Happy February!  I’m holding myself accountable.  This is farther than I’ve ever gotten with resolutions!  And this picture has nothing to do with any of this, but I found it on my phone and liked it.

1. Write more.

It’s happening.  It isn’t publicly happening, but it’s happening.

2.  Have monthly budget meetings.

We are getting it done!  Cutting my work load has made our house much more peaceful, but our budget much less flexible.  It’s nice to make conscious decisions going into the month.

3.  Keep my grocery budget under $400 a month.

January was a success!  It wasn’t easy, but it was actually kind of fun.  The girls were super supportive and made really good choices.  I made a run to Costco and asked what they wanted for treats and the choices were jasmine rice, butter, and prepeeled baby carrots.  It’s funny what we miss when we are in the middle of a pantry challenge.  We had rice, cooking fats, and carrots.  It appears that they favor convenience over sweets when it comes to treats!

4.  Fill my pantry with 12 new items.

Oh, my sad little canned pantry!  Last year’s health issues didn’t allow for restocking.  But the four jars on top are cranberry sauce, so we are good to go on hot turkey sandwiches!

5.  Plant a vegetable garden.  And harvest something.

The seed catalogs have arrived!  If only I can wrench them away from the baker, I can start planning.  It appears this is the year she starts gardening…

6.  Complete 12 house projects.

Ummmm, I’m not going to tell you how long we had the lock to be replaced on the front door.  It took 10 minutes to actually do the work.  It took longer to stand in line to have new keys made.  I also took apart the kitchen sink trap to clean it out.  The culprit was a paintbrush and a dozen cherry stems.  How do you not notice when a paintbrush goes down the drain?

7.  Read more.  4 down

I mostly read cookbooks, but I did sneak in a few others.

So technically this is cookbook.  But I read it like a novel, so it totally counts!

I had mixed feelings about this book group book.  I wanted to love it, but I didn’t.  I think I wanted a food memoir and got science fiction.  I love science fiction, but it’s not what I was anticipating.  If my coffee beans ever take on a life of their own, I will be better able to relate to this.

We also listened to The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins.  It was fun to compare the classics with their newer renditions.

8.  Launch the Curly Girl.

Choices made, deposits paid.

9.  Homeschool with passion and intention.

We interrupt regularly scheduled curriculum to follow passions.  The writer is working on some huge project about World War 2 and The Baker is studying the physics of flight.  Please, no one mention that she is actually learning math here.

So far, so good!  Have a great February!

I’ve never been one to make New Year resolutions.  I don’t track things in an orderly fashion very well and I tend to completely abandon ideas as soon as they start to derail.  But this year I’m ready for a new start.  2018 was a rough year and I’ve gotten bogged down with the scramble of everyday life.  I think it might be nice to do the things I do with a bit more intention instead of a scramble to keep up.  I sat with my Story Girl in a cafe and brainstormed my goals.  I had lofty ideas, like one a month or ten, because it’s such a nice round number.  But I have 9.  Because that’s enough.

1. Write more.

Everyone around here writes all the time.  There are constantly article and story ideas floating around.  But they aren’t mine.  Time to jump in.

2.  Have monthly budget meetings.

Because I’m  a grown up and it just needs to be done.

3.  Keep my grocery budget under $400 a month.

That’s not the right number for everyone, but it’s where I want to be this year.  My original goal list included lots of little things like meal planning, cooking more from scratch again, and not wasting food.  But it all can be summed up with this one goal.  If I want to keep the budget down, we’ve got to do these things anyway.

4.  Fill my pantry with 12 new items.

Maybe this will be the year that I master jams.  I have no idea why I struggle with this.  But I’ve made the goal pantry items in general so I still have a chance of success if I throw in the towel on preserves.  I can always fall back on things like instant oatmeal mix if I get desperate…

5.  Plant a vegetable garden.  And harvest something.  This hasn’t happened the last couple of years and I need it to.  It’s good for my soul and my grocery budget.

6.  Complete 12 house projects.

I’m not planning for these to be big projects.  It’s the little things that slip by and we start to just not see them any more.  It’s time to make progress on some of these maintenance issues.

7.  Read more.

Technology lures us in and steals our time.  I need to get back to the stories that I love.  My goal is not overly ambitious, 24 books in one year.  And audio books count, because I am apparently going to be cooking more again…

8.  Launch the Curly Girl.

My goal has always been to raise free thinking, functional adults.  Now that it’s approaching like a tsunami, I’m slightly alarmed to find myself alternating between sadness and panic.  So it’s time to reframe my thinking and remember that my goal is to get her out on her own and moving toward the life of her dreams.  It’s happening and I might as well embrace it.

9.  Homeschool with passion and intention.

This is another one of those cheater goals that incorporates lots of small goals.  More art, more messy science, more creating, and more field trips.  All this really means is that I need to stop and notice what we are doing every month.

Here’s to a happy and healthy (emphasis on the healthy) new year!

Life is feeling fast lately.  The days are full of choices, appointments and activities.  And just stuff.  Lots and lots of stuff.  Weeks go by in the blink of an eye.  My kids are growing at an alarming rate.  Our family has been brainstorming, plotting, and moving to make our life suit us.  More authentic.  But even though all the changes are positive, the stress of buying and selling homes, choosing, working, living adds up.  It is easy to get caught up in the things that need to be done.  The things that we need to have.  The people that we need to be.  I would like to stop living on cruise control.  I’m the driver of my life.  I don’t want to just live my life, I want to make it.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary has this definition for the word making: the act or process of forming, causing, doing, or coming into being.  This is how I want to live my life.  Forming, causing, doing, coming into being.  I don’t just want to react, settle, endure.  I read a lot of wonderful books and blogs about simplifying and living with less.  I could certainly do with getting rid of stuff.  But whenever I set out to simplify, I end up overwhelmed.  I think my clutter feeds on my decluttering stress and grows even bigger.  So a grand simplifying project isn’t the answer.

And I think some of our clutter is inevitable.  We are  homeschoolers, I run a childcare in my home, we love books.  While I’m sure that simplifying would make my life better, I need to accept that life is screaming by whether I declutter or not.  I want to be able to  look back at the end of the day and have more to see than the checklist I completed on autopilot.  We are happy with who we are, we know our big picture is right for who we are.  But I don’t want to lose sight of all the little things that make up our big picture.   So I’m going to write them down.  Take pictures.  Be aware of who I am and what we are doing.  Make choices.  Make this life.