Last year, I posted a list of goals for 2018, and I thought I’d take a few minutes to reflect on how well I accomplished them as I look forward to a new year. It always helps me to examine past successes and failures in planning for the future.

PhDizzle. Check. I successfully defended my dissertation on November 27th, 2018. Truth be told, most of the difficult work of obtaining my PhD was in the beginning: the first year of classes were really quite challenging, and the two years after that consisted of early morning wake-ups for data collection; after that, it was mostly just writing and bowing to the desires of my dissertation committee. I’m glad to have graduate school behind me, and I’m looking forward to seeing what opportunities my doctorate might provide me in the future. To be continued!

Potty training. Check. We can’t really take all the credit for this one, as Caleb’s school really took charge of the process in May. He was successfully potty trained by the end of the summer, which has made our lives so much easier (in some ways…still gotta provide constant potty reminders!). Caleb still has the occasional accident when he’s really immersed in an activity, and he does still wear a Pull-Up to bed at night, but overall, he’s taken to toilet training quite easily and without protest. Before we started the potty training process, I was really worried that it would be a stressful experience for everyone, but it ended up being a pretty smooth process.

Reading. Check. If you’ve been reading this blog with any regularity over the past year, you know that I’ve kept up my reading habit (check out all my monthly book reviews here). In total I read 31 books in 2018 (one of which I finished on New Year’s Eve, so I’ll have to include that in my January review). I now have a pretty good routine for finding book recommendations and adding them to my “queue” at the library. I’ll say that having so many prenatal doctor’s appointments this year has certainly helped me continue my reading habit–I now bring a book with me for any sort of appointment! I feel like that’s a much more productive use of waiting time versus scrolling through Instrgram for the eighth time of the day, ha!

Cooking. Meh. This goal was not really clearly defined and thus was not really achieved. One thing I have learned about myself is that I just don’t like using cookbooks anymore. Sure, I have a few favorite recipes that I turn to over and over again, but mostly my cookbook collection sits untouched on the shelf. I prefer getting recipe ideas from blogs these days, and so I’m contemplating donating most of my cookbooks. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll continue exploring new ingredients and experimenting in the kitchen for years to come because it is a favorite hobby. Food will always be fun for me, but how creative I get with it may vary depending on my life circumstances…and I’m OK with that.

Baby. Check…almost. One of my main personal objectives of 2018 was to get pregnant with and give birth to our second child, but I didn’t mention that in my original post because…well, that’s the sort of information I didn’t want to broadcast. As I mentioned in our pregnancy announcement, getting pregnant this time proved to be a bit more challenging, which placed a lot of emotional stress on me in the first part of 2018. As I type this post, I am 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, so we didn’t quite make the cutoff for having a baby in 2018, but here’s hoping Baby C arrives without complications…and soon!

So all around, I’d say I was pretty successful with the goals I set for 2018. I am holding off on setting goals for this year for a few weeks, as all I can think about right now is having this darn baby. There will be plenty of time for setting personal, professional, and health goals later!