And then there’s also something I thought was a major down that might actually turn out to be a positive thing–more on that later, if I gain the courage to write about a very personal thing in a very public space.

But here is everything I wrote down I wanted to accomplish last year. Let’s see how I did!

1. Learn how to be a better hostess and do it once a month. I feel as thought I did improve my hostessing skills, but I definitely didn’t host once a month. Not organized enough for that.
2. Make new friends in my neighborhood. I did this! There are 3 preschool moms I see pretty regularly, and one family in particular we have befriended. I’m going to do all I can to maintain these relationships, because it’s so great having mom friends, whose kids are also friends with your kid, right around the corner. SO GREAT.
3. Come up with a schedule to maximize doing things. I did this! We hired more childcare and it has helped greatly with scheduling.
4. Be intentional on social media I was definitely better at this, though still imperfect.
5. Walk or run 70K steps every week Didn’t do this every week, but did it some weeks!
6. Do my pelvic floor PT exercises every day Not every day. I had good weeks and bad ones
7. Get reliable childcare Did this!
8. Text a friend every day I think I was pretty good at reaching out to friends this year!
9. Go outside every day Except when I was sick, I think I did this
10. Do something out of the ordinary every week. We were good about this, too
11. Use my DSLR again! No.
12. Blog monthly No.
13. Journal weekly No.
14. Read 50 books. I am at 43 and counting. I might get to 44 by Sunday, but we’ll see. At any rate, it was MUCH better than I did last year.
15. Monthly date nights. We started doing this toward the end of the year! Babysitters are life savers.
16. Get a hot tub. Did not do this yet.
17. Start an email newsletter. Did it!
18. Buy a bicycle. Bought one, have yet to ride it.
19. Find my spot. I didn’t really do this. I had a picnic table I wrote at when the baby napped in the stroller, but the baby doesn’t nap in the stroller anymore as he has somehow turned into a toddler.
20. Take two vacations. We went to Florida with family which sort of counts? But we didn’t take any other real vacation, which sucks. Next year.
21. Join the local library. Did this!
22. Finish drafting the East Village Thriller. Did this!
23. Be more intentional about time with my children. I think I did this. Childcare actually helps with this, because I value the time I spend with them more, since there is slightly less of it.

OK! So all in all, not an entirely unsuccessful year. And of course, our lives are more than just the goals we achieve.

I’ll do another post soon about what I hope to achieve in 2024!

Photo by whereslugo on Unsplash