Phew! We’ve officially made it past my least favorite part of any year (I REALLY don’t do well with winter, guys–it just gives me the blues), and I’m feeling all sorts of invigorated about the month ahead because we’re about thisclose to spring!
Parts of February were really frustrating because of the back problems I’ve been having (and the baby not sleeping well the first half of the month really didn’t help either), but everything was on the uphill climb by the end (including my back issues and sleeping schedule), so I’m feeling all sorts of optimistic about the month ahead.
Let’s see how my goals shook out in February first though before I run away soliloquizing about my love of a fresh new (hopefully springlike) month!
Note: Anything that’s crossed out means that I completed the goal (or am counting it as complete), and anything in red means that I made measurable progress on it but didn’t totally finish it. There are also some affiliate links in this post to products I use and love, which help support the blog.
February Goals
- File taxes
- I did everything I could to get this done this month and they’re ready to go on my end, but one of our health insurance tax forms was incorrect, so I now have to wait to file until I get the correct form. This will be a rollover goal for March.
- List 5 things on Ebay
- I ended up listing three and am working on a fourth.
Go to Ikea, look at curtains + bathroom lights- We went to IKEA the same day we went to the aquarium (see below), and we were pretty overwhelmed. Neither of us had ever been before, and while we both recognized that it would probably actually be kind of fun to go there without kids, it was a stressful first time since we had no idea the set-up was the way it was, and our kids were pretty done for the day. However, we were able to get some curtains for our downstairs (which I totally am in love with), as well as a fake plant for our bathroom (see this post), so we got what we wanted to out of it. (Note: we did also looked at bathroom vanity lights as planned, but we couldn’t find any that were enough lights across/wide enough to look good in our bathroom. That’s why I think we’re going to go with one of the Progress Lighting vanity lights online like I mentioned in this bathroom post.)
Try a new cookie recipe- Since I’ll never tire of trying out new chocolate chip cookie recipes, we tried out this one from Everyday Reading, which was totally delicious. A definite winner!
Make 5 new recipes out of The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner- It was an excellent month for this 101 in 1001 goal, as we actually ended up making 8. (Although, even after being in this whole cook-our-way-through-a-whole-cookbook thing for a year, we’re still not quite halfway through all the recipes. Crazy!)
Buy plant for bathroom- We double completed this goal, as I ended up buying a real AND a fake plant.
Get book recommendations from 5 people- This one was a lot of fun to gather, and I’m excited to do a post on all the books that were recommended to me sometime in the near(ish) future!
Contact insurance about possible treadmill reimbursement- True, the girl I talked to on the phone almost laughed when I asked if the company would be willing to reimburse a treadmill purchase since we can’t fully take advantage of a gym membership at the time being, but at least I tried.
- Set up crib in Raven’s room
- While no moving of any crib actually happened, I *did* at least take the measurements and talk it over with my mom (who was up at our house helping me with some other house projects), so I at least know WHERE in the room we’ll be putting it. #progress
Go on a date with Matt- Early in the month, we went on a date to the temple and then out to The Mandarin to use a gift card we’d gotten for Christmas. When we found out that our wait at the restaurant would be an hour and fifteen minutes, however, we decided to just get their takeout instead. Since we wanted to still take advantage of the time with just the two of us, we took the food to a nearby Target and ate it in the corner of their little cafe place inside. It actually ended up being perfect! We didn’t have to wait more than about 10 minutes for our takeout food, there was no one else around us at Target, we could get all the free refills we wanted without having to rely on a waiter (since we each ordered a soda at Target), and we didn’t owe anyone a tip. All in all, a good way to go!
Take my mom and stepdad to the aquarium and out to lunch for their birthdays- As you’ll see from these pictures (which are all from this day adventure to the aquarium), we had an awesome time on this little outing. Raven hadn’t been to the aquarium in two years, so this time was even more fun than the last, just because she was much more into everything. We also stopped at Leatherby’s after for lunch, which always will shoot any day into the ‘awesome’ category for us.
Hang up artwork my MIL made for the kids’ room- My mom helped me do this one day when she came up (and my mother-in-law had conveniently swung by the day before to drop the painting off), and it looks GREAT. Now I just need to figure out the arrangement and wall decorations for the rest of the room so I can share some pictures already!
Declutter one 50 WTO area- We have gotten almost all of our kids’ clothes secondhand from my sisters or sisters-in-law, and this month I went through basically all the clothes bins for Raven (which go up to a girls’ size 10-12, at this point). It took me a few mornings of dedicated work, but it was good to consolidate everything I’d gotten thus far. (Of course, literally one week after I’d finished, I got yet MORE clothes for her that I need to go through…but I’m not complaining. It’s all stuff I don’t have to buy now!)
Get oil changed in Buick- Yeppers. And with it, the lovely news that our Buick needs about $400 worth of work just for all the filters and fluids and such to work like they should, and that’s on top of the transmission that needs replacing, too (another $2000 right there).
Get oil changed in Mazda + check engine light looked into- A month of great news about cars–apparently our Mazda needs (eventually) a $450 fix so that we don’t start leaking fuel and burning through it super fast. As we’re looking to sell two (of our three) cars at the moment and buy a bigger vehicle later this year (we hope), we have a lot of car decisions to be making shortly. Adulting is so fun.
- Register van
- YOU GUYS, I (finally) made some progress on this one! I finally found the title! Ha ha. This will be a rollover goal for March, and I’m REALLY hoping nothing happens to hold it up, as we’re planning on probably selling this baby soon!
Hang up new print in front room + paint over nail holes- I got this done pretty early on, but the print is kind of just a temporary fix right now. Eventually I’m going to be making a grid of canvas prints of my own photography to hang on that wall, but for now, we’ll stick with what we’ve got.
- Reupholster new (to us) kitchen chairs + cover with vinyl
- I ended up deciding to just wash the white covers that were already on the chairs and then covering them with plastic vinyl nailed down so we don’t have to worry about spills. My mom basically did the one chair mostly by herself on the day she came up to help me this month and then took the other one home to work on a little more (since it was more stained than the first). Let’s just say that very few house projects would get done around here if it weren’t for my mom :).
- List crystal lamps + downstairs throw pillows on KSL
- I took the pictures for the lamp listing (but haven’t actually created a listing for them yet), and I’m still trying to decide if the throw pillows are even worth listing. TBD.
As always, I like to share some notable accomplishments that weren’t on “The List” but that I’m still glad I did nevertheless:
- Reupholstered piano bench
- I’d been thinking of putting a new cover on our piano bench ever since we inherited from Matt’s grandma, and since I was at the fabric store ANYWAY, I ended up getting some for the bench and my mom (are you sensing a theme here?) did it on the day she came up.
- Bought fabric for throw pillow covers and started sewing those
- Once again, while I bought the fabric, my mom did basically all the work. #sospoiled
- Bought and hung our new curtains for the downstairs family room
- I can’t BELIEVE what a huge difference this makes in our family room! The curtains before were this dark brown burlap-type material, and I kind of always hated them, but we didn’t have the budget for any new ones until now. We ended up finding some we loved at IKEA for $35 (which are basically these ones with a slightly different color scheme, and cheaper because we bought them in the IKEA store directly), and it still kind of shocks me every time I go downstairs because it brightens up the room SO much.
- Started exercising again
- Due to the back pain I’ve been experiencing since November, I’d had to quit exercise of any kind. Now that I’ve been wearing this lower back support belt for awhile, my back seems to be more on the mend, and I was cleared to start running for exercise. I only started this week (and only went a mile the first time and a mile and a half the second time), but I was super pleased to see that even though it’s been a looooong time since I last went for a run, I was still able to run the whole way both times without walking, though my pace was slow. I’m so excited to be exercising again! It really makes such a huge difference in how I feel.
- Made homemade valentines for all Raven’s grandparents and sent them off in the mail
- Raven actually remembered us doing this last year for the holiday and made sure that we were on track to repeat it again for this year. Matt and I made some little valentines ourselves this year to slip into the packages, and it was a really fun way to spend a family night one Monday.
March Goals
- Start a blog newsletter
- I’ve been thinking about doing this for a long time, but I’m finally taking the plunge! My newsletter will give me a chance to connect more with you readers and share things that I won’t be sharing on the blog, so if you’re interested (I promise not to get spammy or flood your inbox—I’m planning on sending it out around once or twice a month), you can sign up for it here.
- List 8 things on Ebay
- This will be a stretch to do (since I didn’t even manage 5 last month), but I’m hoping for some extra income in March to pay for the projects on this list.
- File taxes
- Rollover goal.
- Register the van
- I’M GOING TO GET THIS DONE ALREADY!!! FOR REALSIES!
- Finish sewing the pillow covers for downstairs couch
- Let’s be honest, my mom will (once again) be doing the work on many of these house projects, but as I am trying to learn how to sew (yet again…fourth time’s the charm?), I want to try and do at least part of it.
- Hem our new curtains
- My mom’s coming up next week to help with this already 🙂
- Set up crib in Raven’s room
- The baby’s overall been sleeping a bit better at night (though he still isn’t sleeping through the night again like he was before), but I think with some sleep training, he’ll hopefully be ready to move over to Raven’s room within a month or two. At the very least, I want to finally get this crib set up so that I can finish hanging stuff on the walls.
- List lamps on KSL (maybe old throw pillows, too)
- Rollover goal.
- Finish my Assigned Reading for this term
- I have been TERRIBLE when it comes to my self-assigned reading this year–I’ve been procrastinating it like crazy! I’ve gone back and forth about whether to even keep doing it, but I’ve basically ALWAYS been glad when I finally have read these classics and other titles I’ve been putting off forever, so I’m going to keep trying to do it, for the time being.
- Finish reading Brave New World
- Yeah, this was the assigned reading classic pick from all the way back in the fall, and I STILL haven’t finished it. I just want to knock it out already so that I can stop feeling guilty every time I see it on my “currently reading” shelf on Goodreads.
- Finish reading over all the talks from last October’s General Conference
- Twice a year, members of our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) get to hear from the prophet and apostles of the Church, and as that next conference is coming up in April, I want to have finished studying all the messages from the previous conference before that happens.
- Optimize one old post for Pinterest
- I have over 1,200 active published blog posts, but only about 120 of them are on my Pinterest. Time to optimize one of the oldies but goodies from the archives and share it anew!
- Open up savings accounts for the kids
- This is a recent 101 in 1001 goal I made (from when I changed over 10% of the goals on the original list), and as I’m just opening up a basic savings account for them at our credit union, there’s really no reason to put this one off any longer.
- Go on a date with Matt
- We’ve been trying to be a lot better about getting in date nights as close to monthly as we can, and as my mom is planning to stay overnight with us one day next week, I think we’ll plan to do a little date then.
- Go on family day adventure (possibly to the small local zoo?)
- Since our budget is already going to be tight this month anyway, our family day adventure for March will have to be something pretty low-cost. We have a small local zoo close by us that charges only a couple bucks for admission, so we might try that. Or we might make a bit more of a drive and go visit the huge bird preserve that’s about a half hour south of here (that’s free).
- Have at least one get-together with one of our neighbors
- We’ve been doing an excellent job of keeping up with our close friends from our last neighborhood, but we haven’t made much of an effort in inviting many of our current neighbors into our home. This is something Matt and I have wanted to start back up again for awhile, and we think the kids are in a solid enough routine to try it!
I always feel like there’s a million more things to add, but I think that should give me pleeeenty to do over the next month, so I guess I’ll stop.
What are some of your plans for this new month?
