Only three months left in 2013.  I suppose I could wait until December and reflect back, but it seems a better idea to reflect back when I can make some adjustments.  Did I accomplish what I wanted to accomplish?  Are there things I still want to accomplish from “way back” at the beginning of the year?  Have things changed?

From a finances standpoint, I still need to dig into my insurance (home, car) costs.  I discovered when the insurance company came to review my house that I was drastically overinsured.  With a 17 year old in the house, my car insurance also went wonky and now that I am going to have to purchase a car this is something that is still on my list.

From a professional standpoint, I didn’t complete the upgrade technical certifications that I had originally wanted but I also discovered that my focus has changed, not only professionally but personally.  I no longer identify myself as the pure geek that I have been for so much of my career but now see myself as process focused.  So mid-year I dropped the emphasis on the technical and application certifications and dedicated myself to ITIL certifications.  I have three tests and two courses remaining until my ITIL expert is achieved and this is a goal I wish to continue.

I’m horribly behind on my reading, that should be an easy one to pick back up as I enjoy it, but I need to make some adjustments – likely I will be adding a commute, so I am investigating audio books as an option as well as adding reading into my daily “to-do” list so that I don’t skip over it for things that seem more important but really are not.

Doing something for 30 days is wonderful and for October I will be taking a picture every day.  The purpose of this is not to get a bunch of amazing pictures, though that would be nice, but to start paying attention to the world around me and perhaps looking at it in different ways.  I’m also going to continue with a TED talk per day as I have found that both enlightening and inspiring.

Fitness and health, I’ve been appallingly slack.  That’s the largest focus of the next three months, difficult as it is going to be now that the lovely weather is ending and the winter cold is seeping in.  Resetting a bit, I’m aiming for simply regular exercise and a diet improvement by creating good habits – October will be 30 days of exercising the dogs, November will be 30 days of “eating in”, December will be 30 days of morning yoga/stretching.

Finally, we started the year planning to redo one room per month.  Instead we completed the guest bathroom (which looks marvelous) and made the front porch inviting and then had the exterior of the house painted – which was such a huge improvement we felt better about the whole place.  From here through December, I’m changing focus a bit to surveying each room and identifying what needs to be done, the cost and effort involved and doing serious decluttering of the remaining “stuff” that isn’t really enhancing our lives.  In the course of this, I’m also going to identify the things we love and use that need repairing, upgrading or replacing.

So, to summarize:

• Untangle insurance (and put it on the annual checkup list)
• ITIL Expert certification
• Catch up on reading
• Develop and continue good habits in 30 day increments
• Survey the home improvement needs

Seems doable, let’s see how it goes. 🙂