At the beginning of the year I made a list of goals and now it’s time to see how I did. I managed to do a lot of things I planned and, even if I didn’t do everything, I’m still happy overall.
2019 Goals: Blogs
1. Pub & Tea room reviews, every other month. My thought was to review some pubs based in Liverpool, but none was actually close to home, save the Beefeater. The last two ones are not exactly pubs nor tearooms, but I thought I will include them anyway.
1. Scawsby Mill, Doncaster
2. Bag of Nails, London
3. Beefeater, Liverpool
4. The Turnpike, near Oxford
5. Mrs Burton’s, near Hastings
6. Nosebag, Oxford
2. Style I thought of once a month, that means 12, but managed to do only 8, mainly because I had a lot of travel themed posts I wanted to share. I have a few posts I want to make next year with style&beauty type of products I love, but didn’t manage to talk about them this year.
1. Almond Hand And Nail Butter from the Body Shop
2. ASOS Boots
3. Ted Baker handbag
4. No7 Airbrush Away Foundation
5. Hand creams from The Body Shop
6. Matte Clay Skin Clarifying Foundation
7. How Many Cosmetics Do I Need
8. Dream Big Advent Calendar
3. Taste the World and Royal Recipes. I planned to make 15 recipes for Taste the World and 6 Royal, but didn’t get that far, mainly because I was very busy at the end of the year and, again, I didn’t manage to try lots of Christmas related recipes I wanted to. Anyway, I still have some fab recipes, some of them I made more than once, like the teff porridge, mutabbal, and padron peppers, also Dundee cake from the royal series. I started the caravan cooking series with 6 new recipes, on top of that.
All the recipes are linked in the Taste the World round up.
1. Ethiopia – Savoury Teff Porridge
2. Turkey – Tahin Pekmez
3. Palestinian Territories – Mutabbal
4. China – Chinese Dragons
5. Quatar – Karak Chai
6. Australia – Anzac biscuits
7. Spain – Padron Peppers (Pimientos de Padron)
8. Ghana – Peanut Butter Soup
9. Bangladesh – Sandesh Mishti
Royal recipes
1. Macarons
2. Napoleon’s Hat biscuits
3. Individual Dundee cakes
4. Roasted potatoes on the BBQ with Whisky sauce
Caravan Cooking
1. Lentil Pasta
2. Coffee and Walnut Cake
3. Asparagus risotto
4. Purple Sprout Broccoli Side Dish
5. Prohibition Upside Down Cake
6. Merinque chocolate dessert
4. Reviews. This went better than imagined, with 13 reviews instead of the 12 I wanted. It was a busy year, when I tried lots of new things and so I had plenty of things to share too.
1. ABQ London
2. Axe Throwing
3. No Bull Burgers
4. Vegan Fair – Live A Better Life Vegan Fair Liverpool
5. Cafe de Pierre
6. Kazimier Garden
7. International Jousting Tournament at Royal Armouries, Leeds
8. Cat Café Liverpool
9. Weird Things Humans Search For
10. Chill Factore
11. The Clink Restaurant. This is a restaurant in a prison and a really special place.
12. Paperless Post (no picture in the round-up)
13. Crocodiles Feeding at Crocodiles of the World.
5. Post regularly. I did, on all three blogs.
2019 Goals: Personal
1. Go to the gym regularly. The target was 52 and I didn’t achieve it. I managed only 48, which is not bad at all. I’ve cancelled my gym membership and I will have a different approach next year.
2. Sew more or do more crafty stuff. I made new curtains for the caravan, you can see them in the post about the caravan renovations.
3. Make 5 from 40 before 40 list. In 2018 I managed to do only 2, but this year I did more: 7.
Visit Buckingham and Kensington. I went to the Queen’s Gallery this year and I’ve visited Kensington Palace previously. – No.18
Axe throwing is a sport, so I checked another thing on my list: Try a new sport – No.7
Ping Pong – trying a new sport instead of kayaking on the rivers (I already kayak in the sea). No.38
Go on a road trip of at least a thousand miles. – Holiday in Scotland (~1,300) – No.36
Go to Northern Ireland for a Game of Thrones trail. – went to Doune Castle in Scotland – Winterfell. No.32
Go to a Motorsport GP (changed from F1). – Women’s Series at Brands Hatch – No. 28
Feed a wild animal (at a Safari park/zoo) – I had a crocodile feeding experience for my birthday, gift from my husband – No. 10
4. Read 75 Books. Number of books, by month:
January – 10 books
February – 6 books
March – 7 books
April – 7 books
May – 7 books
June – 6 books
July – 6 books
August – 5 books
September – 7 books
October – 9 books
November – 10 books
December – 8 books
That means 88 books in total! I achieved my goal of 75 in November.
2019 Goals: Travel All three goals were completed. Yay!!
1. London. I visited in London: St. Paul’s Cathedral, ABQ London (a Breaking Bad themed cocktail bar), Brunel Museum, Queen’s House, Spencer House, Queen’s Gallery, Cutty Sark, Madame Tussauds, The Royal Observatory.
2. Wales. Done. We had a short holiday in South Wales. In that trip we went to: Tredegar House; Big Pit National Coal Museum; St Fagans National Museum of History; Museums in Cardiff, including Cardiff Castle; Anna Loka and The Clink Restaurant; the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay.
3. Scotland. Done. We went on a holiday in Scotland, having a tour from Edinburgh to Inverness to Fort William, and back to Stirling towards home. We visited so many amazing places. It was great.
Did you set goals for this year? Did you manage to achieve them?
Well done! You have done really, really well with your goals – I am really impressed! I have written a post on some of my aims which I published yesterday- I did fairly well with some of them. Bookwise, I was aiming for 100 as usual….but haven’t posted on how I did YET- the post is taking ages to write!
You did a brilliant job with your plans and goals. Big well done! You managed so much – travelling, cooking, studying. Very impressive list! I love looking at the places you visit, books you read and tasty meals you cook. Here’s to a new year of wonderful posts!
Very impressive! That lentil pasta looks lovely. I haven;t been to Chill Factore in such a long time! I might add it to my 2020 list. As for my 2019 goals…don’t think I did as well as you!
Bravo! I’m very impressed with your commitment and motivation. And even more so that you shared so much with us, all of which I enjoyed tremendously! Happy New Year, Anca!
I think you did quite well with your goals. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it all! For one thing, you have youth on your side. 😉
I seldom set goals anymore, though I do have a few I’d like to meet in reading next year. We read the same number of books this year – 88!
And there I go again, misspelling my name!! Perhaps I should set a goal to always double proof my comments before clicking “post”!!
Thank you. You’ve read 88 books too, what a coincidence.