The Year of Rae and Resolution Link Ups!

Happy {almost} New Year!

After some serious pondering of my life values and goals, I have figured out the most meaningful and manageable resolutions for me for 2013! This is my year people: between graduating graduate school in May, getting married in June, and continuing my work as a professional special educator, and future BCBA, there is A LOT to be thankful for and work towards. 2013 will be full of excitement and changes. All the more reason to make changes now, so the shock of new lifestyle changes doesn't paralyze me!

This is... 
the Year of Rae (selfish much, eh?)


Special thanks to the Teacher's Toolkit for the Chevron Background!

Okay, enough about me...let's talk about...me?
Whatevs...here are my Resolutions for the New Year...

My first link up is with The Teacher's Cauldron.

Jen created this fun link-up to share New Years Resolutions. This Linky is to share two resolutions you have for the year: 1 personal goal and 1 blogging goal. Seems reasonable, so here I go...

My 2 Resolutions for Teacher's Cauldron Link-Up

  • My Personal Resolution: Get fitter and healthier! How will I do that you may ask? Read below for more details on how I plan to reach my goals.
  • My Blogging Resolution: Post at least 2 times each week. I would love to post more, but I can't make any promises. I am on vacation now so it has been easy to find time...that won't be the case by Wednesday when I go back! I'm just being honest... :)

Make sure you link-up with Jen over at Teacher's Cauldron for this fun Resolution Linky! I would love to hear your personal and blogging resolutions for 2013!

Jessica at Fantastically Average is hosting a special edition of {5 for Five}, called {5 for Five 2013} w00t!

Today, instead of outlining 5 goals for the week, we are setting 5 goals for the year! Yes, 5 New Years Resolutions!

My New Years Resolutions for 2013
1. Eat a fruit or vegetable at every meal or snack. I want to make meaningful, healthier lifestyle changes, and I need to start somewhere. I am overall a pretty healthy eater, but I would like to incorporate more produce into my life, and starting with a measurable goal such as this, will help me to adopt this as routine, to which I can further my goals with additional steps. It's a start!
2. Workout 4-5 times per week. My schedule is out-of-control busy, especially for the next couple of months (the 2nd half of the school year, my last semester of graduate school...oh yeah, and my wedding), so I don't want to commit to a goal that I know is not reasonable for me to achieve. I don't want to burn out and give up all together. Plus, 4-5 weekly workouts is a good start and is by no means easy nor a cop out. I like this goal!
3. Figure out a set chore schedule! I need to be m ore organized across my life, but household chores are a disaster! I always end up doing everything on the weekend, and then the house is a mess by Tuesday again. I want to create a manageable cleaning schedule that my fiancé and I can use so that housework doesn't seem like so much...well...work.
4. Keep in contact with my friends! My way to do this is by hosting a book club that I just started this month. I'm hoping that my friends and I will keep our friend dates, and it will motivate us to schedule more time together outside of our book club obligation. I love my friends, but between my wedding planning, lesson planning, and life planning, they are becoming less of a priority, which I don't like!
5. Save an additional $100 each month. I go out for coffee and breakfast nearly every day during the work week. That's about $25 each week, which amounts to $100 a month on something I could make at home! So this is the year I kick my Dunkin Donuts habit, and start making my coffee and breakfast at home. Plus, by making my own breakfast, I will be able to reach my #1 goal!
6. Spend more time with the fiancé! I am not very good at managing my time. I come home from work most days, and either sit at my computer to complete graduate school work, or sit at my computer to create lesson plans. Either way, it is a lot of computer time, and little fiancé time. I need to figure out a system to be able to manage both so I can be happier, saner person, and so he can be happy too :)
7. Blog 2-3 times a week. See my explanation above with my other link-up.
8. Create 2 products for my Teachers Pay Teachers store a month. At the rate I go with my products, this seems like a manageable, but challenging goal to reach. I can do it though...
9. Run a race every month this year! I love racing (10k distance is my favorite), and would like to plan a race for each month this year. At least! It's something fun I love to do, and a way to reach my last goal...
10. Get fitter! Each month I plan to set a new goal for myself. Thanks to Desirae over at Going with the Flow, I have joined her DietBet for my January goal (weight loss). The pot is over $900!! I have invited my friends and co-workers, and if you are interested in meeting a fitness/weight loss goal, you should check it out. There is still time to sign up! The goal for this DietBet challenge is to lose 4% of your body weight in 28 days. The deal with DietBet is that you put a certain amount of money into the community pot (in this challenge, it is $10), and at the end of the challenge, the pot is split up for all the winners of the challenge. It's pretty simply, confidential, and totally worth it (if you ask me). Once the challenge is over, I will let you know my thoughts on DietBet if y'all are interested. As for my future month's goals, they are yet to be determined, but they will be fitness/health related, and I will post them as they come up.

So I doubled by goals, but I think that's okay. I know you might think that it's too much, that I will get burned out, or overwhelmed, but I don't think so. I am eager to get started on these goals, which is an important piece to the goal setting puzzle. These goals are meaningful for me. Plus, many of them overlap with each other, making it more manageable in my opinion.

My final link-up of the year (weird), is through Teaching Maddenness. Amanda started this link-up to hold people accountable for their New Years Resolution (I like where her head is at...).

Following her lead, I will set mine up in categories like Amanda.

My Resolutions for The Resolution Solution Linky Party

Personal:
Get Fit! I gots a wedding coming up that I need to look hot at! I can do this!
Eat Healthier! Bring on the greens!
Get organized! Let's get at this mop and broom...
Cuddle more! Fiancé! Here I come...

Work/School:
Get organized! I need to do this at school as well...not for cleaning, but for keeping order in my chaotic teacher brain!
Assess! I need to get better at keeping track of my students' assessments and come up with a system for organizing them.
Prep early! As suggested from my boss (yikes!), I am going to get to work earlier so I can prep all of stuff for the day before school starts. That means arriving BEFORE 7:30 and keeping my door closed! (I love you guys, but you gotta leave me alone until after 3:00).
Manage my time! This goes back to a previous goal for spending more time with the fiancé. I need to figure out how to balance it all. I don't even have kids yet! What's gonna happen when they come into our lives and I haven't figured this stuff out yet!? Better start now...

Blogging:
Post 2-3/week: See my explanation above (my first link-up).
Create 2 New TpT products/month: See explanation above (my 2nd link-up)
Reach 100 followers (or more!): I am at almost 70 as of this post, so I am hoping to reach 100 followers and more before the year's end. With that being said...
Host a giveaway! After reaching such a milestone, I would like to host a giveaway. I don't know the first thing about it, but I'm hoping my blogging pal Heather at Heather's Heart can give me a few pointers (as she has already offered, because she's the best!)

I have faith in my motivation, perseveration, and longing to make lifestyle changes to achieve these goals! Who is with me?!



Also, Halle over at Across the Hall in 2nd Grade is hosting a fabulous giveaway to honor the Perfect Pairs! It's super cute, so please make sure you check it out. What is your perfect pair?

Oh, and one more thing...Deedee at Mrs. Wills Kindergarten has a cute little Linky and Giveaway at her blog. 
Make sure to head over, link up your fitness resolutions (I did!) and enter her giveaway (hint: its SUPER easy and worth it!).

I would LOVE to hear about some of your New Years Resolutions for this year. Even if you aren't planning on making any set goals, what are something you look forward to for the upcoming year?

Cheers to the New Year!!!

Rae

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