I know I have been quiet on here. To be completely honest,I have been anxious and depressed most days and using all my energy just to get through the day and take care of the kids and maybe bathe or work out on a good day. May is always a packed month of celebration in our family- I felt really weird even doing the prep work for that month in my Powersheets. But I’m glad I did because it reminded me I can choose to celebrate right where I am and I don’t have to be over the moon excited about it to make it happen. It’s going to be a hard month thinking about all the might have beens, but I am reminding myself it can still be a good month. 

So let’s recap April and preview the plan for May, and hopefully I’ll give you more updates along the way…
APRIL MONTHLY GOALS:
*Intentional Holy Week and Easter: Holy week flew by, but we did some readings and worship and traditions… even if we didn’t have the ingredients to ice the hot cross buns and didn’t want to venture to the store to get them… and Easter itself was a huge blessing with sweet gifts for the kids from grandparents and an egg hunt provided by our neighbor who had bought a bunch of eggs for her church celebration that was cancelled. The kids had a blast finding eggs all through our backyard and we ate a big brunch while watching online service.
*Plan for/ reflect on my upcoming birthday: I mean… yes? Hopefully will write more about this soon but at the very least I told hubby what he could do to make the day feel a bit less sad.
*Re-arrange the office to do our best work in this season: nope. this just did not happen at all. it’s an impossible task to do while working or with the kids and we’ve been too tired to tackle it at the end of the day. maybe next month?
*Enjoy the garden: YES! The most beautiful nasturtiums have started to bloom and so many roses… we are hoping we get a round of zucchini before the heat fries our garden… we see the buds starting so it’s just a race against time. Also hoping our sunflowers will bloom! We have also been enjoying our home grown cilantro and green onion.
*Explore creative outlets with the kids: hit and miss here. Lots of songs together and guiding my oldest from lots of freeform doodles into exploring creating a little picture book. I’ve been pretty inspired by the kids’ creativity as we try to find new ways to entertain ourselves amid staying home so much.
*Hold space for big emotions and extra time to work through this strange situation: Yes. Have finally moved from constant anxiety and frustration to feeling some of the grief- the sadness/depression and the utter exhaustion. Am trying my best to help the kids feel all of this too and give them some vocabulary to talk about it, but I also worry maybe I’m not handling this well enough for them. 

APRIL WEEKLY GOALS:
*Photo backup/ document this time: Photo backup YES. I haven’t had the heart or energy to even keep up on family yearbook pages, let alone journal specifically about this time. Maybe next month?
*Work on Legacy journals for each kid: Hit and miss but did what I could and worked at least a little bit.
*Family meeting/Budget check in: Yes. At least some habits are sticking.
*1 on 1 time/ at home “dates”: Hit and miss depending on the week but I see how much it helps us all when this happens!
*Write: NOPE. I mean… a little but not as much as I’d have liked.

APRIL DAILY GOALS:
*Hydrate: Hit and miss. I’ve been drinking way too much coffee so that has hindered my water intake.
*6k Steps: Way over this some days, definitely not hitting this others so keeping it at 6k for next month.
*Sunshine and stretching: Did this about half the time, which I’ll take! Building on this next month…
*Cherish nursing: Yes. The one daily goal I did every single day. Even when I was exhausted from growth spurt cluster feedings.
*Daily Delete and Screen free boundaries: I was really terrible at this as my anxiety tends to ramp up at night and so instead of ending my day with a daily delete and leaving my phone before I head to bed I end up scrolling news stories or Pinterest ideas way too late into the night… I hope to do better next month

MAY MONTHLY GOALS:
*Celebrate SO many birthdays: My birthday, my son’s birthday, my mom’s birthday, sweet friends birthdays… It won’t look the same as past years but I can do something to mark the special times.
*Celebrate our Anniversary: 8 years… it’s been a while since we watched our wedding video so that might be our plan since we can’t go out… but have to consult with my sweetheart about what he wants.
*Celebrate Mother’s Day: Again, this will be a weird year for trying to celebrate, but I don’t want to ignore it…
*Catch Up on Family Yearbook Pages: While I have faithfully backed up my pictures each week, I have gotten pretty behind on my documenting and photobook stuff so hopefully I can catch up this month.
*Work on Baby books for my girls: If I work on one extra project I want it to be starting a baby book for my youngest and finishing a baby book for my middle kid.
*Restructure Office: A holdover from last month that honestly probably won’t happen until June but I have hopes of at least starting this month.
*Reorganize Bedroom/declutter closet: Transitioning out the maternity clothes and back in some summer/other clothes, reorganizing, switching baby clothes sizes, etc. This is a cleaning task that seems a lot more doable while baby wearing than some others on my list…

MAY WEEKLY GOALS:
*Budget Check In/Meal Plan: The one “normal-is” part of my routine so I’m keeping it!
*Photo Routine/Backup: Hopefully more consistently, especially once I catch up with those Project Life pages!
*Weekly Mileage Goal: Rather than set a specific number of days to get out each week I just want to try to run or walk several miles each week- be that spread over many days or all in one or two days
*Sunday Spa Day: A little time for me- be it nail painting, face mask, bubble bath, etc. 
* Write: Hopefully I’ll have more blog posts this month… or at least start some drafts of posts for next month…

MAY DAILY GOALS:
*Hydrate/Sun Salutations: Along with the general goal of drinking even more water as the triple digit weather becomes more and more common here in Phoenix, I also need to cut back on my coffee intake… it has been way too much and pretty unreasonable… I also want to try and get some sun salutations in every morning- be they alongside my older kids or in the very early morning after a nursing session/before the rest of the house gets up. It doesn’t have to be many, just a very short amount of time to breathe and prepare for the day. 
*Dance Party/Laugh with the Kids: Given all the celebrating I want to do this month- a daily dose of joy through dancing with my kids and laughing with them seems appropriate and necessary.
*6k Steps: Hopefully bumping this up to 7 next week if I get this 6k done at least 60-75% of the time this month 
*Daily Delete/Screen Curfew: Hopefully I can start making this a routine and take a little better care of setting both my sleep schedule and photo routine up for success.

New month… new year of life… Here we go…

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