Meagan Rigney

it’s (almost) spring, let’s make some plans, shall we?

     Leave a Comment

It’s that time again, time to look over my past month’s goals and see what I failed at how I did on the whole follow through thing (which I am notoriously bad at.) I am working on procrastinating less and setting up smaller goals for myself so I have a focus each month. This seems to be working for me…mostly;) Here’s a review of my goals last month and how I did, along with my new goals for March (the month of Spriiiiiiiiing!)
February Goals:

1) I’ve been using Fitness Pal again and I’ve been astonished by how much I thought I was eating calorie wise and how much I actually was. I’ve been trying to lose a little weight I’ve gained over the past year or so, and love how Fitness Pal keeps me on track. It’s mainly about accountability and portion control (I’m bad at both!), and I’m committed to eating within my calorie goal, with one splurge meal per week, for the entire month of February. I obviously want to do it longer, but we’ll start with a month for now. I know it works sort of like Facebook with a news feed, so if you are interested in joining me and need accountability, email me and we can sync up!

Update: I have been keeping up with Fitness Pal and I am going to continue this into March. I don’t own a scale, so I have no idea how I’ve done weight loss wise, but I feel better and I love having more control over how much I’m taking in on a daily basis. This also helps when I can’t get to the gym because of all the snow days and cold, so at least I’m doing fine on the intake portion and not gaining weight this winter.
2) I’m working on actively growing my readership again after a little holiday break, so that means sponsorship! I am sponsoring two blogs in the month of February (The Freckled Fox and A Night Owl Blog) and hope to see great results. My goal? Create great feature posts for one and great content on my space for the other so I can keep the readers I lure over here.

Update: my sponsorship of the two blogs above has been a great success, I am so happy with the results from both and highly recommend sponsoring them both if you can. I grew over 200 readers via GFC, and 800 followers via social media via giveaways and feature posts! 
3) On the procrastination front, I am on a baby book update bonanza. I plan on ordering pictures form Shutterfly and getting up to date with BOTH of my children’s baby books, as well as make an additional photo book for my son (who wonders why his sister has TWO more than him.) Second child syndrome.
Oh! Must. Make. Dental. Appointments.

Update: I’ve sort of failed on the baby book front. I am going to order the pictures from Shutterfly this week (I have to!), and get the books together as soon as they arrive. I think my son probably won’t have extra photo books at this point. Fail.

I DID make the dentist appointments for me and the kids, though (!)
4) I’m working on wearing more of what I have in my closet and not rerunning the outfits that work over and over. That means intentionally choosing something different every day and experimenting, which could be really bad or really good. We shall see;)

Update: I did take the time to try on a bunch of looks one night and then put the outfits I put together in one section of my closet. This gave me go to looks to pick when I was in a rush and made me more put together on the days I wasn’t doing a blog shoot. I was also able to find different ways to wear my clothes, too, without shopping (much.) All it took was about an hour or so one night and a massive try on session, sort of like shopping your own closet. 
5) I want to plan one mommy/daughter and one mommy/son date this month for some alone time with each. I also think it would be fun to surprise them with this, I think they (and I) would love it.

Update: I did not get a chance to do this, but my husband and I did split up while doing errands and I got to have some Ulta time with Molly, so there’s that;)

March Goals:

1) My biggest goal this month is on restricting television for my kids. I’ve been noticing less than stellar behavior lately and feel I use TV as crutch too much. This winter has been really cold and snowy, so it’s so easy to just turn on a movie or show and let them zone out. This works, and then it doesn’t. They are still whiny and get attitudes when they can’t watch more, so I’m eliminating it on the weekdays and limiting it more on the weekends. We don’t currently watch TV on weekday mornings, but now I’m taking it away on those nights, too. We started this last week and I have to say that the kids have been playing together more, and seem less restless and cranky. It also forces me to work smarter when it comes to computer time, as I give myself timed sessions and then play with them, so I waste less time on say, Pinterest, and actually do the work I set out to do. Novel idea;)
2) I’ve been having issues with my face the past couple of weeks, it’s been really dry and I have a weird rash that is on my cheek and goes down onto my chin. My mom had asked me if I had tried any new makeup or switched something up and it made me really look at what I had been using. A lot of my makeup was older than it should be, and I had re-used some Bare Minerals that I had had for a questionable amount of time. The same could be said for my makeup brushes. So I went through my makeup bag and threw a ton of stuff away (which was painful.) 
I ended up with not much and streamlined my nighttime routine to just washing my face with CeraVe and applying coconut oil, with Cetaphil lotion on top. My face seems better already, so that seems to be working. I also bought a new concealer (this Tarte one is pretty good) and bought an Olay Cleansing brush instead of a Clarisonic. I found that a Clarisonic cannot be recharged once the battery runs out of charges, and I didn’t want to spend the money on it if it would only last year. My goal is to be more careful with my skin and use more natural products on my face. I love the Tarte line as they don’t use parabens, mineral oil, etc. 
3) I have been really slacking off on working out. The constant snow days and frigid weather have been keeping me away, and I’m the type that doesn’t work out unless I am at the gym. I’m at a once a week routine right now, with two days being my max. My goal is to keep up my two day program, and then bump it up to three days in May when the new Y is open and I have better access to machines and classes. 
4) On the home front, I am in the process of re-doing my home office, so my short term goal is to gather up what I need for that (new desk, bookshelf, chair, order prints, etc.), and start setting that up. You can find inspiration for that HERE. 

5) Lastly, my goal for my blog this month is to participate in more link ups. I don’t have sponsorship plans this month, so I want to find new blogs and readers through various link ups (Shanna’s, Casey’s, Carly’s…) and branch out that way. I’ll let you know if this works in terms of readership/blog expansion.
(Speaking of link ups, don’t forget to link up your monochromatic look for What She Wears  here on Tuesday!)
Tell me, what are some of your goals for March?

meaganrigney