New Year’s Resolutions: 2021 – February Update

Every month, I report the progress of my yearly goals in order to monitor progress (or the lack thereof) and hold myself accountable.

Where did February go? It’s been simultaneously a hectic and a quiet month, spent on miscellaneous chores and hobbies around the house. With two months down, here is my progress thus far.

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New Year’s Resolutions: 2021 – February Update

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Health & Wellness

1. Don’t die. Well, I am still here. I received my PULS labs back and learned that I’m at a three times higher risk of a heart attack than the average woman my age, which is scary. Several wonky lab results are pointing to an autoimmune disease, so I’m hoping to see a rheumatologist and get my health figured out.
2. Move my body daily. I went on a 2-mile walk each day in February, and went twice on several occassions. The weather has been in the 70s-80s, so we’re taking advantage of the nice weather before it gets too hot.
3. Prioritize sleep. I’m fortunate to be able to work from home and to have a flexible work schedule, so I go to bed at 9pm each night and wake up between 5am and 7am, depending on my body’s needs. Sleep remains my top priority.
4. Continue to eat healthfully. Done. We get 90% of our produce from a local farm and most of our ethically-raised meats from a local butcher, and consume almost no processed foods. I follow a strict low-glycemic, paleo diet/lifestyle plan and supplement for identified deficiencies.

Personal & Professional Development

5. Read (or re-read) at least 24 books. I completed 1) Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks, 2) The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, and 3) Kotov Syndrome by Tim Baughman Jr.
6. Do Homework for Life. Homework for Life is a practice I’ve done on-and-off for at least three years now, but I just completed my first 59 consecutive days with the conclusion of Februrary. It involves capturing the most storyworthy moment of each, and it’s brought joy into the most mundane of days.
7. Continued learning. 1) I’m taking an Excel course for work and learning how to better analyze data. My work involves a fair amount of tracking, analyzing, and presenting data, so I’m hoping this will be valuable. 2) My boyfriend has been following Bitcoin since 2010 and it’s finally caught my interest, so I’ve been learning a lot about blockchain technologies. I imagine there will be diverse future implications once the technology is fleshed out and widely-adopted. 3) I have begun studying for my ham radio license.
8. Select two behaviors that I am opposed to and adopt them for one week, then write about my experiences on the blog. I have voraciously consumed critical race theory literature and its counterpoints (conservative estimate: 400 hours since the start of the year), and I am now convinced that wokeness is destroying the country. On the one hand, I perhaps adopted the consumption habits of The Woke; on the other hand, I cannot in good conscious adopt the behaviors or perspectives. It’s a train wreck I can’t look away from. I may write about it soon, through I worry my opinion with alienate people.
9. Complete Yoga Teacher Training. No progress.
10. Receive a promotion and boost my salary by +10% in 2021. No progress. This would theoretically happen in March or October at the biannual review cycle.
11. Work on identifying my purpose of ideal career path. No progress. I have exercised general curiously, though nothing too noteworthy.

Financial

12. Achieve net worth of $200,000 by the end of 2021. As of Februrary 28th 2021, my net worth sits at $124,600, down from $128,900 in January. Extra expenses this month included $700 for an Epipen refill (ouch!), $300 for car repairs, and $200 for car registration renewal and emissions testing, $425 to renew internet for the year… and we had a $90 package stolen, and thus has to repurchase I was hoping March would be easier on the wallet, but my eight-year-old Honda was just towed back to the mechanics because it won’t start. Ugh.
13. Save 45% of my net income. February had a savings rate of 16%, split between my Roth IRA and 401k. We had to draw from savings, rather than contribute.
14. Remain debt-free. This should remain true unless something crazy happens.
15. Start down payment savings account. We’re probably staying put for at least four to five years, so we may put some of this into a diversified investment fund, rather than keep it in high-yield savings. We’re planning to leave $10,000-$15,000 in savings and allocate the rest into diversified investment accounts and cryptocurrency.

Hobbies

16. Writing. I added 20 new posts to this blog. Crowd favorites included Do You Sell Or Save Your Valuable Collectibles? and I Am Just Here To Create. My personal favorites were Why I Am Against Student Loan Forgiveness and My Top 10 Digital Privacy Tools For 2021.
17. Sewing. I learned how to French seam using this tutorial, made a True Bias Ogden Cami in Japanese linen (a goal from my Make Nine Challenge),
18. Fermentation. No progress.
19. Try at least 12 new recipes. 3. Minimalist Baker 5-Ingredient Peppermint Patties, 4. Paleo Leap Slow Cooked Bacon-Wrapped Chicken, 5. Black Pepper Tofu from Vegan Richa’s Everyday Kitchen cookbook, 6. Sticky Sesame Cauliflower from Vegan Richa’s blog, 7. Paleo White Chicken Chili from What Great Grandma Ate, and 8) Spicy Roasted Bok Choy from The Wheatless Kitchen.
20. Canning. No progress.
21. Gardening. We have an infestation of ground squirrels, so the garden has been devoured by the cute-but-naughty little rodents. They seem to be avid acrobats, I don’t think we will be replanting this seasons. However, I have spent the weekends helping my mom with her garden, and she currently has an array of beautiful flowers and fresh vegetables.
22. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month. February is complete. Hooray!

Family, Friends & Strangers

23. Write 50 letters in 2021. As of the end of February, 13 have been written (no change over the last month).
24. Call a family member or friend at least once per week. I honestly have not kept track of this, though I talk to my parents once or twice per week.
25. Surprise my boyfriend at least six times in 2021. No progress.
26. Celebrate eight years with my best friend. Counting down to October.
27. Invent a new word. No progress.
28. Take more photos and start an album. This does not come naturally and I did not take many photos at all this month.
29. Read to my niece at least six times. One of six completed. At three months, she’s becoming very alert and curious.
30. Reconnect with friends I’ve lost touch with while ill. No progress.
31. Meet new people. After the January update, a reader mentioned that I’m technically meeting people here, and she’s right. So thank you all, simply for showing up and offering me the opportunity to connect. I’m so happy you are here!
32. Practice kindness. I basically only interact with my boyfriend. I try to be kind and supportive, but I’m beginning to miss being around people and finding small opportunities to practice kindness.

Home & Household

33. Mold remediation. Scheduled for May.
34. Hang up all the artwork we have lying around. No progress.
35. Have the custom sketch on the back of Rainbow Sunset professionally scanned and printed. No progress.
36. Buy a fireproof safe for sentimental items. Accomplished in January.
37. Reassess our emergency preparedness. We currently have 80 gallons of water and two waterBOBs, six months of nonperishable foods and household toiletries, two huge boxes of medical supplies, and loaded “go bags,” camping stoves, and solar lights. If Phoenix is hit by an apocalyptic snowstorm or drought, we should be all set.
38. Clean out my closet and get rid of anything I don’t love. More clothes were given away to an appreciative family friend, and more higher-priced items were gathered to consign or sell.

Future Planning

39. Save money for a down payment. As mentioned above, we’ve going to temporarily reallocate because it doesn’t make sense to have tens of thousands in bonds and savings accounts right now..earning near-nothing. Worse case scenario, if the market is poor when we want to move, we can sell or take a reverse mortgage against our paid-off home.
40. Prepare to start a family. The plan entails getting my health in order, getting private generic testing (samples, results, personal data destroyed if company is sold), and optimizing nutrition to ensure a child’s health. If we were to have kids, it would be four years out, putting me in my mid-30s and my partner in his mid-40s, so we want to what we can to minimize the risks that come with childbearing a little later in life.
41. Think about the overall vision for my life. I think I do this on a small scale weekly, but haven’t gotten around to anything formal yet. We have had some money in Bitcoin “for the lulz,” as my boyfriend says, but it was fun dreaming about what we would do if the value continues to rise when it hit $50k+. We’ve already made (unrealized) gains and it could easily go to zero tomorrow, but it’s been incredible fodder for conversation and setting big goals for the future.