April was a bit of a weird month between getting sick with the sinus infection that wouldn’t quit and going through multiple schedule shifts with shows opening and closing. But…

I’m glad I have my Powersheets to remind me that while I felt set back a bit, I DID make some imperfect progress on goals that really matter to me. And a lot more progress than I would have if I weren’t keeping myself mindful of what matters most. So with that in mind, let’s look at what did and didn’t happen during April, and what I’ll be focusing on in May…

April Monthly Goals:
*Plan May Celebrations: YES! Heading into May with a lot to look forward to and feeling thankful that we have a little less rush and chaos since we celebrated our anniversary early. (see below for more details!)
*Solidify Summer Schedule/Plans: Not completely, but a lot of progress made here. We have a good idea of when our major summer events will fall and we agreed to say no to a lot of things to keep it simple and focused so we can re-focus our family and re-set our rhythms.
*Spring Clean: Some of this got done… not as much as I’d have liked, but I was away from home a lot this month and then I was sick for a week so this was not very easy to accomplish.
*Be present when directing/Share your gifts: YES! I was a little worried because I got super sick the end of March and also most of April, but I pushed through and I opened and closed a show and put up a staged reading fo a new work, all with great people around me. I’m so thankful for these opportunities.
*Day Date with Hubby: This happened and was such a wonderful experience that I’m going to write a whole post for it, so keep your eyes out for that.
*Try Three New Recipes: Yes! The family favorite was definitely the pan banging cookies, but we also tried a new potato curry recipe and since we tried a cauliflower recipe that was not a winner we added a bonus recipe and tried something new for cut out cookies to celebrate Easter. Success!
*Decide on stuff to sell/purge: This is where things go downhill… we definitely neglected this goal and it is moving to May.
*Inbox 0: YES! Or at least very very close. I still have some pieces of business in my inbox that I should have tended to, but I decreased the digital clutter there and I am back in the routine of dealing with things as they come in/deleting things I don’t need.

April Weekly Goals:
*Family Friday: This happened almost all the time… if I had shows that took up my Friday evenings I tried to do something special with the kids in the afternoon. I am loving this tradition, and as summer arrives we’ll move back into Friday Family Movie Nights!
*Long Run or Trail Run: This happened a few of the weeks but really suffered when I got sick for so long this month. Now that the weather is getting really hot I know the outdoor runs are going to be fewer and fewer and I’m not looking forward to treadmill runs so the focus may be yoga for the next several months.
*Family Check In (Budget/Meal Plan/Kid Stuff): This item suffered a bit this month from wacky schedules and me being sick, and it SHOWED in a few crazier weeks or things we forgot to plan for budget-wise, but we’ll be back on the wagon next month.
*Photo Routine/Catch Up: I made SO MUCH PROGRESS here. I wrote about my photo routine in THIS POST in case you missed it. I am completely caught up on old photos and Project Life Pages for the year!
*Embrace a Mess: This was a success almost every week and I’m so glad I chose to do this. Coloring eggs, baking, playing in mud, painting… alllll the messes. It helped that most of them happened outside making clean up a bit easier…
*Keep the Sabbath: Hit and miss… mostly thanks to theatre stuff… on the list again next month!

April Daily Goals:
*Yoga: Not as much as I’d have liked. Being ill really made this item take a hit.
*Hydrate/10k steps: Not as much as I’d have liked. Being ill really made this item take a hit. And I’ve been living on coffee which has really hurt my hydration habits I worked so hard on… on the list again next month!
*Morning Routine: Not as much as I’d have liked. Being ill really made this item take a hit. Are you sensing a theme here?!
*Evening Routine: Not as much as I’d have liked. Being ill really made this item take a hit…. ok, I promise that’s the last time I’m typing that…
*Write the Word: About half the time this worked out and I always feel like I have such new perspective when I take the time to do this. Every day is not working for my schedule right now, so I’m back to making this a weekly goal next month.
*Unplug & Smile: This is SO SO GOOD FOR ME and I was most successful in this area last month… being sick actually HELPED this because I was having so many sinus issues my eyes did not want to look at a screen.

OK on to the month of May. Those of you who are long time friends/readers know that May is a month of joyful chaos in our family. We have a ton of family birthdays, as well as Mother’s Day, my anniversary, and this year we have some graduations in the mix as well. So it’s a weird month as far as schedules go but also my favorite month.

Birthdays, Anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Graduations, Game of Thrones ending… I’ll drink to all of that…

May Monthly Goals:
*Re-visit Financial Goal Guide and Fruitful Friendship Guide: Even though I did the Powersheets goals refresh last month, I am feeling the need to revisit more specific strategies listed in these two specific goal guides on Finance and Friendship to help prepare for what goals I want to tackle this summer.
*Run the Global 6k/ Penseive 10k: Two charity runs that I am super jazzed about. The 6k has a specific date, but the Penseive 10k is a virtual run and I need to set aside the time to just do it!
*Begin to re-set the house/set donations or “to sell” items aside: This is a carry over from last month. We need to clear some more space in the house before we are trapped inside most of the summer.
*Prepare for new Summer Routines: I want to really lean into re-setting rhythms and routines next month, so May needs to be a time of preparing for that and getting specific on what I want our summer months to look like. I want to stock up on some craft stuff for the kids and pin some ideas but I don’t want to go overboard and over schedule us. I want to be sure it is a time for rest (and for me to get a little work done!)
*CELEBRATE ALL THE THINGS!: As I said above, this is the month with so many events that it can feel overwhelming- I want to lean into the celebrating, not the anxiety.
*Content Plan/Brainstorm: Here’s a full disclosure moment I feel a little funny revealing: I feel like I have been writing a lot of blog posts last minute recently, and I’d like to go back to planning content a bit more in advance. I don’t know if that will lead to two posts a week instead of one again? Or just help me get ahead a bit to take a break over the summer (as I do most summers for at least one month) but I think I just need to set aside some times to brainstorm and plan.

May Weekly Goals:
*Budget Check In/Family Meeting: Having a few weeks where this didn’t happen really showed me how valuable this practice is. So grateful for this routine.
*Photo Routine: I think another month or two of having this on the tending list and it will be habit and can drop off the list again.
*Write the Word Wednesday: Because who doesn’t want an alliterative goal? I’m back to doing daily devotions readings and only doing write the word once a week as a goal. I think this will be important with how crazy busy this month is.

Love Family Fridays with my cuties

*Keep the Sabbath: Why is it so hard to slow down and rest once a week?!?!?
*Phone Dates: I have kind of fallen off the map with some of my long distance friends and I am ready to remedy that. So phone dates once a week seems like a reasonable goal to at least start that process.
*Family Friday/Spontaneous JOY: This is a month that is full of things to celebrate and I don’t want to miss out on the little joys scattered throughout the month. But I do still want to purposely set aside some special time with the kids each Friday.

May Daily Goals:
*10K Steps/Hydrate: These two goals really had setbacks last month and I am ready to bounce back this month.
*Reasonable Caffeine Intake: Thanks to schedules that have been all over the place the last two months, I have been drinking about a pot a day and that is wayyyyy tooo much and messing with my sleep pretty badly. Time to cut back to a cup or two a day.
*Morning Routine/Evening routine: Again, these were items that seemed to suffer last month and I am ready to bounce back from the setbacks and put these systems in place to simplify our home life/my days.
*Random Acts of Kindness: Tomorrow is my birthday. I’d like to start my 33rd year with 33 random acts of kindness. This might be my favorite daily goal on the list this month.

Are you curious about this method of goal setting? If you are a newer reader, or one who has been around for a while and wants to check out the Cultivate What Matters method of grace filled goal setting, now is the perfect time to get the six month undated set of Powersheets. And if you aren’t in a place to buy Powersheets yet- you can share a few baby steps toward your goals with an accountability partner, or even here in the comments so I an cheer you on!

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