Here we go, on to the holidays and the end of the year… I can hardly believe it. Here’s a recap of October and a preview of one of my last tending lists of the year! (If you want in on the
2020 PowerSheets CLICK HERE!)
October Monthly Goals:
*Prep, Rehearse, and Open Alphabet Shakespeare Show!: YES! This happened. The show opened a week ago and we have just one week left! It felt good to have such stellar actors who I know I can trust with my writing and my love of Shakespeare. If you live in the Phoenix area and want to check our newest edition of Alphabet Shaeksepare out, you can click HERE for more information.
*Halloween JOY: Oh my goodness yes. Aside from the insanity the night before one of our favorite halloween traditions that included staying up until 2AM working on homemade costumes, this was all sorts fo great. We had a jack o lantern pizza, we decorated pumpkins, the school parade was the cutest, Pumpkins at the peak was a blast as always, and then trick or treating itself to top it all off! While I’m easily ready to retire the song “five little pumpkins” for another year, I know that we had a full, fun, mostly intentional Halloween month of joy.
*Fall Cleaning/Bulk Trash Time: Hit and miss here, but overall some HUGE wins. We cleaned out our entire baby clothing storage, gave away half a dozen large boxes of clothes, cleared some major space in our garage thanks to bulk trash day, and started making a dent on throughly purging, cleaning, and reorganizing other spaces in the house. Hoping to keep this momentum going next month.
*Set Holiday Budget: This item was an EXCELLENT example not to count out your tending list before the month is actually over. We did all of the budget setting over the last three days in October- it had ZERO progress before then. It’s never too late in the month to start on a step toward one of your goals!
*Create Fall/Holiday Bucket Lists: Fall bucket list created and got a good chunk checked off. Holiday bucket list created and that really helped with setting our budget for the season.
*Plan Dates with hubby and kids: 3/3 here, although I did JUST squeeze in the mother son date this weekend so technically that was in November… Had a wonderful date night with hubby playing games and eating churros, a lemonade date and picnic with my daughter, and an awesome arts and crafts dates with my son. I know this ability to go out is going to be paused for a month or so after baby 3 arrives, but I also know that this one on one time with each family member is going to be more important than ever, so I’m glad I’m establishing this priority now!
*Enjoy the garden/tend our plants: WE have SO MANY TOMATOES growing after I thought the plant was dead so that has been an exciting change this month. We also have our first zucchinis growing and some flower buds forming. We’ve also had some trouble with one garden bed and I’m not sure if it’s the soil or something getting in there and eating the seeds, but we’ve tried replanting a few cold-hardy seeds to see what happens. The kids have loved tending the garden with me and it has been so good for me to get outside in the sunshine and enjoy this part of our beautiful backyard!
October Weekly Goals:
*Opt Outside Twice a Week: This happened. Less hiking than I anticipated, but some lovely family walks and even a run or two!
*Budget/Family Meeting: Yes. It was a tricky budgeting month but we got through it!
*Project Life/Photo Routine: Hit and miss here. I am caught up on my pages and ready to do a big printing order next month, but my photo routine needs some tweaking to include a daily delete/going through my phone to purge photos once they are backed up and organized. I’m also behind on the organizing (though thankfully not on the backing up which does a lot to relieve my mental stress over losing memories!) So I think re-looking at this system will happen next month, as well as printing the majority of this year’s family scrapbook pages.
*Milesmanaged: the mileage goal each week wasn’t huge, but sometimes it felt impossible. I hit it all but one week- though barely. and I’m hoping to surpass it a few times next month.
* #onsundayswebake: so…. we did bake a lot this month, but not usually on Sundays… that happened to be when my longest rehearsals fell and when I was just out of the house a lot after church. Not quite the same time each week kind of tradition I was hoping to bring back, but a lot of fun memories baking with the kids anyway. They are always SO PROUD of their work when they get to eat what they helped make, be it a simple bread or a fancier pie.
*Random Re-Set Area: Hit and miss here, mostly because the garage and the baby clothes palooza ended up becoming our focus this month. I’m sure this will continue as the nesting urge kicks in…
October Daily Goals:
*Morning/Evening Routine: Not great here. it was kind of a chaotic month and my morning routine is still just so hit and missed based on my morning sickness levels.
*Quality Time with Kids: YES! THIS was my biggest success this month and it showed in their attitudes and focus and school behavior and just EVERYTHING. And then of course I started crying to my husband that it feels like things finally clicked with the four of us and now we’re adding a wild card to the mix and everything is going to change… he is a superstar and reminded me that everything is going to change anyway as the kids grow and change and school changes and our work routines/schedules change so it may as well change because of another beautiful life joining ours. This is one of many reasons why I married him.
*Write the Word/Bible Study: Write the word- yes! Bible study- not so much. going to save that for Adent I think…
*Yoga: For having such a solid, steady practice earlier this year, it is a little discouraging to have missed so many days this month, but I am just SO unfocused outside of a studio. I cancelled my gym membership this month, so I am hoping we can put some of that money toward some prenatal yoga classes instead if I can find a place that works with my schedule.
*Peaceful Introvert Time: I did not do well with this at all, and I really REALLY needed it. It’s just such a nebulous thing to carve out, I need a mandatory time limit or “restful” activity if I set this kind of goal again. Do you ever have goals like that? Where you describe the feeling you want instead of what the actual action is?
OK, time to head into one of my favorite months- I tried to keep it a little shorter to focus on gratitude and the upcoming holiday fun! Lots on the calendar in November so hopefully these goals will help us stay focused on what really matters instead of getting swept up in the holiday chaos.
November Monthly Goals:
*Plan Meaningful Holidays: I broke this goal down into many many baby steps on one of my Powersheets wildcard pages, but this is the biggest goal for the month- planning intentional, family centered, SIMPLE holidays. I want to be sure I’m thinking of things ahead of time so that I don’t run into the stress I did with the last minute homemade halloween costume details.
*MOPS Bazaar/Holiday Crafting: I’m keeping my side-hustle simpler and more low key this year, but I still have a few holiday crafts commissioned that I want to get done nice and early. I also have the chance to sell at my annual MOPS Bazaar, which I’m looking forward to but keeping simpler this year and focusing on how people can order something personalized instead of trying to make a ton of pre-made items for people to buy.
*Research Medical Costs/Insurance Options: I know, this sounds super boring and stressful and I’m not looking forward to it either, but there are a lot of phone calls to be made regarding insurance open enrollment and preparing for baby 3, etc. and the enrollment period at my husband’s work is pretty short so we have to start doing research ahead of time! This is definitely an end of month task, but one that really needs to get done.
While my mileage goals are primarily centered on jogging/running, I also include my hikes! Which will definitely factor into some of these final miles…
*Finish 2019 Mileage Goal! #milesmanaged: If I can just do a few miles more than my weekly goal a few of the weeks then I can finish my 2019 goal and earn my Felix Felicia medal from Potterhead running club! I’d LOVE to be finished with this before December so I don’t feel pressure around the holidays and everything else is just bonus, but trying to focus on miles this month also means I have some cushion to make up any off weeks if I need the extra time in December…
*Order Photo Pages and Restructure Photo Routine: It’s the time of year to order a big chunk of the family year book and get that set! I have been pretty good about keeping up on my project life pages, but ‘m ready to get them off my phone and into our hands! I also want to restructure my photo routine as I am once again behind on organizing the photos I’ve uploaded. I want to restructure this to include daily actions and keeping up with deleting photos on my phone as that has seriously gotten out of control.
November Weekly Goals:
*Create/Keep up with Kid Sayings Journals: I’m putting this as a priority this month after failing big at it earlier this year. I’ll be happy with one progress not perfection here because I know some super cute memories are slipping away while I put this off…
*Photo Routine/Project Life Pages: While restructuring my photo routine I want to be sure I’m keeping up with what I already have and introducing the changes little by little.
*Batch Write Blog Posts: I want to bust out multiple blog posts in one sitting/time away from the kids without distractions instead of scrambling to write once a week and sometimes missing that goal.
*Lunchbox Notes 2x a week: This is such a small thing and should not be hard to execute, but for some reason I have the intention of doing this more often than I actually do it. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just something little for my son to read at lunch time now that he is so proud of his budding reading skills.
*Budget Check In/Weekly meeting: Seriously the groundwork for our family functioning well and with less stress. Going to be extra important to keep on top of the budget with holiday meals, baking, gifts, etc. coming up…
November Daily Goals:
*Hydrate/Stretch: This is the very least I need to be doing to keep me healthy as I enter third trimester. If nothing else happened from this list except planning holidays and staying hydrated/daily stretching to help my sciatica, then this month would still be a win.
*Novena November: This month’s prayer time will focus on Novenas. Let me know if I can pray for you/your intentions for this month.
*Family Fun: Now that we have a bit of a handle on our family routine and the school support my kids need, I’m ready to add in some small bits of intentional fun each day. They don’t have to be big! They just have to be time where we pause from the to-do lists and focus on fun!
Alphabet Resolutions 