• Goals

    April 2021 Goals

    April 6, 2021

    Hey friends, how are you? I hope you had a great Easter! Today I wanted to finally sit down and set my April goals but first let’s recap my March goals first, shall we?

    March Goals Recap

    • Read two books I’m almost finished with the books that I read last month but not quite yet.
    • Blog once a week
    • Plan our weeks We’ve been a lot better about planning our weeks and it’s helped so much.
    • Stick to our new schedule
    • Create a cleaning schedule
    • Work on new Etsy shop I’ve learned a lot about the next step I want to take in regards to selling on Etsy, and have created one new item. Woohoo!
    • Edit one month of photos Still nope lol. I need to do more research on the process and where and how I want to store them first. Not having a plan that I love is keeping me from being motivated to get it done. Adding that to next months goals!

    April Goals

    • Read two books
    • Continue planning our weeks
    • Create more products for Etsy
    • Do more research on printables for Etsy
    • Create two more printables
    • Buy cabinet paint for kitchen cabinets!!
    • Plan anniversary vacation!
    • Finalize how I want my digital pictures to be stored

    We have a lot of exciting things happening this month! Next month is Tommy and I’s five year anniversary and I think we’re going to go on a family trip to celebrate! We are also planning to paint our cabinets white this spring and I’m SO excited! I’m finally going to be purchasing the kit to do it. We’ve been thinking about doing this since we moved in a year and a half ago so it will be so much fun to finally have them done!

    Also, my budgeting posts should be up within the next week or so! Just finalizing everything up!

    What about you? What are you hoping to accomplish this month? I’d love to hear from you!

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  • Book Reviews,  Goals

    March 2021 Goals

    March 10, 2021

    Hi friends! It’s a little late for March goals but I figured it’s better late than never right? 🤣 Let’s first recap February’s goals first though.

    February Goals Recap:

    • read two books I think I’m going to start adding in small recaps of books I’ve read to these posts.
    • find a better schedule for working on Etsy This has been life-changing!!
    • edit/organize a month of photos
    • plan our weeks
    • stick to social media boundaries Another thing that has been life-changing! I can stay so much more focused on things I want to get done throughout the day because I’m not distracted by social media.
    • blog once a week
    • work on new products for Etsy

    Books I’ve Read:

    A little check in from my 2021 book list for the year: So far the list has been really helpful when it comes to making sure I have books in the house that I want to read. It also has helped with realizing that I needed to prioritize room in our budget for books or time at the library to get the books. It has given me some motivation to choose to read too because I don’t want to fall too far behind with the list.

    So if you remember, I planned to read a fiction and a non-fiction book each month and what I am realizing is that one non-fiction book a month might be too much. When I do choose to sit down to read I’m wanting to sort of checkout and enjoy a story. I do really like reading for learning purposes as well though, I’m just realizing with the amount of time I have (with is not very much because of small children LOL) I will choose fiction more than non-fiction.

    Okay now onto the reviews. (I’ve included January’s books as well.)

    • The Tattooist of Auschwitz: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      This book was very eye opening and heartbreaking. It is an amazing love story amidst the heartbreaking reality of what went on during the Holocaust. I would recommend this one for sure.
    • The Last Anniversary: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      I looove Liane Moriarty. This book was a really great one but I felt it was a little lacking in the ending. I guess I just like to have the ending of books neatly tied up with a bow and this one didn’t quite do that for me. But all in all it was still a very good read if you like chick-lit.
    • Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      I very much enjoyed this book and thought it was a great start to the conversation of facing racism. I would love to read more books to learn even more of what I can do to fight racism.
    • The Ickabog: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      This was a really cute book. I haven’t read anything by J.K. Rowling since I’ve finished the Harry Potter series so it was really fun to dive back into her writing. I definitely enjoyed this one and am glad she released it.
    • One by One: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
      This is my third Ruth Ware book and I really enjoyed all of them including this one. I stayed up until 2 am one night because I just had to know how it ended. I looked up reviews after I finished it and was pretty shocked to see there were quite a few people who didn’t enjoy this one that much. I thought it was very suspenseful and would recommend it if you enjoy suspense novels.

    You can review my 2021 book list here if you’re interested.

    March Goals:

    • Read two books
    • Blog once a week
    • Plan our weeks
    • Stick to our new schedule
    • Create a cleaning schedule
    • Work on new Etsy shop
    • Edit one month of photos

    I’m excited to keep working on these goals and keep trying on the ones that haven’t quite happened yet.

    Affiliate links are used in this post.

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  • Goals

    February Goals

    February 4, 2021

    Hi friends! Today I wanted to share my February goals and review how January went. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

    January Goals Review:

    • blog once a week I’m struggling to find time to blog. I need to get into more of a routine of when to write.
    • read two books I actually managed to read 3! Staying off of social media really helped with this goal!
    • take the month off of social media This was a much needed break and it was a really good reset.
    • continue planning our weeks, including dinners We did this a bit but I want to be better in February.
    • continue using our budget worksheet to plan our finances Shared about that here. I still need to do an update to January’s.
    • celebrate Shane’s 3rd birthday! We went to a trampoline park and it was really fun!
    • celebrate my birthday!
    • celebrate Tommy’s birthday!
    • edit/organize one month of photos
    • work out 2-3 times this month (starting small!)
    • spend more one on one time with Shane and Riley I still want to be more intentional about this!

    All in all I am happy with the progress I made in January. I’m also really happy to be tracking goals based off of my goals for the year so that I can adjust them each month to make them realistic.

    February Goals

    • read two books
    • find a better schedule for working on Etsy
    • edit/organize a month of photos
    • plan our weeks
    • stick to social media boundaries
    • blog once a week
    • work on new products for Etsy

    What I’ve realized recently is that when Etsy isn’t in a healthy schedule then the rest of our life feels out of control. The stress of feeling like Etsy always needs to be done causes me not to feel motivated to work on anything else even when I have the time. So the main goal is to get on top of Etsy work so that I can focus on other goals.

    What’s something you’re hoping to accomplish this month?

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  • Goals

    January Goals

    January 8, 2021

    As I shared in my 2021 goals post, I want to set more general goals this year and each month adjust the specifics. So if my general goal is to read more for the year, then in January I can set an amount of books I want to read. And then if I realize at the end of January that it was an unrealistic goal, I can change the number for February. I think this will keep me motivated to not give up my goals after just a few short weeks of trying.

    So today I want to set some specific goals for January. 🙂

    My January Goals:

    • blog once a week
    • read two books
    • take the month off of social media
    • continue planning our weeks, including dinners
    • continue using our budget worksheet to plan our finances
    • celebrate Shane’s 3rd birthday!
    • celebrate my birthday!
    • celebrate Tommy’s birthday!
    • edit/organize one month of photos
    • work out 2-3 times this month (starting small!)
    • spend more one on one time with Shane and Riley

    Okay, sounds like a lot but I feel that these are actually realistic for this month! We have a lot of birthdays to celebrate as 3/4 of our birthdays are in January 🤣.

    Also, I have a new series coming to the blog this month! I’m super excited to start sharing our budgets at the beginning of each month and then checking in at the end to see how we did. I was planning on sharing our January budget this week but because of current events (😩) haven’t gotten around to it, so I will be sharing that next week instead! Super excited!

    What are your goals for January?!

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