Back with part two of my mid-year goals review! Part one is here.
Goal no. 5: Build our family culture Progress I’ve made: This was one of my less-clear goals at the start, but I’m really happy with how it’s shaping up. Books are usually my first foray into a goal, and so far I’ve read and pondered The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry and The Secrets of Happy Families. On our last date before quarantine, John and I brainstormed the beginnings of a family mission statement (this podcast episode informed our discussion). Also this year: we added more storage boxes to facilitate celebration throughout the year, we each camped out in the backyard with June, we’ve had more backyard s’mores nights, we experimented with morning and evening routine charts (and decided we’ll revisit them in the future), and we added more diverse faces to our family library. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: This is going to sound SO extra to some, but I’d love to begin building a set of “family by-laws” – a living document that sets out what’s important to us, our mission statement, core values, traditions, behaviors, etc. I think this will be helpful for us as we live into it now, and also hopefully a treasure for our kiddos to look at when they’re older!
Goal no. 6: Complete our family Advent calendar as a route to analog hours Progress I’ve made: Um, almost none?? You thought I was doing pretty well until now, ha! Truly, this has been a MUCH more complicated project than I expected. I have about zero sewing skills and I don’t own a sewing machine… and the instructions are all for machine sewing. I DO have a sister and a friend who both have a machine and have some skills, and I’m hopeful that once restrictions lift I might be able to wrangle one or both of them into a few side-by-side marathon sewing sessions. Thus far, all I have done is open the box :) What I hope to accomplish in the next few months: I would love to have at least one sewing session with my sister. I’d also love to complete the backdrop portion of the kit so we can use it this Advent!
Goal no. 7: Complete three family photo albums Progress I’ve made: Carrying over momentum from last year, I culled, sorted, and edited my 2019 iPhone photos, and sent some early loose photos to be digitized. And then (drumroll, please…), I designed and printed our first family album!! Each album will cover five years – this one is for 2005 – 2009. I chose Artifact Uprising, and have a few thoughts to share! Post coming soon. What I hope to accomplish in the next few months: Two more albums – one for 2010-2014 and one for 2015-2019! I also REALLY want to get my photo organizing guide up for you all!
Goal no. 8: Streamline meal planning Progress I’ve made: I’ve been moving and shaking on this goal, and it’s been so gratifying! After deciding to use a binder as my organization system, I cleaned out my existing recipe binder, printed and filed all our favorite online recipes, and reorganized my Pinterest boards (now I have printed recipes here and recipes to try here). I also added a non-recipe cheat sheet to the binder, a dry erase board to track what’s in our freezer, and designed a custom Publix shopping list to make grocery shopping even more of a pleasure ;) Together, we had fun with a virtual recipe exchange right here on EFM! I have absolutely LOVED using my binder for the last few months – much more here! What I hope to accomplish in the next few months: The meal planning potluck Kristin and I had in the works this spring was indefinitely postponed due to COVID; I’m really hopeful we’ll be able to host it at some point this year. I’d also love to share more recipes and meal plans here on the blog and consolidate our favorite cookbook recipes in the binder.
Friends, please commiserate with me: have any of your 2020 goals been a total failure so far? If so, you’re not alone :)
Aside from March (when I crossed off almost nothing on my PowerSheets, having set my monthly goals before the world fell apart), 2020 has been a year of surprising progress for me.
Perhaps this is because, as an introvert, my goals are naturally focused on my home and my family. Certainly it’s because we’ve been fortunate to only have experienced soft blows from COVID-19, like disrupted childcare, travel upheaval, and weaker earnings, and not the devastation of illness, death, or job loss. I’d imagine it’s also because, with uncertainty raging outside our door and what matters most thrown into even greater relief, I’ve had the motivation to double down on the good things I can control. No commutes for John or me have certainly helped, too :)
I’ve done these mid-year goal updates for the last few years, and I’ve always found them a helpful chance to look back and look ahead. But in this particular year, when the disappointments and canceled plans and heartache of the last six months loom large, I think it’s even more important to count the fruit. Thanks for counting it with me, friends.
P.S. This post ended up being longer than I expected, so I’ll be back with an update on my last four goals later this week!
Goal no. 1: Live a wild life outdoors Progress I’ve made: We’ve gone on a hike or “off-trail” adventure at least once a month: wading in our neighborhood creek, playing at Prairie Ridge Ecostation or the Museum of Life & Science, forging our own trails in our neighborhood and local parks, picnic lunching in the middle of the woods, and swimming in the Eno River. Closer to home, we added a sand and rock table to our front porch and commissioned a gate across our steep front steps, creating a new zone for independent outdoor play (we also added more plants to our back bed). I read How to Raise a Wild Child and picked up some tips on how to be a better “nature guide” for our kiddos. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: More of the same! We’ll continue to notch a family adventure in the woods at least once a month, and if restrictions loosen, I’d love to encourage June to get back into more “loose parts” free play with neighborhood friends. I would also LOVE to make more progress on organizing our garage.
Goal no. 2: Be a generous friend Progress I’ve made: I go deep, not wide, with friends, and this goal is to encourage me to go all-in on this strategy. I chose 8 “focal friends” for the year to very intentionally love, delight, and care for, and so far, I feel I’ve really made a difference with four of the eight. I’ve left housewarming and baby gifts on front steps; brought over meals; had lunch dates, dinner dates, and double dates; sent snail mail; had Zoom game nights; and had long catch-up calls. I also read one of my friend’s favorite books of all time so we could discuss it together :) What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: You know those friend dossiers that keep popping up on my monthly goals? I’d really like to finish them :) I hope that will help me get creative with the four relationships that have not seen as much love so far.
Goal no. 3: Grow strong by biking regularly Progress I’ve made: We bought a stationary bike in January, and so far I’ve ridden 6-12 days each month. I love it! I’ve never owned a piece of exercise equipment nor taken a spin class before this (or any exercise class, really), but the short classes (15-20 minutes), the ability to hop on anytime I’d like, and the lack of travel time are a winning combination for me. Of course, in the current climate, we’re especially grateful to have an in-home exercise option! Since March, we’ve also gone for a family bike almost every Saturday morning. Most recently, we’ve added in daily stretching and 5-minute arms classes through the Peloton app – John and I do them together, which has been fun! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: We haven’t yet registered for an MS ride for later this year, but I hope COVID might still allow us to participate in either New Bern or Reston. I also hope to continue to increase the number of days per month I squeeze in a ride.
Goal no. 4: Read through the Gospels together with John Progress I’ve made: This has been more slow-going than I would like (we’re still at the tail end of Matthew, our first book), but I’ve really enjoyed what we’ve been able to do so far. It’s been awhile since I’ve read through a complete book of the Bible – it’s neat to hear the stories in order. We’re reading the Crossway books of the Bible and using my study Bible for more context as needed! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I still have high hopes we’ll finish all four books before the end of the year!
Thanks for always cheering me on, friends! I’d love to hear how your progress on your 2020 goals has gone so far, if you’d like to share. Big or small, it’s worth celebrating!!
Hello, friends. Like you, I’ve spent the past week in incessant conversation with those around me about what is happening right now. About George Floyd. About Christian Cooper. About the protests and the riots. About you, reading, who might not be white. I have been praying, listening, thinking, reading, and talking to those closest to me. I have been asking (sometimes hourly) for a fresh heart: one that is willing to sit with the pain of others, to turn away from feeling offended, to quiet my own needs, to be humbled (again and then again).
In all this, I am severely imperfect, and this is not about me – but this is a space I am responsible for. I believe in words, but I believe more in actions. That’s what these posts are – a chance to share the actions I’m taking each month to move forward on the things that matter to me (always imperfectly, always incompletely), and an offer to you to do the same. Whether you feel timid or confused or are just in deep pain right now, here’s something I know: cultivating what matters in our hearts, in our families, in our world always starts with one step. And it continues with another. Here are a few of the steps I’m taking in June.
On my calendar this month: — Blueberry picking, hopefully many times over — Filming June in June Volume 5… the hunt for the perfect song is on! — Father’s Day
What I’m loving right now: — In light of Father’s Day, might I recommend a pair of these shorts for your favorite dad? John (who never buys clothes) just went hog wild and bought two pairs, and he is in love. He has the “One Short.” — I appreciate so much the way David Brooks consistently and movingly writes about morality. His most recent essay struck me, especially this line: “He would have stored in his upbringing the understanding that hard times are the making of character, a revelation of character and a test of character.” — I planned to feature a few books featuring diverse characters in this section, as adding to our library was one of the first tangible actions I took this weekend, but there ended up being too many to list – so I moved them to their own dedicated post tomorrow! In the meantime, this one and this one are two of our favorites.
What I read in May: — The Invention of Wings | WOW this was so good. I hadn’t read anything by Sue Monk Kidd since The Secret Lives of Bees over a decade ago, and I forgot how elegant of a writer she is. This book is set over several decades in the 1800’s and follows two entwined stories loosely based on real figures: a white girl who grows up to be a Quaker Abolitionist, and the black girl she is given ownership of on her 11th birthday. I think fiction is one of the most beautiful and effective ways to grow empathy for people who are different than us, and on that basis alone I would highly recommend this one. — Unshakeable | This is a memoir written by Cultivate’s summer intern (!). Besides the fact that it’s wildly impressive for a college student to have self-published a book, I appreciated how she handled her rough transition to college, given my own. It was also another eyeopening and frightening look at how insidious anxiety can be for so many people today. — The Secrets of Happy Families | I gave this book an enthusiastic thumbs up on Instagram when I was a few chapters in, and though I still very much recommend it, the first section turned out to be my favorite. The later chapters felt a little more surface to me, and not quite as original. I fully admit this could be because some of the topics in the first section, like family mission statements and behavior charts, are things I’m actively mulling over right now :)
I’m still chugging along with my 2020 reading list as best I can, despite not having library access! I did just purchase Just Mercy, my February pick, because I was on an endless wait list even before the library closed and I’m eager to dive in.
Revisiting my May goals: Clean out the garage (Some progress made! We got rid of a big desk taking up space.) Digitize loose photos from 2005-2009 Design and print our first family photo album(Yes!!) Finish reading Matthew with John and begin Mark Complete gifts for Mother’s Day with June + Shep(Yes! We made thumbprint laminated bookmarks – so cute!) Send watercolor hugs Go camping in our backyard(So fun! See a peek here.) Complete friend dossiers Experiment with a custom Publix shopping list(Done and it has been a major success!) Make a list of all our non-recipe meals for binder(Done! More on my recipe binder.)
June goals: — Add more diverse faces to our family library — Finish reading Matthew with John — Set up a simple email newsletter for EFM. Lisa kindly sent over some instructions, and I’m happy to make this happen for those who have asked over the years! It will just be a simple email every time there’s a new post – nothing fancy :) — Write some entries in our COVID-19 family journal. Cultivate has some great prompts I plan to use to make this easy! — Photocopy favorite recipes from cookbooks to round out our recipe binder — Book our camping trip for this fall — Have a little three-person game night every Friday this month with June, after Shep goes to bed. As I’ve said, gotta start early :) — Use the Peloton app to move every day this month on days we don’t ride our bikes or otherwise exercise. Looking forward to exploring cardio, strength, stretching, yoga, and more!
Sending you all love, friends. Let’s make this a really great month ahead.
I wrote about how we meal plan back in 2013, and though many things in our life have changed since then (two new babies, new house, now COVID), the bones of our meal planning process remain the same. There are a few tweaks and changes that have fine-tuned this weekly rhythm over the years, though, so I thought it was time for an update!
If you’re new to the idea of meal planning, it might feel really intimidating or complicated. Maybe you’re worried it will take your whole Saturday. I get it! Even though I’ve been meal planning for years, there’s still a part of me that resists sitting down and doing it each week. But, this simple process saves me SO much time, energy, and money that it is completely worth it!! In contrast, on the weeks where we fly by the seat of our pants (maybe if we’ve been traveling the weekend before), I’m basically pulling my hair out by Tuesday. If that’s you every week, I think you’ll love this post!
Let’s go!
When I meal plan:
Though I’m not perfect at it, I try to sit down and plan our meals for the week on Friday evening, after the kids are in bed. With COVID, I aim to go to the grocery store pretty much first thing Saturday morning, so making our grocery list the night before ensures I’m not scrambling in the morning.
For me, planning our meals on the weekend, and as early in the weekend as possible, is crucial. As mentioned above, once the week starts churning it’s hard for me to find time to do it AND go shopping, which really throws off our whole rhythm. And if for some reason I wait until Sunday to do it, it adds to the “Sunday scaries” and I’m more likely to feel grumpy about the task. Getting it accomplished early in the weekend works best for us!
The basics of meal planning:
I plan one week at a time – usually Saturday-Friday – using my simple meal planning tracker (download a copy here!). In our current conditions, we’re typically cooking six nights a week and getting takeout on Friday or Saturday.
My first step in meal planning is always to check my calendar, to see if there are any days we’ll be dining out (dinner at a friend’s house, an event, a late bike ride, or a day where we’re running around and don’t have time to cook), or whether we’re expecting any guests. These days, there’s not much to check :)
With those accounted for, I start filling in meals for the other nights: — I’ll ask John, and sometimes June, whether they have any requests. — I’ll check the weather, to see if we’re expecting cold and rain or warmth and sun – it affects the kind of food I want to eat! — I’ll consider the leftover situation, as we balance meals that leave enough for the next day’s lunches and not having too much food. — I’ll check the fridge to see if there are any leftover ingredients we could use up (maybe plain Greek yogurt or extra rice). — Finally, I’ll try to balance cheaper versus more expensive recipes and vegetable versus meat-centric.
Something that helps me in all of this? Consulting our record of past meals. I have multiple years of those meal planning tracker sheets in the back of my recipe binder, which is not only a neat historical record, but handy for coming up with fresh ideas when I’m stumped!
Mostly, though, I flip through my recipe binder to see what looks good. On a normal week, we’ll make 4-5 familiar recipes and 1-2 new ones, which for us is a good balance of keeping things fresh and not making things unnecessarily complicated. I collect recipes to try on this Pinterest board, while every family favorite recipe in our binder that’s available on the internet can be found in this board! More on my recipe binder here.
How we decide what to eat when:
Once we have our meals planned, they go on the meal planning doc. On Sunday, I loosely assign our meals to days of the week on our kitchen whiteboard, though we’re very open to flexing it based on whether we’re in need of leftovers and what we’re in the mood for that morning. Our easily-visible whiteboard is an easy way to keep John and I on the same page, too.
How I grocery shop:
With our meals set, I make a grocery list. As you all know, I recently upgraded to a custom model, which has been well worth the hour-and-a-half it took me to design! Organizing my shopping by aisle helps me zip through the store and get back to my favorite people. Though we used to do more hopping around from store to store before kids, I now consider any slight increase I pay in price by doing all my shopping at Publix well worth the time I gain back by going to a store 5 minutes from my house where I am very familiar with the layout and can get everything I need in one fell swoop. Plus, it truly is a pleasure to shop there – the people are so nice, the store, bright and clean, and I can clip coupons digitally!
The one exception? We have a Costco membership, and make a trip there about once a quarter to stock up on paper towels, toilet paper, unsweetened applesauce, applesauce pouches, butter, bar soap, the Costco version of LaCroix, chicken breasts, marinara sauce, etc. If we had a second freezer, I’m sure we’d be able to take more advantage of the bulk meat, but as it is, one pack of chicken basically fills the available space in our freezer.
Some of you have asked why I don’t go the grocery delivery route. There are a number of reasons:
— I generally don’t mind grocery shopping, so it’s not really something I’m looking to avoid in the first place. — I’m not in the regular rhythm of it, so picking and choosing from the online dashboard seems to take me more time than just going to the store. — I like to pick out my own produce. — The one time I did try it, I felt like I was fielding questions from the shopper by text the whole half hour she was there, so it wasn’t like I had uninterrupted time with my family anyway. — I am kind of weird, and generally prefer the slow and analog route — And I am cheap, and don’t like to pay extra or have the need to tip :)
From door to door, it takes me about 40-45 minutes to shop on a Saturday morning!
Of course, as I’m making my grocery list, I check the pantry and fridge to see if we already have any of the ingredients needed. I check our freezer whiteboard to see if there’s anything in there that’s on the list. And I check our Alexa shopping list, where we add items we need to restock throughout the week. (I’m just waiting for the day June says, “Alexa, add marshmallows to my shopping list,” ha!)
I thought I’d end with a sample weekly menu, from earlier in May:
Saturday:chicken tikka masala with frozen peas added, jasmati rice, and naan Sunday:taco soup, mini cornbread muffins (from a box mix), and green salads for the grown-ups Monday:Marcella’s bolognese, tagliatelle, green salads/roasted broccoli for kiddos, and frozen cheesy garlic bread (this was the new recipe for the week, and it was added to the binder!) Tuesday: three-pepper pizza (Publix dough with marinara sauce, mozzarella, and chopped poblano, red bell pepper, and pepperoncinis) and green salads Wednesday: hot dogs, baked beans, cucumber and tomato salad, and chips Thursday:kale chickpea pasta Friday: takeout :)
In meal planning, as with so many other things, what works for one person may not work for another. While I salute those of you who throw dishes together from what’s in your pantry, or plan a month of meals at a time, or stop at the store every day on your way home from work, this is the rhythm that has worked well for our family over the last many years. I hope you you’ll find an idea or two in this post that might work for yours!
Thanks for sticking with me through this massive post, friends!! In addition to any meal planning thoughts you might like to share, I’m curious whether you’d be interested in me sharing some of our weekly meal plans on a weekly basis? Janssen shares hers every week, which I don’t think I could commit to, but I do enjoy reading hers and getting ideas! Maybe one week out of every month? Let me know what you think!
