Goals for 2014

Are you for or against resolutions? I am goal oriented, like to drive towards something, love my Ta-Da Lists and crossing stuff off of them. So, as we head into 2014, I have a list of some things that I want to accomplish this year, besides my Home Goals which I posted about here. 

We have really changed our diet in the past 6 months, and I have lost a good amount of weight. My goal is to stay on this path, and to continue to lose. I LOVE Dietbet.com, it definitely appeals to my competitive nature. I have quite a bit to lose yet to get to where I want to be, but I am setting out to be at my goal weight by this time next year. That will be 18 months which I think is a good healthy amount of time to lose and also learn how to maintain. The biggest change that we did make, was changing our diet, like I had mentioned. I have read different things, but the consistent message seems to be that diet is the biggest part of losing. We have cut out most starches and grains. No breads, pastas, rice, potatoes with our meals. We also have cut out anything that is not a natural sugar. No sweets (this was not a big deal to us really as we are not big dessert, sweets people), so no desserts, cookies, candy, soda (the boy still drinks sodas from time to time, and I am not a soda person, so this was not a big deal really either), no juice. While I would love to go completely Paleo, it is not realistic for us. I do not think I could cut out dairy, yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese or legumes, beans for chili, salads and soups and nuts, we eat a ton of nuts which we love. So we have kept these things in our diet, but we are trying to stick to either the 17-Day Diet Phase 1 or a Paleo diet. We love fish, I wish I could eat shrimp, but we do eat a ton of fish, chicken, turkey and veggie meals. So plan on seeing a lot of these items on our meal plan and in recipes that I post here. Wine, that is another thing that I just can't give up completely, but we have cut back. 

Catalog and maintain an inventory of our wine. We have an awesome wine closet that is climate controlled at just the right temperature for storing wine. I add and subtract from it on a regular basis, but I definitely have those bottles that I save for something special. I have a huge Orin Swift collection as well, and one of these days I would love to do a vertical tasting with at least one of the varietals. But it would be nice to have a good inventory in a spreadsheet that I can maintain easily.  Downstairs. In order for us to finish off the downstairs, we need to get it organized and possibly even purge more. We have made a lot of progress on this front, but we need to finish it. 

Cookbooks. I have a million and one (photos above are from our old house, due to the fact that the majority of my cookbooks are still in boxes in the garage). But I definitely have my go to cookbooks, and I love to read them, usually from cover to cover. Sometimes they just give me good inspiration, other times I will actually follow a recipe. I need to do two things, I need to go through all of my cookbooks and get rid of the ones that I don't or won't use and two, figure out a good storage solution in the kitchen. This may mean working it into the new design or building something new. 

I have WAY too many sweaters. I purged a lot last spring and again this fall, but I need to go through and purge enough to fit in my closet, and no over-flow. I am not very good about the one in one out rule, but I need to be better about that. Goal is to leave enough sweaters for my shelves in my closet, but no more. There are three stacks of sweaters in front of the shelves at the moment, I need for all of the sweaters to FIT in the shelves.  I would love to have clean counters and an organized pantry. My goal is to cook from my pantry for three months straight without adding to it and to get my counters cleaned and organized. This will help hopefully in getting ready for our Kitchen project overall.  I love to have fresh flowers in the house, and because of this I tend to have a lot of vases and containers for keeping them in, but the closet with the shelf where I keep them has gotten too full and not organized, I need to go through and purge and organize the shelf and closet. Pocketbooks, I have a lot of them, and I don't carry them on a regular basis. I tend to have my few go to bags. But I need to get rid of the ones I don't use, and what I really would like to do is buy an investment bag. Something I will use on a regular basis, that will stand the test of time. I am not sure what I want, but I think I will know it when I see it. 

Start and keep a home/me binder. I have been wanting to do this for a few years now, and have even printed out sheets for it in the past. This year I want to track our progress on our home goals, my personal goals and also my menu plans, recipes, fitness and health goals and create a home inventory. 
I am linking up for the {Pop, Fizz, Zzz} over at The Birdie Bowl and The Ledford Life