March Goals - Update

As I've explained before, when I do my monthly balanced life goals, I picture a wheel with several spokes, each spoke representing an aspect of my life that is important to me.  Taken together, I like to think that they make a well-balanced life.  Ideally, each spoke is of equal length and the arcs drawn between the spokes are equally rounded to make a perfectly circular rim around the wheel, without any bump-outs or indents.  A well-balanced wheel results in a smoother ride; a wonky wheel results in a bumpy ride.  Currently, as shown in my month-end reviews, I am mostly wobbling along!

Here is the update of my March Goals for a more Balanced Life:

Spiritual:  The goal is to live a spiritually meaningful life.
- Continue with daily prayers and gratitude; focus on being positive - daily prayers and gratitude have been on-going; focusing on being positive became a little more challenging as the month progressed, with the water heater issues, the car scrape, the potential lack of parking after the office move, etc., but I think I did OK!
- Take time for meditation - Another challenging objective - I meditated while I knitted; rest of the time I brooded, but that is not meditating, is it?  This is an area I can improve upon in April.

- Cultivate non-attachment  - continue with the attempt to declutter; the goal is 100 items in March - Yes, well, if I may include the stuff I decluttered in the office, then, I will be able to say I more than met this goal; but, as for personal items in my home, not so much.  Dancer tried to help, though, knocking off a vase and causing it to break!  

- Attend the monthly rosary prayer gathering - Attended the monthly prayer gathering as well as a friend's funeral/viewing, during which the rosary was recited.

Environment:  The goal is a clean, tidy, uncluttered house and a well-maintained garden.

House: 

- Focus on decluttering and maintaining cleaned areas - Did some; in my attempt to stay positive, I will leave it at that!  

Garden:
- Maintain (water 2x per week; weed) - It rained a lot!  I really didn't have to water the garden except for once or twice, all month!  Friend M did some weeding.  The front garden flower beds are looking lovely!

- Prepare a planting bed & scatter some flower/vegetable seeds - prepared a bed but didn't plant any seeds in it; however, planted some morning glory seeds in a different bed. 

Daughter:  The goal is to continue to have a close relationship with her.

- Celebrate her 25th birthday with her! - Celebrated with a special lunch, a clothes shopping trip, and cake and ice cream afterwards

- Daily texts, phone calls, emails, and video chatting, once she goes back - Did so, daily.

Family & Friends:  The goal is to keep in touch with various family members and friends.

- Call, email, etc. - Exchanged emails with a cousin in Australia and a friend; several calls to and from family and friends, as well.

- Wish cousin N and cousin P on their birthdays - Called and wished both cousins.

- Will be seeing several members of the family and friends at the monthly prayer gathering, if attending - Attended the prayer gathering and got a ride to it from a cousin; visited with friends and family at the prayer gathering;  met some other friends at a friend's funeral and gave cousin a ride to and from the funeral; visited a cousin and aunt.

- Weekly calls with neighbor T - Spoke with her on the Sundays during the month, we took turns to call each other.

In addition, friend R visited and brought us breakfast when daughter was here and I was recovering from my surgery, earlier in the month.  We've also chatted on the phone several times, often a couple of times a week.

Community:  The goal is to become more involved in my community

- Continue to participate in the blogging community - Did so.

Career:  The goal is to continue to do work which I enjoy (for the most part) and which enables me to support myself.

- Continue to do my assignments in a timely manner - Did so.
- Reserve a space to attend one of the monthly retirement seminars - Did so; was unable to schedule to attend the one in March, but will attend the one in April

Finances:  The goal is financial security.

- Continue budgeting and spending mindfully, with purpose - my financial planner called a couple of times to go over one or two things with me and to reassure me that my portfolio has not gone down due to the recent market volatility (I am an extremely conservative investor); scheduled my appointment with the tax preparer; paid my property taxes and other bills, reviewed my budget to see how I'll do with my estimated retirement pay although I don't know what the exact amount will be after deductions.

Health & Well Being:  The goal is good health.

- Attend the appointments with my various medical doctors - 3 scheduled so far in March (surgeon - to get stitches removed - on 3/7; primary care on 3/9, podiatrist on 3/15) - Done!  All the appointments went well and there were no issues.

- Continue to go for additional screening tests, as needed - Didn't need to.

- Continue to monitor blood pressure, sugar levels, and weight - Weight has gone up!  Oops! 

- Continue to focus on a healthier diet, drinking enough water (8x 8oz), exercising regularly (walk for 30 minutes during the work week), and getting sufficient sleep (keep trying for that elusive 11:30 p.m. bed time during the work week!) - Well, the healthier diet got a bit wobbly, recently, as I stressed over the office move (I eat when I am stressed and not salads and fresh fruit, either, but cookies, cakes, chocolates, and chips!), the drinking of water suffered as I started to drink soda, again; the walking regularly took a bit of a back seat while I recovered from surgery and then found it hard to get back into it afterwards; the earliest I managed to get to bed was around 12:30 a.m., and getting sufficient sleep happened only on the weekends when I could sleep in!  

- Focus on accomplishments and staying positive - Yes; I recovered from the surgery without complications, everything healed nicely, I wasn't in any pain and didn't need any pain medications; the pharmacy got some of my medication refills done without drama; my doctor wasn't too worried about my weight gain and put it down to inactivity due to surgery (we both knew better, but we went along with that as an excuse!)

Time Management:  The goal is having enough time to do all what I want to do!

- Procrastinate less - Didn't get around to it!  LOL!

- Implement routines and schedules/get myself on a better time table! - Work in progress!

Leisure/Crafts/Hobbies/Me-Time:  The goal is to relax doing something I enjoy doing for the pleasure of it.

- Set aside 30 minutes a day to do something relaxing, such as reading books, or doing a craft - well, I spent a lot of time this month, definitely more than 30 minutes a day, knitting, doing crossword puzzles, sudoku, and reading blogs.  It was all good, but some housework, etc., might have suffered, as a result.  Need to find a good balance!

So, that is my goals update for March!  I don't think I did too badly, but I do see a lot of room for improvement, in April!  Did you make any goals for March?  If so, how did you do on them?