Category: goals

It’s a whole new year! And 2023 was a doozy. I think I’m going to break this into several blog posts, the first of which will just be the general December goals reflection.

1. Advent Calendar. It’s still not done, but it’s closer than it was and we all had a great time doing it, even if the last 10 were just outlines.
2. St Lucia Buns. Ugh, I kind of dropped the ball on this one, but we did have some cinnamon rolls a day late so yay?
3. Buy all the things. Done!
4. Wrap all the things. Done!
5. December Daily. Nope. Totally gave up on this before I made a single page, but this goal did push me to take some more pictures so I’m counting it as a win anyway.
6. Project Life. I think I managed to do 2 layouts? To be fair, we lost power for 4 days which put a real damper on editing and printing photos.
7. Scrapbooking. lol. I did a singular layout. In my defense it was super cute!
8. Reflect on 2023 goals and create 2024 goals. Still working on these!
9. Plan activities for Christmas break. Well, we mostly stayed nice and cozy at home, but Kate and Xander did start ski lessons so that was fun!
10. Write thank you notes. I haven’t managed to write mine yet and neither has Kate, but Xander reminded me that he needed to write his and he and Mia sat right down and did them! I really needed a parenting win and this was a huge one. 🙂

I’m going to (hopefully) finalize my 2024 goals today and then I’ll write another post. Stay tuned!

It’s December y’all! And I feel like I’m living on the set of a Hallmark movie. Seriously, it snowed and it was MAGICAL! Let’s see how those November goals went.

1. Advent calendar. Whoops. Although I did make some more progress! I’ve now gotten 14 of the ornaments done. Only 10 to go! And the kids are having so much fun!
2. Advent activies. Fail. I’m still writing on them each day right before I pull them. lol.
3. Thanksgiving. The week leading up to Thanksgiving was a real doozy, but the actual day was lovely. Complete with facetime calls to talk with family back home.
4. Christmas list. Well, I didn’t get much of anything done in November, but this week I’ve gotten quite a bit ordered and shipped. Mostly thanks to my elves over at Amazon!
5. Project Life. lololololol.
6. NaNoCraftMo. I’ll be honest, I just wasn’t feeling it this year. I need to get my crafty mojo back!
7. Blog. Well, I got 1 out of 4. Better than nothing!
8. Hang some pictures. Nope.
9. Christmas cards. Nope. To be fair, I could still try to get these out, but ugh.
10. Front yard pictures. I was hoping for a somewhat posed family picture (see above re Christmas cards) and I didn’t manage to get that. But I did some fun candids of the kids playing in the leaves! 🙂

And now onto December! (Only ::checks watch:: 8 days late. Whoops.)

1. Advent Calendar. It’s almost comical at this point, but I still feel compelled to put it on here. Can I finish another handful of the ornaments?
2. St Lucia Buns. Yummy yummy. I want to make these again this year.
3. Buy all the things. After today, I’m so close to being done!
4. Wrap all the things. We went up to Target this week and picked out this year’s wrapping paper. 🙂
5. December Daily. I seriously doubt that I make any progress on this, but I’d at least like to have a photo for each day.
6. Project Life. 4 layouts.
7. Scrapbooking. Maybe I could do a big push to finish 2019 before 2024? lolololol
8. Reflect on 2023 goals and create 2024 goals.
9. Plan activities for Christmas break.
10. Write thank you notes.

We survived October! It was touch and go for a bit there, but we made it. :). Let’s see how we did on the October Goals.

1. Set up sewing room. Well, it’s not done yet, but I did make some progress! I have all of the furniture assembled (for the most part) but I still have loads of boxes to deal with. Still, it’s getting there!
2. Finish setting up art room. Lol. We’ve made some progress here, but it mostly involved opening up the boxes and putting bins where ever they fit on the shelves. I really want to take a couple of days and actually ORGANIZE this space!
3. Finish assembling furniture. This is mostly done! I think all I have left are my office chair and an extra dresser that we’re going to use for storage.
4. Winter clothes inventory/ shopping. Done! Well, I think this will be an ongoing process, but we have made a good start. We all have snow pants, snow boots, and snow coats at least!
5. Set up guest area. This is still a work in progress as we ended up making an unexpected trip down to Texas this month so we’ve had to reschedule our visitors. But we did get a sofa bed!
6. Blog 5 times. I made 3?
7. Halloween costumes. Done!
8. Set up big computer. Done!
9. Africa photos. Well, I got them all of the camera and I’ve started the process of culling them.
10. House project list. Didn’t make much progress on this, but we’ll get there.

Now for November?

1. Advent Calendar. I have to finish this this year!
2. Advent Activities. I want to be more intentional with our advent activities and plan them ahead of time. I know I say this every year, but this time I mean it! lol.
3. Thanksgiving. It’s just going to be us for Thanksgiving this year so we are trying to come up with some new traditions. Suggestions?
4. Christmas list. I would like to start this a bit earlier this year, especially since we’re going to need to ship everything?
5. Project Life. I’d like to do October 2023 and then also 4 old layouts.
6. NaNoCraftMo. RaptorDad is doing NaNoWriMo this year, so I’m giving NaNoCraftMo another go! Yesterday’s project was our “gratitude tree.” Every day each of us will write one thing we are grateful for on a paper leaf and then tape it to the tree.
7. Blog. Maybe 4 more posts in November?
8. Hang some pictures.
9. Christmas Cards? Speaking of pictures, I want to send out Christmas cards this year. I should work on that…
10. Front yard pictures. I had this really cool idea to do a seasonal photo shoot in our front yard for each season. Who knows if this will really happen, but in my head it’s super cool! So the fall photo will involve us raking leaves and jumping in them. 🙂

I’m back!!! Oh my gosh, we were in airports or flying for over 30 hours, but I made it back to my family yesterday and I could not be happier! I’m planning to write up a blog post or 2 specifically about the trip, but suffice it to say that it was life-changing. Beyond gorgeous. The nicest people. And 2 weeks with my mom!

But lets take a look at the September goals. I did manage to get some more unpacking done, but there is still loads to go. Still, I feel like we have a (mostly) functional house so yay! And I managed to get packed for Africa! So I’m counting September as a win even if my goals were a bit vague. lol.

October

1. Set up sewing room.
2. Finish setting up art room.
3. Finish assembling furniture.
4. Winter clothes inventory/ shopping.
5. Set up guest area (we have people coming to visit! If it’s not you, come visit!)
6. Blog 5 times!
7. Halloween costumes.
8. Set up big computer.
9. Pull Africa photos off camera card and do an initial culling of photos. I go through and give anything that’s decent and in focus a one star rating then I delete the rest. Since I took over 5k pictures, I anticipate it taking a while! I’m hoping to get down to about 500 photos with the initial culling.
10. Start a list of house projects and start making plans! We know that some of our first projects will be building out storage in the mud room and laundry room. And painting rainbow stairs!

Well, I’m going to go get to work!

Here’s my very late September goals post. 🙂

August Goals

1. Register kids for school. Done! And they’ve started! I think school is going well so far. And they’re riding the bus!
2. Scavenger hunt. This was super fun. We only managed to get 4 or 5 things in the time limit, but I’m going to keep looking. 🙂
3. 4 more blog posts in August. I made 3! Honestly, I’m pretty impressed with myself for getting that many done in the midst of a move.
4. Fairy houses. We collected lots of materials, but then ended up not actually making the houses. But we still had fun working on them. I think we might try this again in our new house!
5. Hiking. We ended up needing to make quite a few trips down the mountain to deal with house and school stuff, but we did find a nice 1 mile loop near the air bnb and we enjoyed taking the puppy on walks there.
6. Finalize plans for Africa. Oh boy. Y’all, I leave a week from tomorrow and I’m not ready!!! I have loads to do this week, but I’m so freaking excited I almost can’t stand it! I can’t believe the date is almost here!!!
7. Milky Way Photo. I got some that looked pretty cool from the back of my camera. We haven’t managed to get the iMac set up yet so no telling how they actually turned out, but the experience was super fun and I’m looking forward to trying again while we’re in Africa.
8. Game night. We aren’t back to our weekly game yet, but we did play a few times in the cabin and it was nice to do something that felt normal again.
9. Planner. I finally ordered one yesterday! It should arrive around the same time I get back from Africa. I’m so excited to have a planner again!
10. Hexies. I made some more progress! I’m very eager to finish this project. I haven’t gotten a chance to work on it since we’ve been in the new house, but soon!

September goals anyone?

1. Um, unpack?
2. And unpack some more.
3. And then pack for Africa.
4. Unpack more boxes.
5. A few more boxes
6. Assemble some furniture.
7. Unpack even more boxes.
8. Good lord the boxes keep multiplying.
9. Why are there so many boxes???
10. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

Y’all! July was a whirl wind! But in the best way. 🙂 Let’s see how we did in July.

1. Find a house. OMG! Yes! We found an awesome house and we’re under contract. 🙂 Now we’re just (impatiently) waiting to close. Closing is currently scheduled for August 30th, but we’re really hoping that they let us lease it before hand. Our last day in this Air BNB is August 31st and that’s cutting it a bit close for my peace of mind. lol. Also, Raptor starts high school ::gasp:: on the 28th (I think?) and I’m not loving the idea of a 2 hour commute to get her to school. Not exactly the relaxing first day I want for her! So all fingers and toes crossed that the closing goes well and that they let us move in early.
2. Sell our house. We did it! It went well and I’m so incredibly grateful.
3. See a lighthouse. Done! Peanut was in a crappy mood when we got there, but the rest of us had a great time and I’m sure that we’ll seek out more light houses in the future.
4. Go to the beach. Yes!!! Oh my gosh, we have been to the beach 6 or 7 times at least and it’s been amazing. Our new house is going to be about an hour and a half from our favorite Maine beach, but I’m not going to let that stop me from listening to the ocean at least once a month. 🙂
5. Go to the cat cafe. RaptorDad took the kids and let me sleep. Amazing! The kids all loved it.
6. Boat ride. We didn’t manage to get this done, but we did find an abandoned military fort which was Xander’s second pick. We’ll make it out on a lobster boat at some point. 🙂
7. See some mountains. Boy howdy have we seen some mountains! Our second Air BnB is at a ski resort and it’s stunningly beautiful. 🙂
8. Baste more hexies. Done! I still have loads to do, but it felt amazing to be making progress. And RaptorDad flew back to Texas to get our puppy and our second car which had such treasures packed as my hexie quilt! Yay! I am so happy to be working on it again. And the kids are thrilled to have the puppy back. 🙂
9. Design map embroidery. Still kicking this around in my head, but I’m excited about it. 🙂
10. Stargazing. Oh my gosh, the stars here are amazing! We have an awesome back deck and RaptorDad and I love sitting out there in the evenings and looking at the stars. 🙂

So time for some August goals!

1. Register kids for school! I’ve already started this process, but I’m actually taking the littles up to the new school to register them and get a little tour tomorrow. Then I’ll take Kate up on the 14th to register her.
2. Scavenger Hunt. Kate and I found an online scavenger hunt for the month of August and I’m obsessed! There are 30 items and the goal is to find 25 of them. Fingers crossed!
3. 4 more blog posts in August. I want to start posting a blog every Monday again.
4. Fairy Houses. We want to make some fairy houses with the kids using only materials that we find in nature.
5. Hiking. We’re not exactly “hiking” but we did find a cute little walking trail. There are so many fabulous trails around here! I’d like to try to go on one hike a week.
6. Finalize plans for Africa. Oh my gosh, my mom and I leave for Africa in like 6 weeks! i’m so damn excited I almost can’t stand it. 🙂
7. Milky Way Photo. So I tried some nighttime photography and it was so fun! Then RaptorDad found me some YouTube tutorials and I’m eager to try again. 🙂
8. Game Night. I’d love to get back to our weekly family DND sessions. Among the treasures packed into the second car was a box with some DND essentials.
9. Planner? I think I’m ready to give using a planner another go.
10. Hexies. I want to keep making progress on my hexies. 🙂

I’m going to stop this blog here, but hopefully I’ll have a post cued up for Monday!

We’re moving!!! I can’t believe it’s actually happening, but we have made the decision to move out of Texas. I know, I can’t believe it either. BUT I think it’s going to be an awesome adventure! We are 80% sure we are moving to the Portland, Maine area, but seeing as how we’ve never been to New England we’re planning an epic road trip this summer so we can go check it out and pick a town to move to. Oh, and we also have to pack all of our things and stage our house so we can list it. In less than 2 months. ::cue panicking:: So there’s a whole lot to get done! Let’s start with April Goals.

1. Get at least 1 quilt top basted. Done and then some! I got 2 quilts basted at retreat.
2. Project Life March and April 2023. Nope.
3. Project Life catch up plan. Done!
4. Scrapbook February and March 2023. Well, I got March done. But in bigger news, I also got August and September 2019 done!
5. Clean up and organize WIPs. Not really, but I did make some decisions and finish the color wheel quilt top. 🙂
6. EPP. Nope.
7. RE Homework. Done! By the skin of our teeth, but it’s done!
8. First Communion party. It’s happening this weekend! 🙂
9. Plans for quilt retreat. OMG we had a blast. 🙂
10. Plans for the twins’ birthday party! Yay! They had an amazing time. 🙂

May Goals:

1. Scrap October, November, December 2019. (I’m cheating a little since I did October on the 1st. lol) I’d love to get as much done as possible (FOR REAL) before we move.
2. Road trip plans. I would like to finalize the route up to Maine including possibly hotel rooms? Also, car activities for the kids.
3. Teacher gifts. I totally dropped the ball on Teacher Appreciation week, but I do plan to get them some kind of end of the year gift.
4. Heart Quilt. I’d like to finish stabilizing it so that I can do the hand quilting.
5. Color Wheel Quilt. I need to piece the backing and get it quilted and bound.
6. Scrap Goal. I’d love to also wrap up 2020. I have a large chunk of it done because I did it in real time for early Covid.
7. Passports. We have our appointment today, but I need to finish filling our the paperwork and making copies.
8. Edit Photos. I took some graduation pictures for a friend of mine and they turned out so cute! Now I just need to edit them. 🙂
9. Crafty Plan? My craft room will probably end up packed up for a chunk of time. I want to create some very condensed, very portable craft projects that I can keep out. I’m thinking the Bucilla stocking kits? But I’d like to give that some thought.
10. Ice Cream Soda. On that note, It would be awesome if I could go ahead and prep the rest of the Ice Cream Soda blocks before I had to pack up my fabric. 🙂

All this while also packing all the things and getting ready to list the house. Ack! But we are all excited about our new family adventure and we can’t wait to make some new memories as a family. 🙂

It’s not an April Fool’s Joke- I’m actually posting my April goals on time! Let’s see how March went.

1. Schedule travel vaccines. Done!
2. Schedule dental/ eye dr appointments for Kate. Dentist is scheduled. 🙂
3. Twin Birthday Plans. RaptorDad took point on this, but we still need to get the evite out to their classmates. Evite is sent!
4. Plan for PL/ Scrapbook catch up (2023). Not yet.
5. Book swim lessons. Done! And this has been hanging over my head ever since I missed the sign ups last year.
6. Retake Bluebonnet Pics. Nope.
7. Edit Soccer Pics (x2). Nope.
8. Put new quilt up on the design wall. Done! And I’m loving it. 🙂
9. Write April goals post (on time?) Woo hoo!
10. Enjoy my birthday!!! My birthday was amazing!!!

April Goals:

1. Get at least 1 old quilt top basted.
2. Project Life. March and April of 2023.
3. Project Life Catch Up Plan. I want to go through and make a list of exactly what I’m missing. I also want to go through and label my Project Life kits so they are ready to go.
4. Scrapbook. February and March of 2023.
5. Clean up and reorganize WIPs. I want to go through and look at each in progress quilt and figure out what needs to be done.
6. EPP. Ever since I put my Ice Cream Soda quilt in time out, I haven’t been keeping any EPP projects in my backpack. I’d like to change that.
7. RE Homework. This is due at the end of April. Ugh.
8. First Communion Party. The twins are making their First Communion. Party? IDK.
9. Plans for quilt retreat.
10. Plans for the twins’ birthday!

lol. I’m typing this on the 23rd 27th. Might be a little late for goals at this point, but I’m a creature of habit and I enjoy being able to look back on these so I’ll post anyway.

February Goals:

1. 2023 Project Life. I got 1 of 4 weeks done.
2. Old Project Life. Nada.
3. 2023 Scrapbook. Honestly, I only got 2 pages scrapped in February.
4. Old Scrapbook. hahahahahaha.
5. Heart Quilt. I didn’t get the back pieced, but I did cut out some squares for the backing. Progress?
6. Girl Scout Cookies. Done! Totally done!
7. Beach Trip. Done! Yay!
8. Spring Break. Honestly, we had a pretty low key spring break and it was exactly what all of us needed.
9. Wood Signs. Nope.
10. Hexies. Also nope.

You may be wondering, did you do *anything* in February and March? Yes! I actually took a long term sub job in the library at my kids’ school and it was amazing! It was 16 days (so just over 3 weeks) with spring break in the middle. I absolutely loved it, but I’m very glad for a bit of a break to get caught up on all of the things around the house. We’ve also been having so much fun working on our dollhouse miniatures! We work on them at the kitchen table so it’s more of a fun family time activity and less of me hiding in my scrap/ sewing room. lol. I’ll try to post some pics later. Also, I started a new quilt! (again)

March Goals? I mean, it’s like 5 more days. lol.

1. Schedule travel vaccines
2. Schedule dental/ eye dr appointments for Kate
3. Twin Birthday Plans. RaptorDad took point on this, but we still need to get the evite out to their classmates.
4. Plan for PL/ Scrapbook catch up (2023)
5. Book swim lessons
6. Retake Bluebonnet Pics
7. Edit Soccer Pics (x2)
8. Put new quilt up on the design wall
9. Write April goals post (on time?)
10. Enjoy my birthday!!!

Almost summer time! <3 <3 <3

Oh my gosh, it is so cold here. We’re on our second ice day! Unlike 2021, we currently have power ::knock on wood:: so we’re actually really enjoying it. I even let Kate and Xander go outside and play in it! Mia looked at us like we were insane for leaving the warm house. Kind of think she might have the right idea. 😉

But we had fun. 🙂 I switched my lens out for my macro one- so fun!

I’m actually pretty proud of this shot! And now, back to the goals.

January

1. 10k steps a day. Well, I’m averaging 8,463 steps a day which is a step up from the 6,238 I averaged for 2022. I tried to find how many days I actually got over 10K steps, but my phone and I are currently in a stand off. lol.
2. Old Project Life. Done! I got 4 weeks of 2021 done. 🙂
3. New Project Life. Done! I got the first 4 weeks of 2023 done and I am thrilled!
4. Old Scrapbook. I didn’t get August of 2019 done, but I did get February 2021 done so that’s something.
5. New Scrapbook. Done! I am all caught up and January 2023 is finished! Yay!
6. Ice Cream Soda. This quilt is in time out.
7. Africa. Still trying to get our flights booked, but we’re working on it.
8. Doll House. I didn’t get a bookshelf made, but I did make a fish tank and that’s pretty awesome.
9. Girl Scout Cookies. Well, we’re not done yet, but we are getting closer and so far it’s been ok.
10. Valentine’s Day. Behind as per usual, but I did start a new tradition last night that I’m pretty excited about. I cut out hearts and I’m writing down one thing I love about each of them every night between now and Valentine’s Day and taping them to their doors. So cute!

So February Goals.

1. 2023 Project Life. I’d like to get caught up and do February in real time. That’s 4 weeks.
2. Old Project Life. Fingers crossed I can keep the momentum going. I’d like to get 4 weeks done in one of the old Project Life albums.
3. 2023 Scrapbook. Keep current! January went really well and I’m hoping I can get some systems in place to keep this up.
4. Old Scrapbook. I’s like to get 1 old month done. My current (delusional) plan is to keep current while knocking out 1 old month each month so I can (very slowly) catch up.
5. Heart Quilt. I didn’t really get any quilting done last month. This month, I’d like to piece the backing for my heart quilt.
6. Girl Scout Cookies. ::sob::
7. Beach Trip. I’d really love to make a day trip down to the beach. I love the beach so much and it’s a huge recharge for me. Bonus is that in the winter, it’s so cold that my kids don’t want to go out in the water!
8. Spring Break. Make a spring break plan! We’re going to do it as a staycation so I want to make a plan. Initially I was thinking “all the Austin things!” but then I remembered that spring break in also SXSW. Hmm… Will need to ponder this further.
9. Wood Signs. I’ve decided to make some wooden signs to sell on Etsy. Um, I need to figure all of this out.
10. Hexies. My poor neglected hexies. I want to pull these back out and get to quilting!