Confession: When I opened up last month’s goals post to copy over the list to do an update on them here, it was the first time I’d looked at them since actually publishing it. Needless to say, I got almost none of them accomplished.
I’m in a weird season right now. Often, winter is slightly more of a relaxed season because although I’m still sowing seeds and doing behind-the-scenes stuff for the farm, it’s made simpler by the fact that I’m not harvesting or arranging pretty much every day, like I am during the growing season. However, since I’ve opted to take on this temporary part-time marketing gig and had a lot of logistical stuff to figure out now that we’re going full-time with the farm this year and are also looking to expand, I’ve just been super, super swamped.
Honestly, I’m wondering if it’s even worth setting monthly goals at this point since almost all of them will be flower farm related, and I’m unlikely to get to any of the other, more aspirational ones (like finishing up minimizing our house) until a later point. So I’m going to sit with that for awhile. On the one hand, I love looking back and seeing what I’ve been able to accomplish from month to month and year to year, and I know a huge part of that is thanks to the accountability of doing monthly posts on it. On the other hand, I’m not keeping these goals top of mind like I’d really need to in order to make any kind of measurable progress on most of them.
But we’ll see.
(If you have any strong opinions one way or another on whether or not you’d like these to stay, let me know in the comments!)
Onto January, though.
As far as the month went, it was about as good as January ever could be expected to be (being my least favorite month of the year). I loved that we had a milder winter with multiple days of winter sunshine, which helped my mood greatly. I enjoyed teaching my cut flower gardening class through the local college for the second year in a row. I was happy that Matt and I were able to start really gaining some clarity about the direction we want the farm to go, especially after we attended the Utah Flower Conference at the end of the month together. I appreciated that the month didn’t drag by.
So there you go, that was basically January in a nutshell.
Here’s what happened on the goal front:
January Goals
Start tax preparation- Yes, but I’m not as far along as I wanted to be. It’s better than not having worked on it at all, though!
- Finish minimizing master closet
- I did make some progress, but once I took on the part-time marketing gig for my friend, it was nothing going. Pretty much all house projects will probably be a very slow burn until the end of the year.
Finish minimizing master bedroom- Matt and I took one day and tackled a lot of the bedroom together, and I’m basically counting it as done, even though I still need to go through our filing cabinets. Other than that though, the room has really changed a ton over the past few months, stuff-wise! Very satisfying.
- Clean out fridge
- I got rid of the worst offenders, but I still haven’t done a thorough clean.
- Get back on the meal planning train
- I had a couple false starts on this one, where I’d be all gung ho for a couple nights, then I’d fall right back off again. Now I’m back to where I was before, which is usually planning dinner around 4:30 p.m.
- Do all homework for Floret course
- Ha ha, NOPE — super far behind on even keeping up with all the videos on this, much less the homework. Seriously, this course might take me a full year to get through at the rate I’m going.
- Finish flower farm planning for the year
- I actually am pretty close, but I still need to devote a solid couple of hours. Basically I’m at the point of reckoning now — I’ve realized that I can’t fit everything I’ve planned on, so I either need to look at where we’re going to create more beds, or I need to look at what we’re going to cut.
Research(and apply?)for farm loans- Did a lot of research on USDA new farm loans, yes. But unfortunately, there’s no use applying until we have a land deal in hand.
- Publish four blog posts that aren’t Weekly Frugal Wins
- Oh, kudos to optimistic early January me who thought this was going to happen for sure! ha ha ha ha
- Finish 3 books
- I finished two, which actually was closer than I thought I’d get with how busy the month kept getting as it went along!
February Goals
- File taxes
- Apply for pitch competition
- I can’t believe I’m planning on entering another business pitch competition since I was insanely anxious at the last one, but the opportunity (if I make it) is too good to pass up.
- Finish through Module 3 in Floret course
- There are six modules altogether, so I think getting to the halfway point is at least somewhat reasonable at this point.
- Figure out if we can come to agreement on land with first option
- We had someone approach us about selling us land, and now we just need to decide if we can come to an agreement on it or not (or if we’ll keep looking elsewhere). Should be interesting, at any rate.
- Finish 3 books
Let me know if you have any opinions on whether or not you’d like to see me keep doing my monthly goals posts, and also drop a comment below and let me know what you’ve been up to!
