Goal Check-up

As this year is drawing to a close, I decided to take a gander at the goals I had listed for this year. I had made a shorter list than usual, yet as always, some were achieved and some were not.

As for the house, we did finish the curtain hanging project in the basement, I did some exterior painting, we got new carpet for Ian's bedroom, and we paid off the mortgage of the house (partially that goal was accomplished by using money from one of my retirement accounts so we're not totally debt free, but we should be debt free by May 2019). We did not get a storm door, remove the rest of the deck and replace it, or finish the master bathroom floor project that has been a work in progress since May 2016. As for the deck, we did have two men give us estimates, and we should be signing a contract this month, which means that by May 2019 we should have a new deck! I really, really hope that sometime in 2019 we will be able to resume using our master bathroom shower.

As for myself, I gained weight instead of losing weight (UGH!!!). I had a proposal accepted for a national conference, but then I found out due to being a temporary faculty member I wouldn't receive one penny towards the cost of presenting in Chicago. I told

NCSS I wouldn't be able to attend. Due to the fact that they haven't made any progress toward adding a tenure line to the department, I haven't done any work on trying to get another article published. I didn't try at least one new recipe every month, but I probably tried at least ten new recipes over the course of the year. I didn't achieve the goal of playing more board games with the kids, but I do think I have been showing them more patience.

Oliver did finish level one of the reading curriculum, and he's about 1/4 of the way through level two. His uppercase and lowercase manuscript letters and numbers definitely aren't perfect, but he has made progress. He DID learn how to swing himself on a swing and did play on a basketball team for the first time, but he did not learn how to ride his bike without the training wheels. He is half-way through the first grade spelling curriculum. Once the "light bulb" came on for him with reading, he started spelling with ease. Math still isn't easy for him, but he's making

progress in his first grade math textbook. Although he hasn't "arrived," he made significant progress with being more obedient and controlling his temper. Way to go, Oliver! Of the five of us, he definitely made the most progress in 2018.

My list of goals last  year for Nadia and Ian was really short last year. We did finish reading the New Testament aloud and the Swimming Creatures science textbook. We are almost done with the Land Animals curriculum. They have been writing more this fall, but that's still an area I need to start spending a lot more time on. We also have been doing a little bit of work with learning the parts of speech, but grammar is something I need to ramp up in 2019. Oliver and Ian will finish their handwriting textbooks this month so I'm planning on using the time that had been devoted to handwriting for grammar starting in January. Speaking of handwriting, although I didn't list it as a goal for this year, I am very pleased with the progress Ian has made with learning to write in cursive!

I'm thankful for the goals that were achieved, and I'm hoping to make additional progress towards the ones that weren't in 2019.