Happy New Year! Reflection and New Goals

Happy New Year everyone!

Another year has come and gone. I've been thinking about things that I want to focus on and accomplish in 2014, and I thought it would be a good idea to look back at my resolutions that I made for this year.

Here were my blogging goals:

• Increase my number of readers - I did this. I have over 200 GFC followers and almost 150 on Bloglovin'. I didn't grow a ton, but that's okay. I'm not dedicating myself to growing my numbers as much as a lot of bloggers do.
• Post more consistently - I was really good about this for about the first 6 months of 2013. After that, things fell off again, and I was much more inconsistent.
• Improve the quality of my pictures and content - I feel a little more comfortable with both of these. My light box helps. I want to find different bulbs for it though. When I broke one of the original ones, I tried two different sets of bulbs. The first pulled really yellow, and the second set pulls a little blue.
• Make my posts more personal - I don't think I really did this.

I also made a few personal goals:

•  Reducing my makeup collection - I failed miserably at this, which isn't really a shock.
• Shopping my stash - I did an okay job of this. I did sort through and add a lot of items to my blog sale. (ANOTHER SHAMELESS PLUG: You can check out my blog sale here! I'm willing to negotiate, so let me know if you are interested in anything.)
• Buy less - Hmmmmm...I probably failed at this one too. I think I was a little more selective than I have been in the past, but I still bought a lot and bought some products that I shouldn't have.
• Get better organized and declutter - I made some decent strides with this. My office is still a mess more often than not, but things are starting to find homes. I also found some new pieces for other spots in the house that have made a big difference.
• Get into better routines - This didn't happen. I still don't have very good everyday/weekly routines.
• Eat better, exercise more, blah, blah, blah... - Sadly, my weight has gone up over the past year. That being said, I do feel like I'm eating a little bit better. My fiance and I started buying a community co-op produce bag every two weeks that encourages us to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables.

For this year, I'm not going to group my resolutions into blogging and personal. I'm just going to list them all together.

• Be more consistent with blog posts - I'm going to try this one again. I'm going to work on scheduling posts for once a week. If I get far enough ahead, I'll try and tack on extra posts. 
• Reduce my stash of skincare, haircare, and body products - This is more realistic than trying to reduce my makeup stash. I have way too many body lotions. I picked up too many haircare/styling products throughout the year, and I don't use them enough to justify having them all. I also have a skincare routine that I'm pretty comfortable with, so I need to finish off the extras.
• Continue on my cruelty-free journey - I'm pretty happy with how far I've come with going cruelty-free, but there's always improvements to make. I want to finish off some products that I already own that aren't cruelty-free. I'm also working on replacing a lot of my home items with cruelty-free options. 
• Condense my wardrobe - I'm not quite ready to commit to a 10-item wardrobe, but I do want to limit my wardrobe. Instead of buying a ton of stuff, I want to start choosing a few nice pieces, particularly for work. 
• Keep decluttering/organizing - I go through phases with decluttering, but I do feel like I'm slowly winning the war. I want to keep making progress. 
• Try for those routines again - I've come to the conclusion that I like the idea of routines, but I need to work towards making my own. The Fly Lady ones are great, but I don't think they will work for me completely.  If I come up with something that I stick with, I'll let you know.
• Enjoy life more - There's too many days when I feel like I'm just floating through life or I'm in a funk. I'd like to work on changing that this year. 

I'm going to leave things off there. I hope all of you had a great 2013 and have an even better 2014. Let me know what your resolutions are if you are making any. I'd love to know!

New Year, Blog-iversary, Goals

Happy New Year everyone!

I can't help but be a little cliche here...2012 went by so fast!

I hope you had a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve. Mine was spent at home with my fiance watching a movie. We're not very exciting, but it was an enjoyable, relaxing night before winter break ends and we have to go back to work.

It is officially my blog-iversary (my first post might actually say January 2, but that's because I decided to create a new Blogger account after publishing my first post, so it got taken down and reposted). I've had a lot of fun over the past year, and I look forward to improving during the course of this year.

Here are some of my blogging goals for this year:

• Increase my number of readers - This is pretty much a given for any blogger. We work hard at what we are doing, and we want people to see and read it. 
• Post more consistently - I went through time periods when I didn't post much at all, and I'd like to try not to do that this year. My goal is to post at least 1-2 times a week.
• Improve the quality of my pictures and content - I think my pictures have improved a bit this year, but I know I have a lot of room for improvement. I want to get more consistent on how I format and organize my posts as well. They still feel a bit haphazard to me.
• Make my posts more personal - This has been hard for me over the past year. I'm guessing most of you reading my blog don't know much of anything about me. As an educator (yes, I consider myself an educator even as a substitute teacher), I'm used to being pretty private about things, especially things published online. I need to work on finding a better balance.

Along with my general blogging goals, there are some other goals that I'm wanting to work on this year:

•  Reducing my makeup collection - This is going to be a hard one for me. It might be more realistic to aim for keeping my makeup collection at approximately the same size. 
• Shopping my stash - This might actually help with the previous goal. I want to work my way back through the products that I have to determine if I really need to keep them or if they can get added to my blog sale. (SHAMELESS PLUG: You can check out my blog sale here! I'm willing to negotiate, so let me know if you are interested in anything.)
• Buy less - This is definitely connected to the first goal. I'm a sucker for new products (even more so when they are limited edition). I'm also a sucker for sales. If I can get a good price on it, I want it, even if I don't need it. I also had a horrible spending binge at the end of 2012. There were just too many good sales that I couldn't pass up. 
• Get better organized and declutter - This includes my makeup collection and the rest of my house. I actually made some progress with this goal over the past week. The closet in my home office was overflowing with empty shipping boxes and other items because they weren't organized. All of the empty shipping boxes are now gone, and the items in the closet are in a much better order. I'm also going through my giant stack of magazines pulling out the things I want to keep and getting rid of everything else. 
• Get into better routines - I love the concept created by the FlyLady, and I tried doing some of it last year, but then I got busy (and slightly depressed), and I let everything slide again. It's time to give it another try! 
• Eat better, exercise more, blah, blah, blah... - Yep, another cliche and something I will probably fail at, but it's always worth a shot, right? 

What are your goals for this year?