WOW! February has really flown by and here we are at another monthly goals check in. It was a strange month filled with fighting sickness and trying to mend my leg and all sorts of ups and downs, but it was also a month filled with progress.
As a refresher, here is what my Powersheets Tending List for the month of February and a little bit about how each of them went:
Monthly Goals:
*Prepare for Lent/reflect on Lenten goals: I am still debating about what to do for almsgiving because it seems that there are SO many causes that need BIG help right now… BUT I very prayerfully decided to focus my prayer life on the Psalms during this time of Lent and so far that has been really wonderful and just what I need. I also decided to give up white sugar partially because my body just needs an energy reset and partly because I knew it would be a sacrifice I would think about daily. It has been… even harder than I thought it would be. And I anticipated it being pretty hard. I thought i’d left myself a pretty easy “out” by leaving myself honey and maple syrup to sweeten stuff but when I really just want to put on a store bought sauce or salad dressing I frequently find that sugar is a main ingredient- so not only am I having plenty of opportunity to think about privilege and sacrifice, I’m also being forced to keep slowing down and make my own dang food instead of picking up ready made stuff.
*Prioritize Sleep: It’s hard to measure this one and I think I need to be more specific if I want to put something like this on my goals list again. It was a rough month for sleep with sick babies and being sick myself, but I DID make myself slow down and try to close my eyes during nap times so… I don’t know, I’m not sure how I feel about my progress here but I think I could have done better. And that’s ok! Something to keep working on in the future.
*Transition my daughter to her crib: This was huge for us this month and it was REALLY hard at first. But little by little we’ve worked on it and we have made excellent progress here. Our daughter is now in the crib sharing a room with her brother each night, although she comes in with us VERY early in the morning and she is still napping in the pack and play in our room since the siblings don’t nap well together… I think she’ll transition into napping in the crib when her brother can focus enough to have quiet time out in the living room (he has the option of quiet time or nap right now and it often means he reads in his bed for a while and then sleeps for just long enough to not be really grumpy by dinner but I know that the nap is going to drop all together very soon!)
*Celebrate St. Brigid’s Day: YES! You can read about it HERE. this may become a family tradition.
*Simplify/Continue Decluttering: We had a HUGE push with this and I have boxes of stuff ready to be passed along or donated or thrown out. Sometimes it is discouraging because it seems we still have so far to go, but when I think about how much we’ve done I’m so motivated to keep going.
*Finish Planting Spring Garden: Apparently I jumped the gun on this because Arizona got winter VERY late this year… I think our local farmer’s almanac guide said that there’s a 5%-10% chance of getting frost the end of February? That 5-10% was this year I guess. A lot of our seedlings got hit hard and died so we’ll have to re-plant a lot of things, but others pushed through. I’m thinking sometime this month I’ll have a post out on some of the things I’ve learned from gardening over the past year. I can’t believe it’s only been a year since I’ve really decided to give this gardening thing a try…
*Progress on work goals: I think this goal was a bit too vague as well… some progress here but could have been better if I’d been more specific with what I hoped to accomplish.
*Taxes Filed: DONE!

Weekly Goals:
*TV free evenings x2: YES! this is one of the biggest ways I made progress on my prioritizing sleep goal. It also helped my husband and I have some more focused conversation in the evenings and it made time for more reading.
*Write: Blogging– yes. Otherwise- no. I don’t know why I keep pushing that off but it’s on the goals again for next month so… we’ll see!
*Budget/Family Meeting: We’ve added a few pieces to what we address in our family meetings so this is staying on for one more month but we’ve been loving how much this organizes our weeks! AND between these weekly meetings and our tax returns we were able to pay off huge chunks of our medical debt which felt SO overwhelming and impossible a year ago so I am CELEBRATING so much progress there!
*Donations Run: this happened half the time and I’m pleased with that. The goal is to just keep stuff from sitting in my garage for months until we feel the need to re-sort through it and that has been happening!
*Work on PL/baby book/photo goals: Some progress here but lots of room to grow. I need a better space to work on my daughter’s baby book because the book takes up so much space. Our family Project Life pages have been going well and I finally printed out

Love silly times with this kiddo

t the last of the pages for last year’s book and that is all set and ready to enjoy!
*Call or write a congressperson: There were more emails than phone calls, which i was a little disappointed about, but it felt good to be engaged. And I’ve started learning more about my local representatives so that was helpful too!
*Self Care and Sabbath: Ups and downs on this too, but I’m finding that when we actually set aside a Sabbath day we find the most wonderful, happy family times. We found ourselves on hiking adventures, having leisurely brunches, and just enjoying more. We’ve found that going to mass Saturday evenings can help with this. We just aren’t very consistent with the whole practice yet and hopefully by the end of the year we will be!

Daily Goals:
*Abs/Ice Leg: Good progress here. My leg is feeling a lot better and while I am still very slowly rehabbing the rest of the way I can do a lot more than I could a month ago! I know the hang classes I’ve been taking at my yoga studio have improved my core strength and I’m really proud of the progress there. I’ve also been doing a ten day at home pilates challenge the end of this month with The Balanced Life and that has been helping me with this goal too! Icing my leg seems so simple but I STILL forgot about 1/3 of the time… 2/3 was better than I would have done without the reminder in my Powersheets though, and it was enough to help my leg heal!
*Morning Routine: A better success rate than I’ve ever had with this goal in the past. Getting closer to this becoming habit.
*”Screen Curfew” : Ups and downs mostly depending on how late I get home and start to unwind. Definitely broke it any of the nights I had evening rehearsals or events so trying to think of a strategy that works during those busier times as well as the at home/recharge evenings.
*Hydrate: The more active I am the better I am at making myself hydrate so hopefully those two things will continue to just become a more and more regular habit.
*Read: Didn’t necessarily do this daily, but pretty close and I truly enjoyed it when I made the time for it.
*Log/Track Steps: Anyone have tips for remembering to put the fitbit back on when you’ve taken it off to charge it? Every three days I’d forget to start tracking until halfway through the day or even later! The information I’m getting is helpful though and helping to shape my next baby steps on taking care of myself and building my endurance.

March is a bit up in the air at the moment and while I put a lot of thought into my prep for this month there are a few things I’m still thinking on and that may change… if they do you’ll hear about it in my re-cap post!

March Goals-

Sometimes your encouraging words come from one of your favorite fictional character…. Whether you call her General Leia or Princess Leia… (as my friend Kelly says, “she can be both”) these words are exactly what I need to keep in mind during this next month.

Monthly Goals:
*Continue to Clean Out the Garage: This is a huge project but I want to get this area settled before the hot weather comes and no one wants to be where there’s no air conditioning, so hopefully we’ll come close to finishing this month!
*Celebrate LOVEFEST!: One of my favorite yearly traditions is when some of my wonderful California friends make a pilgrimage to Phoenix for spring training games. I refer to it as LOVEFEST because that’s exactly what it is- just a lot of joy and love and baseball and beer and I’m so excited to set aside time for these beautiful people each year.
*Prepare Family Liturgical Calendar for April-June: Figuring out celebrations for the first part of the year was so helpful and I’m looking forward to brainstorming how to celebrate during the next chunk of our year. This is mostly done using my Blessed is She planner that lists most of the saints days and a lot of fun Pinterest browsing along with a little side research. I’m really excited about this.
*Stretch and Flex Creative Muscles: This covers an array of things I’m thinking about pursuing this month and while it sounds vague here, I have a few specific avenues I’m planning to try, just not sure which ones yet.
*Continue Lenten Observance: I don’t want to lose steam or focus here so I made sure this made it onto my Powersheets.

Weekly Goals:
*Budget/Family Meeting: It’s been working and I want to solidify this habit even more and am interested to see what adjustments to this routine work and what we will let go.
*Write!: Blogging, free writing, letters, plays, who knows? Just want to keep up the writing as it is one of my favorite forms of keeping my sanity.
*Sabbath an Self Care: You can read above about why I’m keeping this a weekly goal and why it is important to my family and me.
*Date Time: Last year Dating was one of my focuses and I want to try and make some sort of set aside, reserved time happen with my hubby once a week whether that be going out, date night in, date days, etc.
*Encourage someone: I think the world needs some kindness and encouragement and instead of feeling sad about how much of that is lacking I want to be intentional and actively setting an example of encouragement.

Sometimes the only way to turn the day around is to turn yourself upside… soon your frown is upside down too!

Daily Goals:
*Enjoy outside!: It’s the perfect time to be in Phoenix right now, but I know this weather isn’t going to last so I want to enjoy all the moderate temperatures and gorgeous sunshine while I can.
*Track steps: Hopefully I’ll get better at remembering to put my fitbit on each day…
*Intentional kid time: I’ve been sleepy and distracted recently and I want to get back to setting aside one on one time with each child as well as planning a few fun projects or activities in addition to our normal rhythms and routines we’re trying to establish.
*Screen Limits: An ongoing exploration and struggle and an ongoing quest to just get my brain to shut down at night.
*Yoga Goals: I have a few poses I want to focus on this month and a few classes I want to push myself to try, especially now that I can start doing flow classes again thanks to my leg feeling better! I also want to push myself to continue my practice at home on days I can’t make it into a class.

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