2022 mid-year goals review

Happy July, friends! A proper monthly goals post will be coming shortly, but first I wanted to step back and share a mid-year update on my 2022 goals. I’ve done this for the past few years, and, as we say at Cultivate, pausing and reflecting like this really does help me to appreciate how my little efforts have added up over time. And, I don’t know, I figure you might be curious?! If so, let’s go!

Goal no. 1: Return to in-person worship. 
Progress I’ve made: I said this was my number one goal at the beginning of the year, and the progress certainly bears that out – hallelujah! Like many, we began worshipping from home when churches closed at the beginning of the pandemic, and then… never really returned, even though we were loyal online attenders. However, given my understanding of Jesus’s vision for a life of faith centering around learning, growing, and loving in a local community, I knew it was past time for our family to open ourselves back up to the discipline and delight of in-person worship. And we have! We’ve joined a new church family and have been worshipping regularly since February. We’ve joined a small group, we’ve started serving, we’ve gone to people’s houses for dinner, and we (and our kids) have made friends. From where we were then to where we are now, it’s all by the grace of God, and I am so grateful.
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: This goal is complete!

Goal no. 2: Bury the word of God in our hearts.
Progress I’ve made: I have not been particularly systematic about this goal, but it has been fruitful nonetheless! The kids’ Sunday school has memory verses each month, so we’ve memorized those as a family, and June and I have also worked on a few together (still plugging away at 1 Corinthians 13!). For the first four months of the year, we were in a sermon series on Matthew as a church, and I LOVED doing my daily reading each day at lunch as set by the church-provided plan. Since we’ve moved onto a new sermon series without an at-home plan, I’ve gotten out of the habit, but this makes me think that it might be the right season for some other kind of structured plan (something I’ve not been interested in for a few years). Regardless, I have really started to notice my increasing familiarity with scripture (also helped by my work developing Write the Word journals!), how it has increasingly come to mind when I’ve needed it over the last few months. Grateful!
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: We’re still new at church, so I don’t know if providing a reading plan to correspond with the sermon series is common or not, but if it’s not, I would love to sketch out my own so I can get back into my lunchtime study. And I want to finish 1 Corinthians 13!

Goal no. 3: Complete my outstanding creative projects quarter by quarter.
Progress I’ve made: For this goal, I assigned specific projects to each quarter of the year: a 2010-2014 family photo album to Q1, the first 10 years of EFM book to Q2, kid memorabilia and memory keeping to Q3, and finishing the Advent calendar to Q4. The Q1 goal is complete – HOORAY! The Q2 goal is dead in the water.
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I have accepted that the EFM book is simply too large of a goal for me to complete in my current season, given the other items that my revealed preferences (i.e. what I actually do) have shown are my priorities. I do plan to revisit the idea in the future. For the second half of the year, though, I’m moving forward with my plans as laid out and feel confident I’ll be able to complete them!

Goal no. 4: Make my fitness a priority and have fun doing it.
Progress I’ve made: Fitness was 100% not a priority in 2021 – being a healthy pregnant person and a cozy post-partum person was, and that was perfect for that season of life. And now here we are in 2022! Our Q1 Peloton challenge was a slam-dunk success (apparently I’m a competitive person?!): I worked out every day but two, and biked 240 miles. Though I’ve dropped off a bit in Q2, so far this year I’ve logged 2,629 minutes of cycling, strength training, and stretching – versus 1,800 in all of 2021. I’ve also been in in-person physical therapy (and doing at-home exercises) since February for diastasis recti, and though it’s taking longer than I’d hoped, I’m grateful to be seeing progress. Finally, we’ve taken a handful of bike rides as a family of five! I have several goals under this umbrella: complete a diastasis recti program (any recommendations?), compete with our siblings in a Peloton challenge in Q1 (and probably Q4), add Annie into our life as a bike-riding family and get back out on the trails (starting in Q2!), and complete an MS75 ride in September with John and hopefully our brother- and sister-in-law!
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: We need to decide if we’re going to tackle an MS ride this year or table it to 2023… I am leaning toward the latter. Now that we have our car back, I hope to go on many more family bike rides together this summer and fall!

Goal no. 5: Celebrate our marriage with joy! 
Progress I’ve made: John and I are celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary this year! There wasn’t a lot I wanted to *do* for this goal; I mostly just want to make it a focus to praise the Lord for all He has done and continues to do in our marriage. And I think we’ve done that! We could not be happier or more grateful for where and how we are at this point in our life together. We’ve enjoyed monthly date nights (so far this year, for my Triangle gals: Chef’s Palette, Mandolin, the Durham (and Nate Bargatze!), Taverna Agora, the Provincial (and Top Gun!), and Mandolin again). We’ve booked a beachside dinner in Bermuda.
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: On our September Bermuda trip, I’d like to incorporate some “marriage summit”-type activities and vision casting for the next decade, and am planning to figure out the format for that during Cultivate’s Leap Ahead Day later this month. Planning to read sections of Creative Love and do some internet sleuthing, but if you’ve read a book or article or listened to a podcast episode on marriage summits or milestone marriage reflections, I’d love to hear! I also think I need some sort of celebratory anniversary dinner outfit?!

Goal no. 6: Refresh our home one quarter at a time. 
Progress I’ve made: This goal is by far the one where I’ve expended the most effort and have the least to show for it, ha. The original goal was to refresh our kitchen (and possibly our mantel) in Q1, and tweak our loft into a true play room in Q2. In reality, in what felt like a part-time job at times, I spent all of Q1 and into Q2 chasing down contractors to bid on our project. We did, eventually, chose two, and their work is scheduled to start in September (!). I also worked with Callie on a design plan for the kitchen (we’ve chosen the cabinet color!), and we’ve made some changes to our loft that feel significant: adding shelving, rehoming some of my styling supplies, rehoming some toys, and displaying the ones remaining with more care, a la the Montessori model.
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: LOTS! In Q3, it looks like our kitchen project will be complete, our fireplace mantel and surround will be replaced, some detail on our stairs will be refreshed, and our power room will be refreshed, as well. In prep for September, when the bulk of the work will be done, I need to make many, many final decisions and a few purchases. I am very grateful to be able to do this project (10 years in the making!), but the decision fatigue is real. Would you be interested in hearing more about what we have planned? It might help motivate me, ha!

Goal no. 7: Establish new rhythms for our family.
Progress I’ve made: This goal was the most vague, and it’s easy to feel like nothing has happened. But, stepping back, I can see that we have absolutely established a new Sabbath rhythm: church, out to lunch, an afternoon nap for everyone in the house, and prepping for the week ahead. We’ve also done two quarters of our quarterly dates with the two older kids and they’ve been a huge hit! June and I went to our local production of Mary Poppins in Q1, Shep and I went to the trampoline park and Chick-fil-a in Q2, and June and John went to a ropes course and out for sushi in Q2.
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I’m hoping to start family meetings when the school year starts back up! Planning to use some of my Leap Ahead Day time to do some planning on this.

Goal no. 8: Make meals easier. 
Progress I’ve made: This is my simplest goal of 2022! I wanted to 1) buy a small chest freezer for our garage, 2) get into the practice of doubling and freezing meals, and incorporating frozen meals into my meal planning, and 3) build out 1-2 “brainless” weeks of menus for each season so I can copy and paste when I’m short on time. So far, I have gone to Lowes to look at freezers, reached an impasse with John on whether we should buy one, and wrote one brainless meal plan :)
What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: Still hoping for that freezer!!

Whew! I’d love to hear how your progress on your 2022 goals has gone so far, if you’d like to share. Big or small, it’s worth celebrating!!

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