Seeking Rest {December 2021 Goals} -

A few months ago, I naively thought that once the growing season was over, I wouldn’t have that much I needed to do with the flower farm.

WRONG.

In fact, I now know that throughout the year, there really is only a single month that’s going to not have much (if anything) to do with flower farming, and that’s December. (Of course, if I take on super slow-growing seeds like lisianthus or eucalyptus in the future, even that promise will be gone.) In January I’ll be starting right back up with filling up our grow room with seedlings and doing some intensive planning for the year ahead, so I plan to fully take advantage of December’s relatively empty plate as much as possible.

Here’s where things stand:

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November Goals

~~Finish Christmas shopping as much as possible~~
- It’s weird being this on the ball, but also liberating. Other than stocking stuffers and a few small gifts for a cousin exchange, we’re pretty much done.
~~Take our new puppy to the vet~~
- We got this done at the very beginning of the month. He wasn’t able to get any more of his vaccines yet, but I guess it was good to establish care and know that he’s healthy.
Make new quiet books for church for each kid
- I had the time to do this, but I just seriously lacked the motivation, ha ha — I got almost nothing done over the Thanksgiving weekend when I had the most opportunity to work on stuff, and I’m okay with that 🙂
~~Make trip to donation center~~
- It wasn’t a huge load, but it’s nice to be back to decluttering again after I’d taken a bit of a break upon completion of my Declutter 1,001 Things Challenge.

~~Take the rest of the loads to the fall clean-up dumpsters~~
- We had a bunch of construction debris and boxes and things all over the place (especially out in the workshop), so it felt GREAT to finally clear it all out.
Add food and rest of hygiene items to 72-hour kits + go through old 72-hour kit
- No progress here, but I’m not surprised — I kinda figured I wouldn’t get to this until January anyway.
Move gas fireplace back to family room
- No, but mostly because Matt can’t do it alone and we almost never have people over. Rollover goal.
Try to fix leak in master bathroom and/or look into getting a quote from a plumber
- I can’t put this off much longer…definite rollover goal for December.

Finish editing all photo shoots
- Not quite — I still have one left.
~~Finish ripping out raised beds and cover with compost~~
- Cleaning up the farm was the name of the game for November, and while we didn’t get everything 100% weeded, amended, and mulched, we *did* get enough of it done to give us a running headstart in the spring.
~~Mow lawn~~
- I’m counting this as complete even though the lawn mower technically died on us for the last section of the backyard. Not sure if we’ll be able to bring it back to life, but we’ll find out in the spring.
~~Rake up leaves and use for compost~~
- Many of the leaves got raked up in piles for the kids to jump in and only a few of those piles made it onto the beds for mulch and compost, but we did what we needed to do.

Pick up 5-gallon buckets for food storage
- I can’t believe we forgot to do this! My mom has several she said we could have, but we were so busy enjoying ourselves on Thanksgiving that we totally forgot to put them in our car.
Transfer water shares over to our name
- Apparently it’s not just a matter of signing a bunch of stuff — there’s actually some money that’s due upon transfer as well. Since November’s budget was already stretched to the max, I rolled this over to December.
~~Send in request for new title for Buick~~
- Unbelievably, I ended up actually finding the original title this last month, totally on accident. It was where I thought it would be — in the filing cabinet — but had eluded me the first 20 times I searched through the files because it had slipped underneath some other things and wasn’t where I expected it. Now we just need to actually list the thing!

December Goals

Send out special email series to email list subscribers
- I have long neglected my email list, where I (used to) send out exclusive content to subscribers every month or two. However, I’ve been working on something really different to send out this month — an email series written around one of my favorite hymns (More Holiness Give Me) — to hopefully help breathe some moments of quiet spirituality and reflection into your Christmas season. If you’re interested in receiving those, signing up for my email list is totally free and is just a way for me to connect with you on a more personal level than I usually do through the blog. To sign up for the special Christmas emails, click HERE. If you’d like to sign up for the email list in general — but not get the more spiritual ones — you can click HERE.
Celebrate Hyrum’s birthday
- Hard to believe, but our baby turns TWO this month!
Take puppy in for his final vaccinations
- This shouldn’t be too hard, especially since it doesn’t even require an appointment.

Fix leak in master bathroom
- Rollover goal.
Finish editing final photo shoot
- I’ve already started on this last one, so it shouldn’t take too long — just a solid 2-hour chunk of time when I can sit down in relative peace and quiet and hammer it out.
Schedule a home energy consultation
- Each month, we get an email comparing our energy usage to that of our neighbors’. When we lived at our last place, we pretty much beat out everyone in energy usage because we’re naturally so frugal, but there’s something about this older house that’s really causing an issue. Even though we keep our house at just 63-65 degrees, our report is still showing that we’re “way above average” for our energy usage. I’m hoping that having an expert come out to look at our place will help us to see where we can make some fixes that will help resolve the issue.

Move gas fireplace back to family room
- We have some family coming over to celebrate Hyrum’s birthday, so if I can make myself remember, maybe we can get the help we need to do this!
Transfer water shares over to our name
- Rollover goal.
Order bare root roses and first of the seeds for the flower farm next year
- I know I said that I didn’t really have any flower farming stuff in December, but these really should have been ordered earlier. However, our flower farming budget had to go to other things the last couple months, so unfortunately, the seed companies have already sold out of some of what I was really wanting for next year. I can’t put this off anymore if I want to secure much of what I’m really planning on for next year’s season.

Visit a chiropractor or massage therapist
- When I was regularly going to a chiropractor or my specialized massage therapist, my back was finally feeling like it might get back to “normal” someday. Sadly, I haven’t found anyone down here to match the specialists I’d already found, so my back has started to get worse and worse again. I’m really hoping I can get in to see my preferred massage therapist over the Christmas break. But, even if I can’t, I’m determined to at least see SOMEBODY this month because I don’t want it to get as bad as it got before I started seeing anyone.
Get everyone in the family a haircut
- Most of us haven’t had our hair cut since April, and we REALLY need to remedy that. We bought this haircut kit that came highly recommended to us, which is what we’ll use to trim the kids’ hair. I’m not sure if I’m brave enough to do Matt’s (or to have him do mine), but we should hopefully all be less unkempt by the end of the year.

Make new quiet books for church for each kid
- Rollover goal.
Pick up 5-gallon buckets for food storage
- Rollover goal.
Finish 5 books
- While I won’t get anywhere close to completing my Goodreads goal to read 65 books this year, I’d like to at least take advantage of having a little more “down” time this month because there’s nothing I really need to do work-wise for the flower farm. December is basically the only “real” month I get off from flower farming actually, because there are several flats of seeds I’ll need to start in January!!

Take at least a week off of social media
- For the past few Decembers, I’ve tried really hard to completely step away from social media and news channels for at least a week or two to reset my mind. It gives me kind of a built-in opportunity for some year-end reflection and some inward searching, and I feel like it gets me in a much better headspace for the new year ahead.
Enjoy Christmas!
- Obviously 🙂 But this year, I’m actually trying to be much more intentional about building in fun little memories with our kids, like going to the light parade on Main Street, decorating a gingerbread house together, and unwrapping new Christmas picture books to read together at night. It’s already brought so many little magical moments into our month, and I’m being reminded anew of the importance of consciously looking for ways to have those quality moments together rather than just hustling through our days.
List Buick
- 😉