2025 Goals - Health/Fitness and Home

This is the second instalment (out of three) summarising my 2025 goals. The first focused on my word of the year and personal goals. This post will share my health/fitness and home-related goals. I don't usually have these specific categories (often it is Personal, Work, and Family/Relationships), but this year my health and my home are two areas I would like to prioritise, so they get their own categories

Health/fitness:

• See a dermatologist. I've had intermittent, but ongoing, issues with skin breakouts. This is definitely driven by hormones, as it is worse in certain phases of my cycle. When I was in my twenties I controlled it perfectly with the contraceptive pill, but the pill gave me migraines (although it took me years to realise the pill was the cause). Since then, at different times, I have tried supplements and skin care cleansers, taken antibiotics, but nothing has been very effective. It is now at the point where I basically can't ever where makeup, which is frustrating. A colleague told me last year about how she had similar issues, and a few years ago saw a dermatologist who prescribed Roaccutane, which has been extremely effective with few side effects. She highly recommended trying it out, and I feel like I'm ready.

• Start a strength training habit (3 x week). I had this on my goals list last year but it didn't happen. I'm now in my early 40s and have enough aches and (minor) pains that I know I need to do more to look after my body. I would also like to feel stronger, and perhaps look a little more toned as well. This year is the year. I have downloaded the Sweat app (recommended to me by two friends), bought a yoga mat and weights, and tried my first Beginners strength workout. Did I love it? No. Was it only 20 minutes long and do-able? Yes. And I felt good afterwards. I will aim for Mondays, Wed or Thurs, and Saturday.

  

  I won't be using weights this heavy! Photo by Wix

  
  

• Walk dailyish. This will complement the strength training, and I already do this, so it shouldn't be hard to maintain. I basically walk every lunchtime at work (20-40 mins depending on my time available and the weather), and then on the weekend I like to walk one early morning and perhaps a family walk one day. If I walk 5 days per week at a minimum I am happy, and I usually hit that goal each week.

• Schedule dental check ups for the whole family. This shouldn't need to be on the goals list but since we relocated to a different state, we haven't had a regular dentist. Luckily my brother in law is a dentist, and did a quick check up on me a year ago when I was visiting him, and he checks the kids teeth too. But they are getting to the age where they need proper annual checks, and I need this too. I've been blessed with naturally strong and resilient teeth (I have never had a cavity), but I can't count on that forever. Even strong teeth start to wear with age. There is a dentist in our small town so there is no reason not to book an appointment.

Home:

• Paint the interior of the house white. We have not done any updates to our house since we moved in (other than installing a dishwasher!), and the yellow walls and red window/door frames have definitely passed their prime. We have wood panelling on the roof, which although I like it, makes the house look quite dark. So the plan is that room by room this year, we will paint the walls and window/door frames bright white. Hopefully the white walls will look good with the wood ceiling, and brighten/modernise the interior.

• Replace the carpets in the bedrooms, and window coverings on all the windows. Some of the window coverings are missing, some we have removed because they were too old, some are broken. All need updating. Same with the carpets in the bedrooms. The rest of the house is tiled in a neutral pale cream colour, so that can stay for now.

• Set up/rearrange the bedrooms. We have tried two different arrangements since we moved in two years ago, and neither have worked well. The first arrangement was Al and I are the larger master bedroom, the two kids in bunks in the second bedroom, and a guest room set up the third smallest bedroom. The kids didn't like sleeping in the bunks and eventually they would sleep in the master or guest bed. So we then sold the bunks, got the kids two single beds, and moved them in the master (two singles wouldn't fit in the second bedroom). We then moved our bedroom into the second room, and the guest room became an office. But now we don't really fit in the second room, and so our room is cramped and does not spark joy. So I think we need to accept the fact that we need to move back into the master, and have the kids each have a bedroom each. Which means we will have to set up an office desk in the dining room - which is not ideal but also, should work ok (we luckily have a couple of living spaces). The thought of moving all the rooms around again is not thrilling me, (its A LOT of work), but I really think it needs to be done.

• Undertake a quarterly house declutter. Aim to remove a few bags/boxes of unneeded clothes, toys, papers, random junk etc. I think doing this quarterly will prevent the job becoming too massive. I'm planning to do my first session this afternoon, after I finish this post!

• Daily tidy/sweep/laundry load. Do a quick tidy of some key house areas, a quick sweep of our tiled areas, and one load of laundry, would take about 30 minutes a day, and will make such a difference to the feel of the house. I plan to spend 10 minutes sweeping and putting on laundry in the morning, and then 20 minutes tidying up and folding laundry in the evening. I think I can make these enjoyable, calming, activities.

I will be back next post with my final 2025 goals in the categories of Family/relationships, and Work.