Goals in Review: January and February

This year I’m trying to weave goal setting into my daily, weekly, and monthly routine.  In college I was a planner.  Always mapping out my semesters by which assignments were due when, and making sure that I paced myself throughout the semester for each course.

I worked for three years before having children and even with my job I enjoyed having a systematic approach to my projects and deadlines.

Somehow having children seemed to erase my ability to plan anything beyond a grocery list and weekly menu.  I have always purchased daily planners, but after a few weeks of writing in them, they usually sit in my purse untouched.  Yes, I get the necessary things done and we all survive.  But I realized this year that I want to be more proactive about setting goals.  (You can read a little bit more about this here).

Now that January and February are behind us, I thought I’d do a little re-cap on goals so far.

Exercise.
My goal by the end of the year is to run a half marathon.  So, by the end of February I had set to run 3 miles.  And I accomplished that.  Sort of.   I wrote down ‘run 3 miles’.  What I meant was ‘run 3 miles without stopping’.  If you add up the two times that I ran in February, it’s 3 miles.  Regardless of the intent, I’m hitting the pavement again, and actually enjoying it.

Reading.
There are several women in my life who inspire me with their reading.  Sherri, Julie, and Emily to name a few.  I look to their lists for book recommendations in genres that I wouldn’t normally choose.  I made a book list for this year and it’s been fun to start crossing some off the list.  I’d love to read 30 books this year.  So far, I’ve read 6, and I’m into my seventh.  I’ll do a separate book list post soon.

Also, I wanted to take the kids to the library and we did it!  I normally avoid the library because of children running away from me.  But our library has a great play area that the younger ones enjoy and Isabella is able to search for books while they play.  I’ve also taken Mason and Jennavieve to toddler time twice now.  They love it!

Homemaking.
Instead of having separate cooking, cleaning and organization goals, I’ve lumped everything together into this category.

Staying on top of the laundry has been a challenge.  But I’ve been at least keeping up with washing a load everyday, just not always getting it folded and put away.  So some days (like yesterday) I play catch up and tackle the folding and putting away at one time.

Dusting is my very least favorite household task, so my goal was to dust one time in January.  The whole house got a good wipe down and I forgot how much I like the smell of lemon-scented Pledge.  When my bedroom gets dusted, it gets documented.  Side note:  that wood-shim mirror is still one of my favorite DIY projects of all time.

Cooking and baking are two of my favorite hobbies, but after Cooper was born they took a back burner.  We still ate, but just the basics.  So, I’ve attempted to make at least one new recipe each month.  I made a Pumpkin Cake, Chocolate Swirled Cheesecake and a Crumb Cake.  I don’t know why I just made cakes.  This month, I’d like to work on some actual meals, not just sweets.  If you have a great (relatively easy) recipe, do share!

We’re attempting to have more company for dinner.  Yes, it is crazy and conversation is always interrupted by the chaos of children.  But, it’s worth it.  So far we’ve been able to keep up with our goal of at least one family per month.

Scripture Memory.
Why is this so hard for me?  I memorized verses all the time when I was a kid and into my teenage years.  And, I’m so thankful for that!  Somehow in adulthood, this discipline has been neglected.  I’m working on memorizing Philippians 3, but I’m behind where I had aimed to be at this point.

Note writing.
This one needs some work.  No matter how much I try, sending birthday cards is something I am always late on!  I even wrote down in my planner to mail a card on a particular day and then didn’t do it.   I’m still working on thank-you notes from Cooper’s birth and Christmas, so I didn’t meet the goal of having that done by January.  My sister Sherri is the queen of sending encouraging notes!  I so admire her for doing this.  We often receive notes from her throughout the year, sometimes even handmade ones.  Getting snail mail is a gift!  One that I’d like to give.

I’m finding goal-setting to be helpful.  No, I didn’t accomplish everything, but I feel more intentional in my day-to-day, and that’s an improvement.

The first image is in this post can be found here.  AND, Dawn offers that print and others as free downloads on her site.