OK, so with introducing all my themes for the year, this post is a little later than usual… good thing there’s nothing magical about January 1st! So here’s a brief overview of my goals for the year and how I’m starting progress on some of them this month:

2019 GOALS:

1. Take care of myself, so I can take care of others.
   This most closely relates to my blog theme of Fitness this year. The wording of it was important to me though. As opposed to my endurance goal of last year, this is more about holistic growth and making sure that healthy choices don’t stop with me but are extended to those around me.
2. Continue living frugally & improve financial literacy and planning.
   Obviously this relates to my focus of frugal. The second half is really important to me as well but I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to write about it. I need to research and learn more and we need to reach out to some professionals when it comes to revising legal/financial plans for our kids should something happen to us, coming up with a plan to deal with our massive student loans, and possibly investing and saving more this year.
3. Re-set our family rhythms and routines and create margin.
   Our family got a little frazzled last semester and I want to re-set, especially during these first months of the new year. That way we have a good starting space when things change again with my son going to kindergarten next year and with whatever other changes we decide to make (some things we are mulling over include what my work schedule might look like this year, whether my daughter will start preschool in the fall, what other activities we want to commit to and how much free time we want to make sure to spend with the kids wile they are still little and want to hang out with us!) and that includes getting our house out of the chaos cycle we seem to find ourselves in week after week where things pile up during the week and we spend our weekends re-setting and then my husband and I feel exhausted.
4. Serve. Love. Mend.
   This goal is named after one of my favorite lines from Much Ado About Nothing and it basically deals with giving back in whatever ways we can, right where we are. This includes charitable giving, volunteering, and everyday acts of kindness. The world feels extra broken right now, and the only way I know how to deal with it is to serve, love, and mend in whatever ways I can with whatever talents and abilities God has given me.
5. Cultivate Community and Deepen Friendships
   Friends mean so much to me and the last few months things have been so hectic that I feel like I’ve let this slip a bit. I want to find little ways to keep investing in the people who mean so much to me. I also want to build even more of a local community but am not quite sure what this looks like yet.
6. Have more FUN! (and maybe relax and rest once in a while!)
   As I wrote in my last post… the recreation area of my cultivated life evaluation in my powersheets was what scored the lowest. So I’m looking forward to cultivating some more fun in bit and little ways this year.

And now on to this month’s tending list! For my new followers, tending lists are how my goal planner- the Powersheets– breaks down big picture goals into little by little steps so you can celebrate your progress along the way and not get burnt out. 🙂 I assign steps each month as monthly, daily, or weekly goals.
January Monthly Goals:
*Plan and Celebrate my Daughter’s Birthday: I have a feeling this will always sneak up on us a bit since the holidays and new year seem to fly by and then it’s time to plan to celebrate. We keep things fairly simple, but still need to decide what we’ll do as a family/for a party with extended family/etc.
*Prepare for and enjoy MOPS retreat: I am OH SO EXCITED for this. I’ve missed it the last two years because the first year I had a new born and was nursing constantly and last year my little girl was crazy sick and I was already going to miss half of it due to a directing commitment. Praying and planning to make it finally happen this year! Time away with my mama community is going to be amazing.
*Scheduel Dr. Appointments and Insurance Follow Up: Why does this seem like a never ending task? Between the four of us there’s always someone who needs an appointment of some kind… but I often ignore my own appointments both because they are a source of anxiety for me and the kids’ appointments seem more important. So part of my fitness goal for the year is putting on my big girl pants and making the appointments I don’t want to go through, because in the end they are for my own good.
*New Year’s Date and Family Time: I wrote this down before I’d even finished my goals because I knew it was important for me this month and that I could check it off early! And we did… Well.. with a little bit of modification. We have a fun tradition where my husband and I have a breakfast date and talk about what went well/favorite memories from the last year as well as goals and hopes for the new year. It’s one of my favorite dates of the year and it’s one of the only times we splurge on a fancy coffee shop pastry and something other than drip coffee. This year my daughter was pretty sick on New Year’s and so we ended up making it a date with my son instead. Followed by some hiking and then a family dinner with our sniffly daughter feeling a little better than she had earlier in the day. S
*Set Reading Goals & Preliminary Reading List for 2019: I read 65 books last year! My goal was to read a book a week but I surpassed that. I’m still figuring out my goal for this year and updating my holds requests at the library to get me started.
*Print 2018 Scrapbook Pages: I still need to catch up a bit on these, but the company I like to print with usually has a great printing deal around the Super Bowl each year, so I want it finished so I can print during the sale and shift my focus to our 2019 book.

January Weekly Goals:
*Meal Prep/Budget Check In/ Family Meeting: Quite simply the best way for us to stay on top of household matters and deeply connected to my “re-set the family rhythms” goal.
*Phone Free Family Time (Fridays when possible): We started implementing this the end of last year and it makes a huge difference to being present and all together as a family. I want to make it more of a set habit as we enter the new year. No phones from when my husband gets home from work until when the kids go to bed. Starting with just Fridays but hoping to expand this to other times, to be honest. It’s connected to my word of the year- PRESENT.
*1 on 1 time with the kids: This is also quite connected to my word of the year, but also to re-setting the family rhythms. I LOVE the moments I get to spend one one with my kids because its where I really get to know them better and can find out different things about their personalities than I might see in our normal day to day circumstances. Plus, I want to make intentional memories with them- a very simple one that I started last month is a hot chocolate date with my son- we stay at home for these and have them after my daughter is in bed. Sometimes we just sip our cocoa together and others we have our special drinks while playing a game or reading extra bedtime stories. It’s just nice to be together and share those moments.
*World Vision Fundraising and Thank Yous!: I am almost halfway to my base goal of $100 per mile I am running in my half marathon and trying to think of ways to get me to that goal! I am so moved by the generosity of the donations I’ve received so far, but I want to bring clean water to more people by race day so continued fundraising and thank you times to come- plus I’m getting excited about honoring those who have donated and remembering them on race day in special ways!
*Re-set a room: Before the new year I ruthlessly purged my closet and the clutter in my room and bathroom. Now I just need to get back around to all the other rooms! Little by little…
*Me-time/ meaningful self care: With all the physical work I’m demanding of my body right now,  I need a little recovery and care once a week to keep going. These will also be pretty simple- anything from some time just enjoying a cup of tea while listening to music to a nice long bath to using the facial masks I got for my birthday and still have yet to use up.

January Daily Goals:
*Team World Vision Training: It’s crunch time and aside from one rest day a week (see my self care day listed above…) I have something I should be doing every day to prepare for race day. Whether that is a long run, easier short runs, speed training, or cross training. I want to hit as many of those as I can because I am getting really, indescribably nervous about race day.
*No phone in bed: One of my fitness subgoals is to have better sleep hygiene. I have horrible insomnia and the lack of sleep from being a parent paired with scheduling stuff paired with that insomnia is really bringing havoc to my health, my mental processes, and my emotions. So this is one of my first steps toward actively making my sleep better. I have been experimenting some days with charging my phone outside my room, but I tried that a few times last month and ended up running late for some of my runs… I tam still figuring out what I want to do for a non-phone alarm clock so other end of the room is working for now.
*Morning Routine: Still only hitting this about 60% of the time and I’m really happy with the routine I came up with last year. I just need to DO IT more often.
*Evening Routine: Still tweaking this to find a good balance between achievable even after a long day, and having enough components to truly feel set up for success the next morning.
*10k steps: This is still surprisingly hard for me to hit on days where I don’t go for a run. Progress though… progress not perfection…
*Hydrate: I was doing really well with this habit last year… until the holidays hit… and I stopped drinking much water/just forgot… I killed a lot of plants in my poor Plant Nanny app last month so I’m ready to get back on the wagon and hydrate up so I don’t feel as thirsty after my shorter runs!

So that’s the starting steps for 2019. Looking forward to sharing more about the ups and downs as the year progresses!!

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