Here's my February update on my 10 Goals for 2010...

Year-Long Goals:
1. Run an 8:30 mile. Yes!
2. Run a half marathon. Currently training for one.
3. Get back to my law school graduation weight. No weight loss this month, but no weight gain either. So there's that.
4. Take a class, any class. Nope.
5. Handle stress and anxiety better. I think I am still doing fairly well with this.

Five Monthly Goals:
6. Send my grandmother a card or letter every month. Yup, a thank you card for my early birthday present.
7. Remember to send birthday cards to friends and family. Sent out my mom's birthday card at the end of the month for her March 8th birthday.
8. Set a monthly fitness goal and accomplish it. My February fitness goal was to run 50 miles throughout the month. Unfortunately, I fell short. I was having a lot of trouble getting motivated to exercise this month. I only ran 34 miles. I think I'm going to aim for 50 again this month (I'm more motivated now that race season is almost upon us!).
9. Clean the apartment once a week. I am pretty certain we did this. Maybe not a total thorough cleaning each time, but we picked up and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. And we bought a fancy new vacuum!
10. Read two books a month. Fail, again. I finished one (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) and got halfway through two others (Middlesex and The Help).

I've been chronicling my workouts over here for the past couple months (although, admittedly not doing a very good job of writing much about them in detail lately). I've been working on increasing my speed and today I ran an 8:26 mile! That is huge for me! For a long time (years!), the fastest I usually run is a 10 minute mile, so I am really happy that I was able to increase my speed so much in such a short time. I needed to take a walk break after that before finishing the rest of my workout, and I walked a lot of my fourth (and final) mile because my legs were tired, so my overall time for my run today wasn't all that great. Now I need to work on being able to run faster, for longer.

I wrote about my 10 Goals for 2010 here. I'm planning to provide monthly updates as to how their going, starting... now!

Year-Long Goals:
1. Run an 8:30 mile. Not yet, but I am getting faster! This month, I ran a 9:01 mile.
2. Run a half marathon. Took the first step... I signed up for one!
3. Get back to my law school graduation weight. Headed in that direction. I lost four pounds this month (although two of them were "holiday weight".)
4. Take a class, any class. Not yet.
5. Handle stress and anxiety better. I think I'm doing a fairly good job with this. The biggest stressor of 2010 is going to be wedding planning and so far it's been mostly stress-free. We had to deal with some family issues, but at least Adam and I are on the same page and can present a united front for why we want to do things our way. Also, the process of finding a venue and photographer was pretty painless.

Five Monthly Goals:
6. Send my grandmother a card or letter every month. Check!
7. Remember to send birthday cards to friends and family. Got my friend Sarah's card out the last week of January for her February 2 birthday.
8. Set a monthly fitness goal and accomplish it. My January fitness goal was to work out four times a week, which I did. (Even though I had to get up super early on January 30 before driving up to NY to do it.)
9. Clean the apartment once a week. Alas, this did not happen. I think we did clean it three times total, but not once a week. I've already got the first week of February down, though!
10. Read two books a month. Fail. I read 500+ pages of a 600+ book. I need to finish that one, and then hopefully read two others for February.

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a wonderful night, whether you were out partying until the wee hours of the morning, or were nice and comfy in bed hours before the ball dropped. 2009 was a fantastic year for me, but I hope 2010 can be even better! But it won't be without a little work, of course...

I am a resolution girl. I know lots of people don't bother, or give up within a few weeks, but I love goals, challenges, plans and lists. Annual (or monthly) resolutions are, understandably, right up my alley.

I've decided this year to come up with 10 goals for 2010, five year-long goals and five monthly goals. My five year-long resolutions are things I've wanted to accomplish for quite some time, but I just haven't tackled yet. The kind of things I keep pushing off until "later" or "sometime" or "eventually." Things that in my head, I claim to be working towards, but in reality I'm not doing much about. My five monthly resolutions are geared toward self-improvement. I'm hoping to develop habits that will bring who I am now more in line with the person I'd like to be.

Five Year-Long Goals:
1. Run an 8:30 mile. -- done!
2. Run a half marathon.
3. Get back to my law school graduation weight. (The stress of unemployment and two bar exams packed on the pounds, but it's been 2.5 years since my last bar exam and only excuses since then.)
4. Take a class, any class. Cooking, art, photography... something.
5. Handle stress and anxiety better. (This one is sort of wishy-washy and impossible to really measure, but 2010 has the potential to become quite stressful and I need to be proactive about not letting it get to me.)

Five Monthly Goals:
6. Send my grandmother a card or letter every month.
7. Remember to send birthday cards to friends and family.
8. Set a monthly fitness goal and accomplish it.
9. Clean the apartment once a week.
10. Read two books a month.