Goals Update #2

I know that my writing goals are definitely not going as well as I had hoped, as this is my first post since I updated on goals progress last time. And I believe I only wrote in my actual journal once. I did accomplish a couple things this month but not near as much as I would like to, which seems to be a pattern in my life this month. This past weekend I started having a difficult time emotionally again. When I think I am adjusted and things are going well I get slammed with this general feeling of being overwhelmed out of nowhere. I think I need to talk to someone but I will detail more on this later. Prayers appreciated. 

Key:
February Goals
March Goals

Health

• Do Biggest Loser DVD at least once (gotta start somewhere right? And this month it did not happen)
• Gather 5 healthy recipes to try, try at least one (didn't try one but I have them in hand now lol)
• Baked Spaghetti Squash and Cheese
• Zucchini Lasagna
• Slow Cooker Pepperoni and Chicken
• Skinny 3-Cheese Penne
• Lemon Crock Pot Chicken
• Figure out best way to track water intake. (didn't touch this either)
• Start counting calories (thought about it multiple times but didn't happen)

Spirit

• Start devotional again that I started last year
• Go to church at least one Sunday this month

This category was a win but I need more.

Marriage

• Go on a date with Matt in February Valentine's day <3
• Pick the two books I want to read (rolling into March)
• Book a room for our anniversary (rolling into March)
• Start having financial meetings (sort of happened, we talked about money but not in exactly the format I want to)

Parenting

• Read to Logan 3 times a week (ongoing)
• Read one parenting book (currently trying to finish one I started in October) Finished on the 27th, just under the wire
• Spend 30 minutes everyday with Logan, no distractions (ongoing, feel like I am doing better with this for sure)
• Transition Logan to his crib Success so far, another one just under the wire as we started putting him in there on the 27th.

Talent

• Make at least $90 in side income in February. Success! $100.09

Friends

• Make an effort to get together with a friend once a week (ongoing)

Financial

• Pay off Meijer Credit Card (ongoing)
• Make extra deposit into emergency savings.
• Save money each month for Christmas (ongoing, will update progress each month)
• January Saved $26.10
• February-Saved $0
• Create categories for targeted, short term savings goals in YNAB (rolling into March)
• Call internet provider about lowering bill. Success! Lowered it by $20, hoping to be able to get a modem of our own so we can save another $8 as well.
• Also lowered Verizon bill :-)
• Start tithing -Gave $12 to our church on top of our normal donation to christian radio

• Do not accumulate new debt (ongoing)

Organization

• Organize and purge an area of our home every month (REVISED) Do some organizing and purging each month. (I will update what I accomplished each month here)
• Home (didn't touch these)
• Go through clothes in closet
• Organize hair styling products and accessories in bathroom
• Virtual
• Finish cleaning up email (really needed it, I have Gmail and my labels were getting out of control) (still need to finish this)
• Finish organizing Pinterest boards Ended up with 75 boards but it feels much easier to find what I am looking for now for sure.
• Get planner organized for the year - Decided I am splitting into at least 3 binders (planner, medical and financial). Found some etsy planners I like but haven't decided which one to buy yet and haven't gotten around to splitting everything up either.
• Establish daily, weekly and monthly routines
• Create to do lists for each day in regards to routine

Misc

• Write at least once a week (52 times between blog and regular journal) Will update this throughout the year as well.
• January (3/52, missed one week I believe)
• February (4/52)
• Read a total of 24 books (ongoing) 1/24
• February: 1/24

All in all feeling pretty chaotic still and wanting to find a better way to break things up and stay organized. My housekeeping skills were not great to begin with and now it has gotten more out of control. Blech need to refocus and find better balance........

2015 Goals Update #1

I didn't quite accomplish everything that I set out to in the month of January and I realized I didn't do the greatest job of lining up my monthly goals with my yearly goals ( especially in the organization department). This post includes my January goals underlined and any goals from 2014 that I felt could be incorporated italicized. I will put my February goals in bold. Also I took down the 101 Things to Do in 2014. This was more for my benefit, feeling scatterbrained and trying to consolidate things. I also decided to make Organization its own category as I found many things on my 2014 list and almost daily I am thinking of more things I can do to be organized. I was able to accomplish some things that weren't on my list and I will mention those as well. 

Health

• Exercise once a week by July
• Buy new exercise DVD  I bought a Biggest Loser walking DVD
• Do Biggest Loser DVD at least once (gotta start somewhere right?)
• Try healthy recipe once a month
• Find a healthy recipe to try I failed at this one and so I want to make up for it a bit
• Gather 5 healthy recipes to try, try at least one
• Drink half my body weight in water (This is more of an ongoing one and one that I didn't set a mini goal for January)
• Figure out best way to track water intake.
• Start counting calories

Work- Because I am wanting to concentrate on other things right now, I am not going to make specific monthly goals for this category just yet.

• Update resume
• Put feelers out for new job

Spirit

• Read one devotional
• Start devotional again that I started last year Another failure, I kept meaning to and it just got pushed to the bottom of the list and that makes me feel guilty so this will be my goal in February, hence it is underlined and bold
• Start going to church again (no progress made on this one either and no monthly goal was made for January)
• Go to church at least one Sunday this month

Marriage

• Go on a date once a month
• Go on a date with Matt in January Just got this in under the wire on the last day of the month :) 
• Go on a date with Matt in February
• Read 2 marriage books
• Pick the two books I want to read
• Get away for a weekend
• Look into booking a room for Valentines Day (another fail for me, since it is too late now we have decided we will do it around our anniversary so the new goal is: Book a room for our anniversary)
• Start having financial meetings (we planned to start this on Feb 1st but never got around to it, hopefully this weekend we will be able to find a chunk of time to do it)

Parenting

• Read to Logan 3 times a week (ongoing)
• Read 3 parenting books
• Read one parenting book (currently trying to finish one I started in October) (carrying this one over into February as well)
• Spend 30 minutes everyday with Logan, no distractions (ongoing, feel like I am doing better with this for sure)
• Transition Logan to his crib (made some progress moving things around in the nursery and starting to clean out crib as it has been being used as a storage space.) Hoping this month to get him in there finally.

Talent

• Explore side income opportunities
• Make some sort of side income in January Made $90, mostly selling items as I purge the house.
• Make at least $90 in side income in February.
• Look into taking classes (waiting to work on this one as well)

Friends As you can see, a few of my 2014 goals fit into this category.

• Make an effort to get together with a friend once a week (ongoing) (I remember making an effort at least 2 weeks of the month and I was able to visit with a couple of friends towards the end of the month. Kids definitely make things harder.)
• Have a girls night out or in
• Host a game night
• Write 10 notes to friends
• Host Turkey Day

Financial

• Pay off Meijer Credit Card (ongoing)
• Build emergency savings to certain amount
• Make extra deposit into emergency savings. (Another fail, money got tight towards the end of the month, going to make an effort again this month)
• Start saving for a down payment on a house (Will start this after credit card is paid off)
• Buy extra life insurance and start the process of creating a will
• Save money each month for Christmas (ongoing, will update progress each month)
• January Saved $26.10
• Create more short term, targeted savings goals
• Create categories in YNAB with what we want to save for exactly
• Attempt to lower regular, monthly bills- I was actually able to make a start on this, waiting to see how my phone bill actually turns out before I officially count it though. And I did call our internet provider and got the number for who I need to speak with about lowering bill just never got around to calling back. So this month, I will call internet provider about lowering bill.
• Start tithing
• Do not accumulate new debt

Organization

• Organize and purge an area of our home every month (REVISED) Do some organizing and purging each month. (I will update what I accomplished each month here)
• January- 
• Home: Cleaned out pantry and fridge, reorganized Logan's clothes, went through my clothes in drawers
• Virtual: Started organizing my Pinterest boards after being inspired by this blog post, tried out a new way to organize my email (signed up for unroll.me, which I highly recommend, great experience so far!)
• February
• Home 
• Go through clothes in closet
• Organize hair styling products and accessories in bathroom
• Virtual
• Finish cleaning up email (really needed it, I have Gmail and my labels were getting out of control)
• Finish organizing Pinterest boards
• Get planner organized for the year I think my planner may be a work in progress as the year goes on, I love that I was able to put my own together but starting to think having more than one may be the better way to go. Will update with any changes.
• Come up with a system to track kitchen inventory This was a goal from last year's list and I finally found and printed some printables to help me track freezer, fridge and pantry inventory. So far so good.
• Start meal planning This is one that was on my mind but I didn't write down, I started doing inventory and meal planning along with it. It has gone well so far, eating out far less than we were.
• Clean out email Another from last year, as mentioned above I actually started doing this in January, now am in the process of cleaning up old emails, will mark this off when that is done.
• Establish daily, weekly and monthly routines
• Create to do lists for each day in regards to routine and cleaning I wrote down my to do list for Sun-Thurs nights but never got around to creating my own printable like I wanted, again I think this needs to be more targeted.
• Create a cleaning schedule

Misc

• Write at least once a week (52 times between blog and regular journal) Will update this throughout the year as well.
• January (3/52, missed one week I believe)
• Read a total of 24 books (ongoing) 0/24

So looking at this, I feel it has gotten a little out of control lol. May try to find some inspiration from other blogs as to a better way to do goals update for next month. For now though, I have my goals for February and am excited to tackle them! I may end up doing a separate post about what I have achieved in regards to reorganizing and decluttering our home because this is an area I feel I strongly need to work on and obviously have a lot of goals in that area. 

2015 Goals

I think the thing I want to focus on this year is that goals are not stagnant. Writing them down does not really set them in stone. Life happens and things change. At the beginning of 2014 I had no idea I would get pregnant in January and have little to no energy or time for doing most of the things on my "101 Things to do in 2014" list. You will notice this list is still up even though I have added a page for my 2015 goals as well. That is because I want to incorporate some of the 2014 goals into the 2015 goals. The goals I have written for 2015 are just the beginning. I want to work to cross some off by mid year and then add more. And I am sure as the months pass I will change the goals to fit what I end up really having time to do. There is so much I want to accomplish this year. I want to be a better person, a better wife, a better mother, a better budgeter, better with my time, better at digging into God's word, better at getting and staying organized and I could probably go on for a while. I know that there is no way I will accomplish all this if I dive right in and try to start doing everything at once which I think was the flaw with 101 things to do list. You just see all this stuff and don't really know where to start and get overwhelmed and think I will never get most of this done anyway so why try? At least that was how it made me feel. My life kind of revolves around lists now though. What I need to do each night to prepare for work and prepare Logan for daycare, what I need to do each morning to get out the door on time, what we need at the store, and errand after errand after errand because for some reason when you become a mom, the to do list never ends.

There is a reason behind each of my goals and I am going to give you a little insight into each area I want to work on but I know these will change as the year goes on. And that is ok by me. I just want to bring more harmony to our family and our house and not feel like time is just slipping away. Which is kind of how 2014 felt. 

So here they are...
Health- I want to take baby steps to better health. It was always my goal to be in better health before we had kids but that didn't happen so much. Now that we actually have a little one, I want to be in better shape for him so that I can chase him and enjoy his growing up even more.

• Exercise once a week by July
• Try healthy recipe once a month
• Drink half my body weight in water

Work-Things at work are interesting for lack of a better word and this job isn't something I want to do forever so I want to take steps to find something that feels more long term.

• Update resume
• Put feelers out for new job

Spirit-Matt and I have been struggling with this area of our lives a lot lately. Mostly for lack of trying if I am completely honest. We let all the other areas of our lives drain us so that we don't have time for God and that isn't how it should be. We have struggled with finding a church home and finding time for God's word on our own. These goals may seem small but they would be huge accomplishments and bring me infinitely closer to God.

• Read one devotional
• Start going to church again

Marriage-Our marriage really took a blow when Logan was born. We struggled to connect because of time and emotional issues that both of us were dealing with. Even before Logan was born we were having some trouble and having a hard time just feeling like us. It continues to be a struggle but we are both working at it.

• Go on a date once a month
• Read 2 marriage books
• Get away for a weekend
• Start having financial meetings

Parenting-This whole being a mom thing is still really new to me and I want to be better at it. I had a hard time connecting with Logan in the beginning because as I would come to find out I was wading through postpartum depression (which I hope to elaborate on in a post at some point). It is still a struggle for me and I want to be better at spending quality time with him with no distractions. 

• Read to Logan 3 times a week
• Read 3 parenting books
• Spend 30 minutes everyday with Logan, no distractions
• Transition Logan to his crib

Talent-I really want to take time this year to learn new things and go back to what I used to love to do. I used to love editing pictures and playing with graphic editing programs I want to try to hone those skills maybe into something profitable. I am also making a concentrated effort to make a little extra money each month. I will be sharing how much side income I bring in each month.

• Explore side income opportunities
• Look into taking classes
• Get back into working with graphics

Friends-In all reality I feel I should have more goals in this area. Maintaining friendships becomes infinitely harder when kids enter in the picture. And it was hard even before that because of all the various schedules of my friends. But I feel like this goal is a good start.

• Make an effort to get together with a friend once a week

Financial-Once again I have some pretty lofty financial goals. I think these are pretty self explanatory. We did start using YNAB (You Need a Budget) in December and it has kind of been a game changer so I may delve into this more in the coming months as well.

• Pay off Meijer Credit Card
• Build emergency savings to certain amount
• Start saving for a down payment on a house
• Buy extra life insurance and start the process of creating a will
• Save money each month for Christmas
• Create more short term, targeted savings goals
• Attempt to lower regular, monthly bills

Misc-These are goals that didn't perfectly fit in any of the other categories that were on the 2015 resolutions printable I found. I want to get our house more in order so I am also using another printable for monthly organizing goals and posting that on the fridge.

• Write at least once a week (52 times between blog and regular journal)
• Read a total of 24 books
• Organize and purge an area of our home every month
• Establish daily, weekly and monthly routines

I am also using a monthly printable I found to write out my bite size goals towards the larger goals each month. So here are my bite size goals for January and my progress so far:

• Read one parenting book (currently trying to finish one I started in October)
• Find a healthy recipe to try
• Buy new exercise DVD
• Start devotional again that I started last year
• Go on a date with Matt
• Look into booking a room for Valentines Day
• Make some sort of side income (already accomplished this one :-))
• Accomplish monthly organizing goals
• Make extra deposit into emergency savings.

I realize that it is now the middle of January as I post this but I will try to do an update on how things are going at the beginning of February. I also hope to get up a 3 month update for our little guy :-). To sum it up, he is growing up too fast!