It is hard to believe that as march draws to a close we are 1/4 of the way through 2024. I don’t know about you, but for me it has flown by!

I shared a bit about my 2024 goals in THIS POST and I alluded to another one when describing my blog themes for the year in general. So I wanted to do a little check in on what the year has looked like so far, just for a little accountability and also to remind myself we have 3/4 of the year left to keep making progress on these goals!

So Here’s a reminder of what my goals were and a bit about how they have looked in January, February, and March.

*Take pleasure in being present and creating memories with loved ones: This is my #1 goal for the year and so it is very appropriate that it is by far the one that has received the most attention and progress. In these first few months of the year we’ve celebrated birthdays of my second and third kid. I had a special weekend with my bestie and a MOPS retreat with my incredible community of mamas going through it by my side for almost a decade now. We’ve made incredible family memories with a spring break trip to Joshua Tree and my hubby and I have had some absolutely wonderful date nights of both the solo and double date variety. I’ve also tried really hard to find time to cultivate memories with my kids on random days as well as to build my running community and connect with them.

*Find pleasure in my home and opening it to others: Definitely struggling more with this goal. It is probably natural since every time I actually clean stuff it almost immediately falls back into chaos since that is just life with kids, but I also had bigger picture decluttering goals I thought would be done by now that I haven’t even started. That being said, we have made some progress on our backyard and the kids and I have enjoyed having a garden again and seeing our citrus trees bloom. I successfully decluttered my closet and finally purged my post-partum wardrobe as well as letting go of outfits I just don’t wear much. So there’s progress! Just not quite as much as I’d hoped. But reminding myself that little by little adds up. And there will be more time to clean inside when the weather outside is not insanely gorgeous and other obligations hopefully slow down a bit from calling me away from home.

*Indulge in simple pleasures- use the good stuff!: Ups and downs here. I have started using candles I’ve had sitting around for YEARS and I’m working on using some bath and soap stuff that just seems too pretty or fancy for everyday use- some days I am very good at just living in the moment and doing it and some days I just have to laugh at what a struggle this is. At how unworthy I feel of SOAP y’all. SOAP. What does it say about my self esteem when I am gate keeping soap from myself?! And that’s the kind of talk I have to go through to make progress here. I’m also getting better at just throwing on a dress or favorite shoes because that’s what I felt like wearing and it makes me happy. Highly recommend.

*Seek pleasure in the side-quests to level up: As far as progress goes, this is the opposite extreme. The least amount of tangible progress here. I don’t feel any closer to ANY of my goals here. Perhaps exactly because I have so many ideas around this one and no one single concrete thing I’m working on. My mileage for the year and books read are technically pretty close to “on track” but also much lower than they were this time a year ago. (Which is FINE and I would be confused why any friend of mine would judge themselves on this but is SO HARD to actually believe that also applies to me.)

***And now for the introduction of the aforementioned goal I alluded to…

*Experience pleasure in what I create: This goal, when I did my prep work, included all sorts of creation- from writing blog posts or possibly a kaleidoscope themed play, to acting, meal prep, gardening- any act of creation or creativity. I want to find pleasure in getting back to a more creative version of myself instead of the more logical everything by the numbers side of me I’ve leaned into the past few years. I didn’t want to publicly share this goal quite yet because I wasn’t sure how it would look and I didn’t want to put any pressure on the creative processes so many aspects of this goal includes. So why am I sharing now? Because all the pieces fell together for me to be in an original play this spring. I am truly still shocked at how this all worked out because my schedule is not cut out for a traditional rehearsal schedule by a long shot right now. Kids extra curricular and commitments made months in advance absolutely cover our family calendar. When I was offered this role, I had a few conflicts they still had to work around, but the only thing I had to sacrifice to make it work was one of the night races I’d signed up for. There will be more night races. I was ready to step back on stage. There will be more on this in the coming weeks, but I did not think I’d make ANY real progress on this goal until late summer or even the fall so I am delighted to share about this turn of events!

 

So that’s my VERY busy start to the year (which doesn’t even include “help save my kids’ elementary school from being shut down by the district” which sucked up a TON of time in January as well as a few other things not directly related to my goals for the year!) and while I have a LONG way to go, I know I’ve been putting in the work and doing what I can to move forward on some things that are so important to me right now… even if it means having to give myself some grace as a few balls drop temporarily or for the foreseeable future in the pursuit of those goals.

How is your year going? Any progress you are particularly excited about or proud of? Any struggles like mine on things you thought you’d have a jump on? Keep on keeping on- I don’t mind sounding like a broken record and repeating: little by little adds up.