A Look Back At 2014

Here we are with less than 10 hours left in 2014. I went back and forth with myself trying to decide if I wanted to do a year in review post for 2014. Why? Because I was sure I had completely and totally failed my goals for 2014 and wanted to pretend like they didn’t exist.

You see, only a few weeks into 2014 our world was shaken by the roots when a couple of big things happened financially and medically that made me all but toss any goals I had for the year aside. I don’t want to sound like the year was full of doom and gloom because that isn’t the case, but as a result of what happened back last January and continued health issues between both J and myself it’s been hard to focus on what goals I may have set back then.

But as I thought about the year, I realized there were lots of things that happened that needed to be celebrated. Lots of things that unless you are really close to me (and sometimes not even then) you wouldn’t know had happened so I decided I would write this post after all!

Once I decided to write the post, I got brave and looked at the goals I had set myself a year ago. The goals I haven’t looked at since last January. The goals I was sure I had failed. And you know what I discovered? I had actually been more successful at them than I even imagined!

• Reduce spending. I think our grocery bill could probably still be a bit smaller/week than it is but it still averages $25 less/week than it did last year. And that is with us changing to more organic/hormone free foods which are more expensive. Our “extra” spending has also decreased dramatically. Certainly it could be reduced even further, but all in all I’m giving myself a 4/5.
• Reduce clutter. This is an ongoing project here, and everywhere I imagine. I did declutter a bunch of cabinets and sold/gave awy a lot of things we no longer use so I’ll give myself a conservative 3/5 here.
• Reduce consumption. Hmmm. When I set this goal it was largely to have more showers than baths. I guess I forgot I have fibromyalgia and baths are pretty key for reducing my muscle and joint pain. On the other front I think we’ve done well at purchasing products that are more environmentally friendly, and we are recycling fools so even though I failed on the shower front, I’ll give myself a solid 3/5 for the other aspects.
• Reduce debt. Interestingly, even though we’ve brought in much less income this year than previous years, we are ending the year with less debt. So I guess that “reduce spending” bit paid off (pun not intended). All considered I’m saying a 4.5/5 for this one.
• Get a Monthly Massage. Yeah, so this I get a big fat 0 for, and I really need to go get a referral because we are now paying for our own health insurance and massages are still covered so I need to get the best bang for my buck. This one will be on the to-do list for January for sure! 0/5 here.
• Chilling Out Time. I’m happy to say I feel like I’ve really started to find a good work/life balance. More so towards the end of the year but all the same. I still think I need to give myself “black out” times when I’m not online at all, but I’ve made huge progress on this one. 4.5/5!
• Write. write. write. Le sigh. When I wrote this goal it was intended for creative writing, not blog writing. I’ve certainly done a lot of blog writing this year, but until December’s #AdventuresWithOlaf there was zippo in the creative dept. That exercise was really great though, and I had wonderful response so hopefully it give me the push to finally get those creative writing juices flowing in 2015. 1/5
• Run. run. run. It made me very sad when I had to give up running almost entirely for the second half of the year in 2014, but I needed to for health reasons. I *think* that I am close to having that issue now under control so I’m excited to start putting in miles on the dreadmill in late January/early February. As for races, in 2014 I ran 1-1/2 marathon, 1-7k, 1-6k, 5-5k’s and 1-2 mile race. I think that 9 races + listening to my body = 5/5 on this one!
• Yoga. yoga. yoga. Meh, this could be better, it could also be worse. I teach lots of yoga but I don’t have a consistent practise of my own. 2/5 
• Breakfast. This is one place I’ve done tremendously! Go me!!!! It’s a rare day that I skip breakfast now, so 5/5!
• Sleep… and here is another place I’ve really turned things around! It was probably March or April before I started sleeping more soundly, but now it’s a rare night that I have problems going or staying to sleep. I still wake up a few times in the night, but nothing compared to what I was doing before. Sleep is soon gooooooooooood!!!!! 5/5 for sure here!

Because I’m a total nerd I tallied up my scores and worked it out to a percentage – 67%! Considering I thought I was full-on fail for the year I’m pretty darn pleased with that mark!

No let’s talk about a few highlights from the year!

In March I had the opportunity to have a private class (with about 50 strangers) with Jillian Michaels!

First she killed me, then she high five me. It was epic.

In May, Lisa and I went to see the Backstreet Boys in concert.

This too was epic. My 17 year old self would have straight up died if she had, had those seats.

In June I volunteered at Relay for Life and entertained the masses with my crazy faces and a dose of Zumba

It’s always fun when you have a big group of people who have never done Zumba before and they start giggling like crazy at the first sign of a chest pump 😉

In July I got to hang out with my adorable nephew and his parents who were home visiting from BC

We Skyped with them on Christmas day and he said, “Hi Aunt-ie!!” in the most adorable voice possible. Since this photo was taken he’s turned into a proper little boy, instead of a baby. <3

In September I had the amazing honour of being chosen by President’s Choice/Loblaws to be sent on a press trip to Toronto for the launch party of their new Crave More campaign.

It was so amazing, not only to be chosen for the trip, but to go on my first real press trip with a company I love. Even now I still cannot believe I got to go!

In November out long anticipated kitchen Island with second sink (!!) and dishwasher (!!!!) was installed/completed. The day our countertop arrived I kept running and hugging it, and in fact I just gave it a hug again last night. We have a small kitchen without a lot of counter space so this addition has made a HUGE difference. Squeeeeee

And of course the year has ended with my favourite types of decorations – Christmas Trees (I’ll be so sad tomorrow when I put everything away :’()

Updated to add: Somehow I forgot to include WINNING this amazing Michael Kors watch in my highlights of the year! I’ve wanted one of these for years, isn’t she beautiful!!! <3 <3 <3

And I’ll finish off with my mini bragging section!

Compared to the same time in 2013, my monthly blog page views has increased over 300%. I now average 120,000-140,000 page views/month. My unique monthly visitors have doubled, and my bounce rate has lowered from 60% to 8% (crazy!!) And for any bloggers reading this and wanting to know my secrets, I’m sorry, I wish I could tell you but I don’t really know! One good thing is that as a result the ads in my sidebar more than pay our house and car insurance (for both cars) each month which is definitely nice!

Looking at my fitness business, I created a new class format in the summer called “Body Sculpt” which has had wonderful reception from my clients! You just never know when you launch something new if anyone will like it, and I’m so pleased that it has been so popular! I’ve also just (this week!) launched a new online fitness/wellness club that “opens” tomorrow (Jan 1st). This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time so I’m excited to be finally bringing it to fruition!

And finally, I have made huge strides at reducing the amount of chemicals used in our house (personal hygiene, cleaning products and food). I kept having these weird skin rashes and problems and since switching our products to more natural solutions they have completely disappeared. Not only that, but making the switch has helped me move into a healthier place with fewer hormonal imbalance symptoms which is a huge win for me.

So while 2014 didn’t go the way I had planned, in the end it turned out to be a pretty okay year. Here’s hoping 2015 will prove to be 10x better!!

Happy New Year’s everyone! I’ll be back tomorrow to share my goals for 2015!