While some of my recent implementations — like a weekly must-do list I create each Sunday on my computer — are helping me to not neglect the most important things, my life is still way out of balance right now with the flower farm eating up every spare second I have and then some. I usually set goals with certain broad categories in mind (like home/yard goals, fun things, kid milestones and growth, 101 in 1001 items, etc.), but right now, I’m basically just sticking to the bare minimum and trying to survive.
I am hoping that May brings a slight respite sometime soon so that I can get back to blogging a little more regularly (because that’s one of my favorite ways to relax, actually), but seeing as we’re now a third of the way through May and the rest of my month looks insane, I’m thinking that June might hold a little more promise for more breathing room (if for no other reasons than that Raven won’t be in school and that the first flush of all of my plants will at least be in the ground, with the only seedlings in my grow room being the ones I’m succession planting for later).
I’ve had other seasons that were way out of balance too, and it’s helped me to remember that it won’t last forever and that it will (hopefully) be worth it on the other end. In future years, I’ll have other systems in place that will be big time savers (like putting down drip irrigation tape and having more perennials in the garden), but for now, we just have to work with what we’ve got.
But let’s talk about what we’ve been up to lately and what we have planned for the month ahead!
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April Goals
Celebrate Easter + Raven’s birthday- Having holidays and special events to look forward to has definitely helped life seem more “normal” around here, and it’s also had the side effect of making the time seem like it’s FLYING by! We’ve had so many fun things to look forward to that I feel like I could do with time slowing down a bit, actually. For Easter we did the usual egg and basket hunt on Saturday and had a nice ham dinner on Sunday (and went to church, of course). For Raven’s birthday (she turned six), we drove to Bountiful so that she could have a little party with grandparents the weekend before and then surprised her with dinner out and a trip to one of our favorite parks that we’ve discovered down here.
Take a family vacation- We haven’t taken any kind of family vacation since before our second child was born (because our big Hawaii trip was cancelled last year due to Covid), so it had been just about 3 years since we went anywhere. It felt WONDERFUL to get away for five days, and it was desperately needed. The kids had so much fun that Raven even sobbed her heart out for about two hours as we were driving home because she was so sad it was over. We ended up staying at a condo in St. George with my mom and stepdad and enjoyed some kid-friendly hikes, a walk through a gorgeous desert garden, multiple trips to parks and playgrounds, lots of yummy food, and we even got in some swimming before the wind picked up too much one day.
- Plan something special for our 10-year anniversary in May
- We still haven’t done this, though we did have a fun evening out with friends (and our kids, and our friends’ kids) on our actual anniversary. The plan was to do something a little more special like an overnight trip with just the two of us, which we’re hoping to make happen sometime in June or July. Making this plan is a rollover goal for May!
Make sure everyone in the family gets a haircut- While we were down in St. George, we took advantage of the fact we were only 15 minutes away from our sister-in-law, who does hair. She cut every family member’s hair (Raven’s was the most drastic—she wanted it cut short to her shoulders!), which was a (literal) weight off our shoulders.
Transplant out all hardy annuals andcool season vegetables- I thought this would all be done by the middle of the month, but I barely squeaked it in at the end. Better late than never!
- Finish building and filling all new garden beds
- We’ve done six–just two more to go!
Plant all summer bulbs (gladiolus, liatris, lily)- I technically haven’t put all the gladiolus bulbs in, but as I’m succession planting those, I’m calling this complete.
- Start all warm season tender annuals inside in the grow room
- I started almost all of my first successions of them, but I still have about half of my zinnias and a few other random things to do.
Start marketing my first CSA bouquet subscription- We actually ended up selling out after just a few days! Super excited for the support we’re seeing so far.
Figure out a place to build kids’ sandbox + start researching where to source sand- We haven’t 100% finalized the spot, but we’ve made progress on figuring out how we’re going about this, so I’m counting it as complete.
- Sell Buick
- Nope, still haven’t listed it again since moving it down here.
- Do caulking in the kitchen
- Uh, no. Pretty much all house projects are being put off at this point until further notice.
- Find dentist for the kids
- Still no. Rollover for May.
May Goals
- Plan something special to celebrate our 10-year anniversary (it doesn’t have to be for this month)
- Rollover goal. I’m hoping we can book something for June!
- Go on family hike
- Our kids have come to know Saturdays as “Work Days” since we do all of our big projects out on the flower farm on those days, but I want to make sure we at least make time for SOME fun on the weekends. Time to take advantage of the fact that we live next to a canyon (yet again) and check out some of the hiking opportunities already!
- Revise and post update on 101 in 1001 list
- So much has already changed in the seven months since I made it (esp. with the flower farm and everything) that I want to totally revise or change several of the goals. I don’t know when I’ll have the headspace to do this, but I’m hoping to find it soon.
- Order sandbox for kids
- With the price of lumber being sky high right now, it’s actually cheaper to buy a pre-made sandbox (we’ve got our eye on this one) rather than build one from scratch (isn’t that NUTS?!), so we’re hoping to do that this month.
- Find dentist for kids
- Rollover goal.
- Finish building and filling all garden beds
- Just two more to go!
- Transplant out first succession of all tender annuals
- Our last frost is typically around the 21st, so I’ll plant out many of my tender annuals then and then plant most of the rest by Memorial Day. Fingers crossed that most of it survives!
- Try out a seedling sale
- I’m growing quite a few extra plants of things like dahlias and zinnias, so I want to try out a small seedling sale this year to see if people are interested.
- Post on the other blog about the start-up costs for the flower farm
- Blogging has had to take a major backseat lately, but I’ve been working on a post FOREVER about all our start-up costs for the flower farm to help out other people who might be interested. Here’s hoping I can finish that off this month!
- Post summer reading list
- Each May for the past few years, I’ve posted a summer reading list of the books I’m most excited to read this summer. While my reading life is definitely suffering a bit, there’s definitely a TON of stuff I’m excited about lately and which is totally worth me sharing on here! (Besides, the summer reading list is basically tradition now, so we can’t break the streak!)
- Sell Buick
- Rollover goal. Maybe I’ll bribe myself to do this sooner by saying I can use some of the money from selling it to build yet another garden bed 🙂
The month is already a third over, so it will be interesting to see how many of these actually get off the ground. Here’s to a productive month ahead!
