Goals, Monthly Recap

First Trimester’s Over – Let’s Catch Up! {December 2022 Goals}

I’m amazed I got ANYTHING crossed off in November. Granted, I made sure to keep the list pretty easy since I knew I’d likely be feeling crummy the entire month, but still. The first trimester and I have never gotten along too well, and basically every day was just a loooooong slog through morning sickness and fatigue. I’m not complaining though, because the constant nausea and other fun pregnancy symptoms were actually extremely reassuring, which helped to at least *somewhat* keep my anxiety about this pregnancy in check.

I am currently 13 weeks along and am about a week away from feeling better (if history is any precedent), so I am RARING to go in December.

But let’s see what we were actually able to do this last month, shall we?

Note: There are affiliate links to products and books mentioned below.

November Goals

  • Plant ranunculus in high tunnel
    • We didn’t have our high tunnel set up until spring, so this is the first time we’ll be able to actually try and overwinter anything. I’m excited to see how these do! The ranunculus we put in in the spring were almost all too short to be of much use and I’ve heard that overwintering usually solves that problem, so I’m particularly excited to see if we’ll have a nice bumper crop in the spring.
  • Finish dealing with dahlias
    • This is my first time dealing with lifting dahlia tubers, and…it’s a total pain. And I didn’t even do the work — Matt did! It’s definitely a lot of effort, and it’s something I’ll have to weigh out over the next couple of years to see if dahlias are a crop that’s worth the extra labor and storage.
  • Get oil changed in van
    • Love easy wins.
  • Vote
    • I’m proud we did this in plenty of time!
  • Sell at least one thing on Facebook Marketplace
    • We had three larger items I wanted to try and sell, and the same person actually bought all three the same afternoon I listed them. Score!
  • Order contacts
    • I tried, but my prescription has expired. So now I guess I need to go get another eye exam, which will have to wait until the new year since the December budget is stretched to the max.
  • Finish laser work on my face
    • I had a red mark that my derm said looked precancerous on my face, and I’ve now had two laser treatments done on it. It’s mostly gone now, but there is still a slight bit of red there. I’m debating whether or not I want to go in for a third round.
  • Publish book roundup post
    • I did work on this, but the constant nausea sure made it hard to want to do anything that wasn’t strictly necessary.
  • Edit both remaining photo sessions
    • I’m so proud of myself — I finished one of these! Now for the other one…
  • Paint and hang new laundry doors
    • We had the time to do this over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but then we realized that it’s too cold to do this outside in the workshop. So now we need to decide if we want to take the doors back inside and find a place to paint them there, or wait until spring. Decisions, decisions…
  • Fix doorbell
    • Matt made another couple of attempts, but to no avail. I’m beginning to think we might have to hire this out.

Considering that for the last 6 or 7 weeks or so, I’ve done nothing but the bare minimum required to keep us fed and clothed, our house is seriously in need of some TLC. You know it’s gotten bad when I’m actually EXCITED to tackle all the cleaning and organizing, but there you have it.

Often, I want December to be a time of slowing down, but after nearly two months of all the slowing-down I could possibly stand, I’m okay with a change of pace.

Here’s the plan for the month:

December Goals

  • Switch over closet to maternity clothes
    • Now that I’m entering into my second trimester, I’m quickly starting to need to transition more and more over to maternity clothes. I like to just do it mostly in one fell swoop so that I know that pretty much whatever is in my closet, I can (probably) wear.
  • Get all kids’ clothes out of our bedroom
    • We’re forever getting hand-me-downs for our kids (which we love), and I’ll admit I’m terrible at getting them put away downstairs into storage. We currently have kids’ clothes in bigger sizes all over our room, and the time has come to clear it out.
  • Completely clear off kitchen counters
    • I’ve been *okay* at mostly keeping our kitchen island clean, but one side of the counters hasn’t been cleared off in…many, many months. It’s driven me crazy for a long time, but now I should hopefully finally have the time AND energy to deal with it.
  • Get back into doing the FlyLady routine
    • Yep, this all goes back to the “wanting to get my house back in order” thing. FYI, I use the FlyLady app (which is free) to keep me on track, and I love it. It really simplifies her system into an easy set of bulleted lists, and I like that when I manage to stay on top of it, my house really is better for it.
  • Get rid of hot tub
    • Our hot tub costs us soooo much money in gas during the winter, and it’s really not worth it to us since we hardly ever use it. We’ve finally decided just to try and do a trade out with someone–they can have our hot tub for free if they’re willing to do the repair work on our deck once it’s been taken out and left behind a big hole. There are enough super handy people around us that I’m thinking this shouldn’t be too difficult to work out.
  • Edit last photo session
    • Rollover goal.
  • Put together photo albums
    • Months ago, I finally ordered the next several hundred pictures to fill up our next two family photo albums (I’ve been using these ones because they hold a lot of pictures and have plenty of different color options, so I can do a different color for every year). Then…I did nothing with them. My goal is to label them and put them in order in the two photo albums before Christmas.
  • Make homemade chicken broth for gifting
    • I don’t usually do any kind of gifts for neighbors or Matt’s coworkers or anything like that (I know, I know), but this year I do want to put in the extra effort since we’ve really appreciated so much the support we’ve received from so many this year. I don’t really want to give people yet another treat for the holidays, so I’m going to home can some of my homemade chicken broth that’s pretty much the tastiest broth you’ve ever had in your life. (FYI, I got the recipe from this book, and it’s mind-blowingly good.)
  • Book mini vacation for January
    • I’ve known for years that January is almost always the hardest month of the year for me (usually followed by February), but last year was one of the only times we ever actually did anything about it by booking a little weekend getaway. I cannot overstate what a difference it made in my mood and my overall sense of well-being, and I think I can safely say that it did the same for my husband and kids, too. So, we decided to make it an annual thing as much as we can, and we already have plans in the works.
  • Decorate gingerbread house
    • We had such a fun time with this last year that we want to turn it into a tradition.
  • Go on a drive to see Christmas lights
    • We kind of do this anyway, but I want to make sure we prioritize actually making it a “thing” one night, not just pointing out houses on our way to wherever we happen to be going, if that makes sense.

How are you wanting your December to look? Slow and easy? Fun and full? I’d love to know what kinds of plans you’ve got in the works!

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