2014 Resolution Wrap-Up

The time has come to 'fess up on my success (or lack there of) in keeping my 2014 resolutions!  2014 was not a very good year (more on that another day) so I'l confess ahead of time that I didn't do as well as I would've wanted.

You can see my original post of 2014 resolutions here.

• Declutter: This was a big goal of mine for 2014.  I did...sort of okay?  I managed to sell a ton of stuff on ebay and did take a couple of loads of stuff to donate.  However, I also added a lot of stuff to my hoard collection of items.  I think I probably wound up breaking even as far as what came in vs what went out.

• Project Pan: I did pretty well in my goal to use up existing beauty products!  I managed to only let myself buy beauty products that filled an actual void and didn't buy stuff just because "oh my god there's a new flavor of Burts Bees WHYDOINOTOWNITNOW?!"  I didn't exactly keep up with my postings of what I finished off, though.  I think I might just do one big post of all of my 2014 empties.

• Read 35 Books: Yeah, no.  About halfway through the year I realized I wasn't going to hit this so I lowered my Goodreads goal to 30.  I managed to finish my 30th book with two days to spare.

• 12 Acts of Anonymous Kindness: I *did* manage to succeed in doing 12 acts, but I wasn't as creative in them as I had hoped to be.  I tipped a few kind servers 50%.  I wound up buying several strangers' meal/coffee/bar tab/whatever.  Totally not original, but it doesn't matter how creative it is if you're putting good vibes into the world...right?  Here are my three favorite "acts" of the year:

• I bought a few small gift cards to Half Price Books and then tucked them into the covers of my personal favorite books at the public library.  I adore our public library but I think that everyone should have a bookshelf full of books of their own, too.

• There's a group here that takes donations for the pets of homeless and displaced people.  Since Stella could never eat her way through half the treats we'd accumulated for her, we took a sizable pile of goodies (plus a few new things we picked up on the trip there) to donate.

• I made little goody bags of various kinds of candy, an ornament, and candy cane lip balm and then J and I walked around the neighborhood dropping them off at random houses.  We chose who got one somewhat arbitrarily - maybe it was because we liked their decorations...or because we see them working in their garden a lot...or because Stella decided to pee in their yard.  It sort of turned into a game and was a lot of fun even though we were cold and exhausted by the end.

While none of my resolutions were as exciting as my 12 New Things of 2013, I did enjoy working on my 2014 resolutions.  My declutter mission is far from over, but I'm more motivated now than I was a year ago to clear stuff out.  The extra income from ebaying things doesn't exactly hurt either.  The Acts of Kindness goal sort of reminded me just how little it takes to brighten someone's day.  There have been days where something as simple as someone letting me cut ahead of them in line on a Saturday at the grocery store was all it took to completely change my mood.  I just hope that at least one person's day was bettered by something I did this year. <3