Here we are, the 1st of another new month, which means it’s time to update you all on my monthly goals. I’ve been setting monthly goals for quite a long time now, but it’s only been recently I’ve started posting them on the blog to keep myself more accountable.
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You’ll notice that May was a pretty good month as far as completing stuff went, though I didn’t get around to quite everything. As usual, anything that’s crossed out means that I consider the goal as complete, and anything in red means that I made measurable progress on the goal but didn’t quite complete it.
May Goals
Take a vacation (to our favorite condo in St. George)- I still need to do a post about this trip for posterity’s sake, but we did go, and we did enjoy ourselves! We didn’t really do a whole lot, but it was just nice and needed to have several days with no agenda and plenty of time to relax and spend time together.
Finalize 401k rollover and add new accounts to Mint- I’m counting this one as complete even though I haven’t been able to add one of the new accounts into Mint because I’m still waiting to hear back from the new company I’m going through with how to set up the new online account (as we ended up rolling over both Matt’s AND my old 401k’s). It’s taken us nearly the whole year so far to get this one done, so it feels good to finally check it off!
Make Mother’s Day gifts- For Mother’s Day, we ended up making these flower bud vases out of concrete (which we dyed), which actually turned out pretty cool. I do plan to do a little DIY tutorial on how we did this eventually. Honestly, I’m just amazed we actually came through with this—I am the least crafty/DIY person ever, so I’m pretty impressed that we tried doing this with minimal instructions to follow and that they more or less turned out okay.
Plant vegetable + herb gardens- We didn’t get these in until closer to the end of the month, but planted and done they finally are! We planted quite the variety this year–tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash, cucumber, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, pumpkins, radishes, and our herbs (and that’s not to mention all the things we attempted to grow from seed which didn’t survive, like our carrots). Now we just need to wage the war against the weeds threatening to take over every other day so that the poor things have a chance to survive the season.
Plant seedlings outside- As noted above, our seedlings were not as successful as we were hoping for. Actually, out of an entire tray of like 72 little seedling pots, I think only 3 marigold plants survived. Ah, well. We learned some lessons to apply in the future if we ever decide to try THAT again.
Plant flowering summer bulbs (daylilies, peonies)- In addition to planting both of these specific plants (our daylilies are doing amazingly well, our peonies…well, we’re not sure we’ll get ANYTHING from them, but we’ll see), we also planted some flowering annuals in both our garden beds and our flowerpots on our front porch. Oh, and we transplanted two rosebushes and some perennials from my mom’s garden, so we’ll see how everything takes. Our beds are really starting to fill out!
Add mulch to all planted beds- Done and done. We just did this as we went along and planted everything (which we did over about a 3-week period).
- Finish assigned reading for my “summer term”
- Technically, the summer term I set for myself ends today, so I *could* still make the deadline on this (though I only see it happening with one of the two reads). I was supposed to finish Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms and a compiled book of writings from James Allen called As a Man Thinketh Vol. II, but I’ll probably only finish the Hemingway by the deadline tonight (as I’m only about 40 pages away from the end, and it should read fairly quickly). I’ll post more about this next week when I give myself my final “grade” for the term. As of now, I’m about 85% finished with the Hemingway and am a little over halfway through the other one.
Go to the temple twice- Amazingly, I got this finished! It can sometimes be tricky enough trying to go once, but since I was really motivated to go together with Matt while we were in St. George (since my mom was down there with us and had offered to watch Raven), I made sure to go before we left (and made Matt go too) so that we would have the necessary preliminary work done before so we could go together in Southern Utah.
Finish reading the General Conference issue from October 2017 and pick up the new Conference issue from April- Thanks pretty much entirely to my newfound (and already much beloved) morning routine, I knocked this one out early in the month (and am already more than halfway through the new issue).
Make one recent family photo album- I literally got this one completed yesterday (except for I still want to go through and date and label the pics, so I still am not 100% finished with it). This one was more expensive than I’d planned on (even after doing a price comparison from 4 different places on digital prints), but I’m still super glad I did it. I think it will be fun to have an easily accessible way for us and our kids to look over these photos and memories that we’ve been making over the years.
- Redo set-up/template of photography webpage + add tabs
- I could *technically* count this one as complete since I DID actually do the two things I specified here, but since I know in my head that I still planned to do quite a bit more, I’m rolling over this one to next month. (If you’re curious to see what I have so far, you can click here.)
Stick with morning routine for a month- This was so successful for me that I ended up doing a whole blog post on it, so I won’t say anything more about it here.
Go fly kites + have a picnic- I love our monthly day adventures, and this month’s felt particularly fun as it’s been YEARS since I’ve flown a kite (and probably a few years since we’ve done a proper picnic, too!). It was especially good for me to do this with my little family this month as we ended up doing it on a weekend when I got some hard news about one of my former students passing away, so the time together as a family to enjoy each other’s company and the beautiful weather was like balm to my soul.
Look into preschool options for Raven- Once again, I probably should have been more specific on what I wanted to get out of this goal (I was basically thinking I would officially get her enrolled, though I didn’t word it that way), but she is at least on a waiting list for a preschool this year, and I’m already looking into options for next year, as I (now) know you shouldn’t wait long when looking into preschools for your kid, as they fill up fast.
Wash our bedspread- Another goal completed at the last minute (just two days ago!), but done is still done (and the comforter looks SOOOO much better now!).
- Build sandbox for Raven
- I’m sure Matt would have gotten this one done if he could have, but we were waiting all month for the wood (which we were getting from a neighbor). We did end up getting the wood for this yesterday actually, so this will be a rollover goal for June.
- Find the rest of the names of Matt’s ancestors for the temple
- It’s proving more difficult than I thought it would to find the rest of these, but I have at least found about half of what I need, and since I found the names on a new genealogical line, I should hopefully have better look going forward in finding the rest. This will be (yet again) a rollover goal.
- Get guest bedroom put together
- I did at least get the sheets put on the bed (though I’m still at a loss as to where our queen-size comforter went), and I did pull out some things to hang on the walls and decorate the space, but I just haven’t put it all together yet. This room will hardly be much to look at even once it is put together (just because we have no budget for it right now), but it DOES at least need to be completed before we’ll have people staying with us once the baby comes.
And, as always, I also like to detail a few of the things we got done that WEREN’T put on the goal list, but that are still noteworthy accomplishments, nonetheless:
- As a new part of my morning routine, I started typing up my mission journals regularly again, which means that I’m about halfway through the second one (there are three altogether). Typing up all of these was one of my 101 in 1001 goals and it always felt kind of daunting until I just set aside a time every day to work on it bit by bit. Now, at the rate I’m going, I might even be able to finish the second book before the baby comes and be partway through the third!
- We broke in our new grill (that Matt got as a special bonus from his work for the extra responsibilities he’s had to take on lately). We’re thinking that Fridays will now and forever be Grill Night over here (at least during the summer).
- We went to a wedding, a baby shower, and a baby blessing, as well as celebrated our 7-year anniversary together!
- I had my sister (a trained massage therapist) do some energy work on me, as I’d been feeling high levels of anxiety about the upcoming birth and delivery (mostly due to the major complications I had last time) and some of the hard news I’ve dealt with this month. What was perhaps most amazing to me is that although I had been exercising at the gym at least twice a week since the beginning of the pregnancy, it had been feeling SUPER tough lately—until she worked on me! After, it was like I was back to being able to do stuff I hadn’t been able to do since I was probably just 5 or 6 months along. Crazy how much our bodies hold onto certain emotions!
You’ll notice that the majority of my June goals are basically around getting stuff done for the arrival of Baby Boy and/or taking advantage of this last month we have together as a family of just 3. Seriously, my July goals are going to seem so boring after these past several months!
June Goals
- Get + install car seat
- We stopped using our infant carrier when we still lived in our small apartment, so we dropped the car seat off at my mom and stepdad’s place to store there. Since July 10th is all of a sudden looking a LOT closer, we’ve got to get it back and installed, and pronto.
- Move sewing cabinet in bedroom + set up Pack ‘n Play
- We’ve had my grandma’s old sewing cabinet at the foot of our bed since we moved in to our house a year ago, but we’re going to move it to the basement so there’s room for the baby to sleep in our room for the first several months.
- Pre-register at hospital
- I’ve heard crazy stories about women in advanced labor still being required to go through the whole check-in process at their hospital before being admitted and looked at, so I’m glad the place I’m delivering at does a pre-registration that means I can go right on back when it’s go time.
- Precook and vacuum-seal chicken and beef (+ order more bags)
- A couple Christmases ago, my mom bought us this Food Saver Vacuum Sealing System, and it seriously has been one of my favorite practical gifts of all time. (Seriously, I even listed it as one of my top 5 favorite products that make my life surprisingly better). One thing I’m always saying I’m going to do more often (because every time I do, it’s AMAZING) is to cook up huge batches of basic diced chicken and ground beef and vacuum seal and freeze it pre-cooked so that it’s suuuuper quick to throw together into a dinner. Since I’m trying to help out my future, sleep-deprived-from-a-newborn self, I’m really wanting to have a huge bunch of precooked stuff on hand so that I can cut down on the stress of getting dinner together every night.
- Put up wood trim above windows in front room
- I like having our front windows open (aka, no curtains), but right now they look a little *too* bare. We have this awesome reclaimed wood we got from some old buildings being torn down at the local fairgrounds, so I want to put a couple planks of that above our windows to add some visual interest. (I’ll make sure to post some pics when we’re done.)
- Complete a blogging course
- Last year I purchased the Genius Blogger’s Toolkit and was excellent at going through the resources found therein for about a month and a half, but then when I got pregnant and started feeling the joys of first trimester morning sickness and fatigue, I totally stopped. I’m hoping to get at least one more course under my belt before the baby comes since it might be awhile before I have the energy or concentration to actively work on improving my blogging skills again.
- Make night/nap training potty chart (and decide on incentive)
- Raven’s been potty trained for coming up on a year now this summer, but she still isn’t nap or night trained (though we’re making progress in that area). Honestly, I think she definitely CAN do it right now but maybe just needs an extra little push to WANT to. So I’m planning on making a new chart for naps and nighttime, and when she hits a certain number of victories on both, we’ll give her a treat of some kind (likely an “experience gift,” like a trip to the zoo or something).
- Go to the dentist
- It’s been six months, so it’s time again.
- Go to the temple
- This is usually a monthly goal for me, but I know if having my second baby is anything like having my first, it might be a few months before I’m able to go again after giving birth, so I really want to make sure I go one more time before that point.
- Go on a date with Matt
- We’ve been pretty good this year at going on a monthly date, which is really quite good for us. I want to make sure we get another one under our belts because I know once we have two kids (one of them being a nursing newborn), it will be a bit harder to work date nights out.
- Go on a day adventure
- This is a monthly tradition we have as a family that we’ve been doing for years. I haven’t decided quite yet what we’re doing in June, but I’m thinking either a short hike (if it’s not too hot) or maybe a trip to a new splash pad.
- List stuff on KSL (encyclopedias, bookshelves, etc.)
- I’ve had good luck listing stuff we no longer need on this local classifieds page, and we need to clear out our stand-alone bookshelves before we can start putting in our built-in shelves (which I’m hoping we can do this summer). Plus, the money from selling the various things lying around will help to finance said built-ins, so…extra incentive!
- Get kitchen knives sharpened
- When I got this done about a year and a half ago, it was life-changing, and I swore I wouldn’t wait so long between sharpenings ever again. Well, while it hasn’t been the five years it was before, it’s definitely time to do this again.
- Get guest room put together
- Rollover goal from last month.
- Finish pricing/about me tabs on photography webpage + figure out galleries
- This is all the rest of the stuff I INTENDED to do last month to get my photography page totally “complete.” Once this is done, I think I can consider my webpage fully ready to launch.
- Build sandbox for Raven
- Rollover goal from last month
- Try a new cookie recipe
- As one of my 101 in 1001 goals, I want to try a dozen new cookie recipes. Since I’ve been craving cookies for weeks (but just haven’t made them), it’s time to try out some of the droolworthy recipes I’ve been posting to my cookie board on Pinterest.
- Label first family photo album
- I bought a photo album that has a place out to the side to write a caption/notes on each photo, and I want to do that before I forget what/who some of them are of.
- Create folder for 2nd family photo album + choose 200 photos to put inside
- Notice I’m not actually putting pressure on myself yet to PRINT the photos or anything–just get them ready to go. I might get around to printing them out and buying the next album anyway, but I find that I tend to be more motivated to do something if I break it into the smallest possible chunks at first.
- Go through 4 areas for 50 Weeks to Organized Refresh project
- I posted about how I’m doing a “refresh” of my 50 Weeks to Organized project, and since that post, I’ve actually expanded the project a bit in my bullet journal by breaking each room of the house/garage into specific areas and then putting little checkboxes by each one so I can go through it more systematically than I was previously. I haven’t decided if I’m going to post about this more or not.
And there you have it! Probably expecting a bit too much out of myself as I come up on 9 months of pregnancy, but if I just sit around waiting, I know I’ll go crazy, so I figure this is a good compromise (because at least this brand of crazy will get some stuff done!).
