Well, it’s officially May! This is my favorite month because I get to celebrate ALL THE THINGS! May kicks off with celebrating my birthday and it finishes just after my son’s birthday and there are a whole lot of happy things in between those lovely days. But before I get too ahead of myself with giddy May thoughts, let’s recap my April Powersheets goals and check in on how they went:
April Monthly Goals:
*Spring Clean/Bulk Trash: We ended up not needing to use the bulk trash date this time around, and I didn’t get through quite as much cleaning as I hoped, but there was definitely progress here. Progress I may have forgotten about if I didn’t make a note to myself that five huge boxes of stuff went to trash, the swip swap/goodwill, or back to the people who had lent it to me (it’s amazing how much borrowed stuff I found when cleaning the garage…oops!)
*Couch 2 5k/Complete 5k: YES! I actually still can’t believe what a wonderful experience this was. It was so different running with a group of people who were excited and, in some cases, even in costume (it was a milk and cookie run so people were dressed as cows and cookie monsters and even giant cookies!) and I couldn’t stop smiling. The distraction really drove home that a huge component of running is mental because thanks to all those happy distractions I set some personal record times and I came out of the race definitely wanting to do another one in the fall (it’s a little hot in the meantime…) and to be honest I thought this might be a one and done type thing. Full disclosure- I have not actually completed the couch 2 5k app yet… I feel like the later weeks make HUGE jumps in expectation even after it started out so gradual, and I do plan to work my way up to a full 30 minutes straight of running, but I’m not sure that’s my priority for this summer. I do hope to keep running a few times a week though… if I can pull myself out of bed before the sun starts to roast us all… OH! and the best part of the 5k was that my son did a mini-race called the Snickerdoodle Dash and was SO excited and SO proud of himself. I am hoping my daughter will be up for it next year.
*Create Photo Routine/Back Up Photos: YES! I caught up on going through and simplifying/backing up photos and I think I have a good idea how I want to turn this into a habit so it’s not a huge task every few months. More on that below.
*Plan May Celebrations/Budget: YES! this is part of why I am SO EXCITED for the month ahead. Planning ahead helped us find a few good deals and be specific about what we wanted to do with this crazy crazy month (that has the potential to make my husband feel a little overwhelmed if we don’t break it into pieces and talk through it! May is seriously as busy as December/holiday season in this family.)
*Quit Facebook: YES. I did this pretty early in the month because I realized the delay and the back and forth about it was causing me more grief than it was worth. It was SO HARD to come to this decision and just make myself do it but the funny thing is… I have barely missed it. There are a few things I didn’t find out about until several days after they happened, and at first that bothered me, but in the end… it didn’t change the things and I think it did help people to start realizing that I’m not going to get information through that medium anymore. I know I’ll miss more things in the future, but this has been so good for my anxiety, my time management, and my ability to be present that for me the trade off has been beyond worth it.
April Weekly Goals:
*Budget Check in/Family meeting: This is going so well and really has become a habit now. Next month I’m adding meal planning to our weekly meeting instead of having it as a separate time/something we do right when the circulars come out that week.
*Artist’s Date: I did not do great with this. It’s on the list again for next month and hopefully I’ll do better this time!
*TV Free Evenings x2: Almost every week we accomplished this, the last week I think we only managed this once, but we’ve started watching less each night as well and I’m feeling really good about the other ways we are spending our time.
*Pray the Rosary x2: Did this at least once every week, but some weeks I only got partially through my second. I learned I am not a fan of the apps where you listen to the rosary being prayed. I also learned that this probably needs to be an early morning practice if I truly want time to be still and reflect. It’s not on my list for next month, but I do plan to look for more opportunities to use my rosary in my prayer life.
April Daily Goals:
*The Artist’s Way: I realized in my last post I accidentally wrote August instead of April as my start date. Hopefully everyone figured out I was starting last month. Morning pages were going well until the final week of the month when I just felt a little burned out. I’m ready to get back into the habit and be more consistent, even with the ups and downs and irregular schedules this month.
*Yoga: I did a lot of studio classes but still have trouble practicing on my own at home. Overall this was very successful though and I’m so grateful for what yoga has done for me. A highlight from April was going to a gorgeous outdoor yoga session from one of the teachers that had to leave my studio. It was such a joy to work with her again and the weather was projected to be insanely hot and ended up being perfect. I think I would have been too intimidated to go to a public/large yoga event before a few months ago and now I wish I could go back and tell myself- truly, no one is looking at you. They are thinking about their own practice so as long as you don’t fall on them you’re good. I am hoping to do more outdoor yoga in the fall… or maybe during one of our trips this summer to somewhere cooler!
*7k Steps: This made me giggle because there are still days I forget to put on my tracker until halfway through the day, but to try and show myself I was determined to make progress here I would often end up pacing back and forth in the living room and hallway of our small house trying to get in the many, many steps I had left at the end of the night. My husband definitely made fun of me for this. Hopefully I get better at spreading them out throughout the day!
*Write the Word: I love getting back into this practice of using my write the word journals and did a pretty good job of accomplishing this daily as long as the kiddos would cooperate and give me some naptime/quiet time in the middle of the day. It is such a refreshing mid-day mental pick me up!
*Morning/Evening Routine: The morning routine FINALLY feels like an actual routine (except on the weekend… when we lounge around or else run out the door to one event or another… and I’m kind of OK with that to be honest.) but the evening routine is definitely a work in progress. I was encouraged when looking back at old posts before writing my birthday post for this year that I started working on my morning routine a year ago! Whereas before I might have felt embarrassed that it took me a year for things to click- I really just feel thankful that there’s been progress there (And I don’t think this really started to work until my daughter transitioned out of our room and into her crib so really… it’s only been three months since then, so maybe the evening routine will only take a couple more months?!)
OK, Here’s May’s list, it’s simplified again because, as I said at the beginning of this post, it is a VERY full month.
It’s that time of year where my tending list gets ALL THE STICKERS
May Monthly Goals:
*Celebrate!: Here’s just a few of the things I’m celebrating- birthdays (sooooo many birthdays), motherhood, my anniversary, and “end of the year” moments. I’m excited about what we have planned to set aside special time and moments for these celebrations and I will definitely be writing more about them in the weeks to come.
*Complete Finance Goal Guide: I have been so excited about the Summer Collection for Cultivate What Matters and their new goal guide was the #1 thing on my wish list. My husband and I are planning to complete it sometime this month and hopefully it will help us get more specific with our finance goals and build on the budgeting work we’ve been doing over the past year.
*Confirm Travel Plans for the Summer: I’m so excited about the trips we have coming up and I want to be sure we’re planning well for them. I especially want to be sure we plan for the trips where the kids are coming with us so we can just enjoy our time as a family instead of being stressed out so this is a must-do this month.
*Catch up on Baby Book: I have fallen so behind on this so hopefully with less on the tending list this month some progress will happen here.
*Be open to change: To be honest, I can’t tell you specifically what this means. But as I was reflecting on and praying about my Powersheets this month I felt like I needed to write this down. Maybe it was just a pre-birthday thought that needed to come out, maybe I’ll find some specific, actionable ways to act on this, but I just felt like I needed to write it down and keep it in mind this month.
May Weekly Goals:
*Photo Backup/Project Life Pages: The system I came up with last month is to back up my phone to my computer and go through and delete blurry or duplicate pictures each week and put them in their correct folders (I have one for each of the kids, one for our year in general/family activities, etc.) and then back up all those folders to our portable hard drive once a quarter (don’t worry, they are also backed up in the cloud in the meantime.) And I also want to get back in the habit of weekly project life pages while memories are still fresh instead of catching up once a month.
*1 on 1 kid time: I love our family time but one on one time with the kids individually is so crucial to them re-setting and listening more. Plus, these always turn out to be fun memories.
*Artist’s Date: Hopefully I do a better job sticking to these this month! I need to brainstorm more ideas that don’t involve large financial investments.
*Pick a Pinterest Project: This is linked to my creativity goal. Whether it’s a new recipe, a new craft, or a new preschool idea, After writing my follow up Pinterest post I realized I still have SO many ideas pinned that I haven’t tried before and I’m ready to jump back in.
*Meal Plan/Budget/Family Meeting: Adding on meal planning to our family meeting time. Another routine that is just working well for us and I want to keep the momentum going.
I’m truly obsessed with this gorgeous mural at my yoga studio…
May Daily Goals:
*Morning Routine: I think this may be the last month I need this on my tending list. I haven’t tweaked it the last several months. I’m holding off on the evening routine this month with how random the schedule is and hopefully evening routine can replace morning routine on next month’s tending list.
*Yoga: Hoping to bet better at doing some online videos when I can’t get to the studio, or even when I can. Especially since my studio doesn’t have a restorative class right now and I really miss some of those restorative poses/a slower practice now and then. Also looking forward to trying some new teachers at my studio.
*Artist’s Way: Getting back to daily morning pages- even when I’m exhausted is the goal!
*Hydrate: I’ve been slacking on my water intake and with triple digits coming up this weekend I need to recommit to this habit.
*Random Act of Kindness: In honor of my birthday month I’m focusing on small, tangible acts of kindness each day this month. Whether it’s a compliment, an encouraging note, or buying the drink for the person in line behind me at the coffee shop!
*7.5k Steps: Hopefully less evenings of pacing around the house at 9pm and more movement throughout the day. I know this will get challenging with the warmer weather so we’ll see how it goes!
Looking forward to this month. I’d love to hear about your goals for the month and I’ve been having so much fun checking in with people on #tendinglisttuesday!
Alphabet Resolutions 
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