2015 Goal Review: What Happened??

Happy New Year!!  Where did the year go??  That seems to be the theme with pretty much everyone I know, both in person and online.  2015 was one hugely fast blur of stuff.  I don't even know what took up so much time this year because from reviewing last year's goals that I set for the year, I didn't get anything accomplished!  Let's take a look, shall we:

1. Continue to grow Milo and Molly locally and online.  This is a hit and a miss for sure.  I did a ton of craft shows and markets again this year, which is always great because it connects me and my products to the community.  Again this year I had some shows which I will go back to and some that I will not, which makes the list that much smaller for the coming year.  My local group, The Nutmeg Collective, has grown and flourished, which makes me so happy, and we as a group have gotten some great opportunities.  The online part, however, not so much.  My website hasn't been updated in forever, my Etsy shop needs an overhaul, and I didn't come close to the 1,500 total sales goal I had set.  I find that since I can't batch-make any of my products, it's really hard for me to keep an in-person and an online inventory that match up.

2. Return to the blog. Total fail!  My intention was to blog more and I pretty much became blog nonexistent.  I constantly, constantly have ideas running through my head but I haven't been able to carve out chunks of time to flesh them out.  I did finally update the overall look, though, so I'm hoping that will kickstart me and light a fire under my butt.  I did do a lot of blogging over at The Nutmeg Collective's blog, though, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

3. Declutter.  Forever ongoing.  We have been working on keeping things organized and getting rid of things that come in that we don't need, but we still have an overwhelming amount of stuff.  Christmas did not help- the kids got way too much new stuff, something we're going to have to look into before the next round.  However, I just finished reading the super-hot organizing book by Marie Kondo (more on that coming up) and we are pumped to really move out a lot of stuff we don't love.

4. Exercise.  Working on it.  I wanted to get out and walk the dog more and do more elliptical running but that didn't happen much.  Exercise for me has always been a nagging pain, to be honest.  However, in August I discovered barre3 though one of Greta's school friends - her mom just opened a studio near us - and I have been trying to be a consistent participant.  I love the philosophy and the routine.  We also just recently tossed the ancient elliptical machine in favor of a treadmill so I guess I'm going to learn how to run.

5. Meal planning and Making My Own.  This is an off and on thing, depending on my mood.  If I remember then it's great and I have meal parts ready to go, or fresh bread at hand, and if I don't then we're scraping dinner together 10 minutes before it's time to eat.  Such is life.

6. Random Acts of Kindness. This is a lot harder than it sounds!  I did a few things here and there but not on the grand scale I was hoping.  The only thing I can remember is taping a free movie coupon to the RedBox at the grocery store.

7. Make Things for Us.  Gus got a Ninja Turtles pencil bag for the start of school, and other than that this has been a total fail.  I just can't find the time and energy to do all the things I'd like to.

8. Plant a Garden.  This we did on a small scale.  I always plant tomatoes so we had those, along with snap peas and some funny looking carrots.  The peppers and strawberries did not make it, and my herbs are always teetering on the brink of being overwatered.  No matter - the kids enjoy helping to plant things so we will continue to do this each year.

9. Learn and Use Hootsuite.  I semi-learned and used it for a little while before giving up because I couldn't find the time to be crafty and creative and organized with my online-ness.  It's a great tool overall, though, so I should probably give it another try.

In taking a look back, I'm not entirely bummed.  These were great goals to have and then things clearly took a different turn and some of these things just didn't turn out to be as important as I had planned on them being.  That's the way it goes sometimes!

How did your 2015 turn out?  Did you meet the goals that you set for yourself or did your year go off course too?  Here's to 2016 and hopefully working on what we all set out to accomplish.  I'll be back Monday with my 2016 list!