It was a sweet start to the new year! From a delicious Articles Club retreat to a simple afternoon bike ride with my little guy, from hosting our first family for dinner to knocking three books off my 2023 list, to finally (!) posting my Highlands recap to celebrating our 18th dativersary, I am grateful.
At the end of this month, I turn 36. If you’ve been reading for a while, you know this is a special age for me. I am grateful and excited to see what this next year holds! Thank you, thank you, Lord.
On my calendar this month: — An NC State gymnastics meet! For our monthly date, June and I are going to cheer on one of our local teams, snacks in tow :) — A Duke game! Thanks to a very kind friend who allowed us to buy two of her family’s season tickets after seeing my blog post, John and I are headed to a game this month. — Making classroom valentines! June, Shep, and I have been discussing our plans, and it looks like we’re going to use the shaving cream trick to marble some paper and then incorporate it into two different designs. Stay tuned!
What I’m loving right now: — John graciously gifted me the Alice Walk sweater on my Christmas list and I am in loooove. It will not be the last piece of clothing I own from them! It is SO soft, beautifully made, the sage green color is gorgeous, and – best of all – it can be machine washed and dried and does NOT shrink at all. Bliss! I think this striped number is next on my list. — On the recommendation of the Articles Club gals, I picked up a bag of Heavenly Hunks at Costco a few weeks ago. These little nuggets are gluten- and dairy-free as well as vegan, and are legitimately delicious. One after dinner is the perfect treat! — I recently discovered Chelsea Mcshane’s paintings and wow! So beautiful. She has faith-based and kid-focused pieces and I’m currently debating several for a spot in our kitchen.
As a reminder, you can find allll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in January: — Mere Christianity | For me, this book is like the most comforting, warm hug. So grateful for Lewis’s elegant, generous writing. — Becoming Mrs. Lewis | I specifically paired this book and the above because I thought it would be neat to read C.S. Lewis’s writing while reading a novel about his life. And it was! I switched back and forth between the two on alternating nights. As for the novel itself: I enjoyed it. It is a complicated story. I struggled with some of the choices Joy made (namely, leaving her boys for months and months), but also understand that she was living in a different time under difficult circumstances. I’m glad I read it. — Book Lovers | It has been years since I read a romcom, and this one did not disappoint! The plot was a bit predictable, but I enjoyed the snappy, fun dialogue.
Starting out strong with my reading list for 2023! Here it is, if you’d like to follow along.
Revisiting my January goals: Finish sketching out my goal plan for the rest of the year Brainstorm potential dinner guests and choose families for February and March Assign problem areas to months and dig into January’s assignment (Tackled my desk in January!) Finish culling and sorting 2021 photos (No – my free days were swallowed by a friend’s project I’m helping with, but hope will spring eternal in February :)) Print our favorite Instagram photos from 2022 Prep for Valentine’s Day fun Download the Blurb software Finish planning and enjoy the Articles Club retreat (Yes! Recap coming soon!)
February goals: — Finish culling and sorting 2021 photos — Print our favorite Instagram photos from 2022 — Tackle our upstairs hall closet — Sell or clear out the remaining items from our kitchen refresh (two light fixtures and bar stools) — Share some thoughts here around my birthday. Been mulling on this post for awhile!
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2023 goals!
Keeping things simple this month in the hopes I can knock them all out – one in particular :) In addition to the birthday post (and at the risk of spoiling the surprise), I’m also planning to share tips for hosting large groups of houseguests, an Articles Club retreat recap, all about reading the first Harry Potter with June, my top five favorite board books, our keys to a happy marriage, three family faith formation practices that have been helpful for us, and a Marvelous Money post on the cost of adding a third child. I’d love to hear which one you’re most excited about! :)
For those of you who are tired of reading about goals after four posts in a row, my apologies :) Hopefully there’s something in this post to love, even if goals aren’t your favorite EFM content! And if you are a fellow goal setter, hopefully this post (or at least the timing of it) is encouragement that there’s always time to dig into what matters. I still have two full weeks to make progress on my January goals, and that feels really good. Here we go!
A few housekeeping reminders here at the beginning of the year: if you’d like to get an email every time there’s a new EFM post, you can sign up for that here. If you’re ever searching for something I’ve mentioned loving in a past goals post, you can find it here. And if you’re looking for my Amazon shop (favorite books, games, kid stuff, etc.), you can find that here!
On my calendar this month: — The first (annual?!) Articles Club retreat! All 12 of us are going to a big house at the beach for the weekend. This trip has really highlighted the research finding that preparing for a vacation brings even more pleasure than the vacation itself: the secrets, chatter, scheming, and planning with our different committees has been such fun that I almost don’t know how the actual retreat will top it – but I trust it will. — Our 18th dativersary! Thinking we will have dinner at Jujube to celebrate. — A very low-key paint-your-own pottery outing with cousins and a handful of friends to celebrate June’s 7th birthday. She is making the goodie bags herself, inspired by this Christmas present, and there will be dirt cups :)
What I’m loving right now: — A friend saw that I put Habits of the Household on my reading list and asked if I wanted to do a mini book club: her and her husband, me and mine. What a delight! I strongly felt that his first book should be read in community, and I’m sure I’ll feel the same about this one. We’re currently figuring out a structure that will work for both families, but I’m just tickled by this prospect. — Because I find the original Airpods we own to be extremely uncomfortable, I had sworn off wireless earbuds completely. John recently convinced me to try this set and wow! They are SO comfortable, have great noise-canceling ability, and are $200 less than the Apple version. I wear them when John and I are working out in the same room, when listening to podcasts and doing chores around the house, and occasionally for work. — The Mole! I mentioned it in my Best of 2022 post, but it’s too good not to get an individual shout-out. If you enjoyed the original Anderson Cooper version, you’ll love the Netflix reboot. If you did not see the original version, you’ll love the reboot. It’s smart, fun, and provided lots of conversation fodder as the episodes counted down and we tried to figure out who done it.
As a reminder, you can find allll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in December: — Four Thousand Weeks | I have complicated feelings about this book. On the one hand, I very much agreed with his thesis – it’s similar to what we teach at Cultivate – and dog-eared several pages to refer to later. On the other, he seemed to totally misunderstand and dismiss the Christian worldview (which I believe lines up very much with his argument) and set up an unnecessarily antagonist relationship between productivity strategies and big-picture thinking. I also felt like he was trying to be reassuring throughout the book, but he still made me feel anxious – and I’m not a particularly anxious person. Overall, there were parts I liked, but I ultimately gave it a thumbs down in my very precise thumbs-up-or-thumbs-down Notes rating system :) — The Four Winds | Kristin Hannah does it again! I was warned many times over that this book was “very depressing,” and I think that helped me come in with appropriate expectations. It is about the Great Depression, but I came away finding it a tale of love and resilience. I love how each of her novels is set in such a distinct time and place – I always come away feeling like I learned something new.
Revisiting my December goals: Prepare well for my family’s visits (Yes! This went really well. I took notes for a future post on preparing to host large groups of houseguests!) Cull and organize 2021 photos (Are you tired of this goal yet? I am.) Complete the final six ornaments for the Advent calendar (YES! And it was thoroughly enjoyed all month.) Edit Sheptember, Volume 4 Write 9 blog posts (8! Just didn’t get to the Highlands recap. Look for it on a blog near you later this month :)) Savor the Christmas season (Yes, indeed.)
January goals: — Finish sketching out my goal plan for the rest of the year (i.e. what I’m going to tackle when – page 27 in my PowerSheets!) — Brainstorm potential dinner guests and choose families for February and March (January is already locked in!) — Assign problem areas to months and dig into January’s assignment — Finish culling and sorting 2021 photos — Print our favorite Instagram photos from 2022 — Prep for Valentine’s Day fun — Download the Blurb software — Finish planning and enjoy the Articles Club retreat!!
I’ll also be aiming for nightly Peloton stretches with John, drinking two of my 30oz water bottles a day, and dedicating two hours every week to my “secret” project. I expect these habit-based goals will stay all year!
I’d love to hear: Are you trying anything new in January? Even if you don’t set official gOaLs, I find it’s often still a fresh start for people :)
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2023 goals!Affiliate links are used in this post!
The parenthetical portion of this post’s title felt important, because though this is a solid overview of what constitutes “family goals” in the life of our family right now (with a 7-, 4-, and 1-year-old), I guarantee they will evolve. Right now, our family goals are almost entirely parent-directed, but over time, I look forward to folding our kids into the process. And you know we will be encouraging our kids to set their own goals once they’re a bit older :)
But that day is not today. So let’s dive into what family goals look like for us right now!
How do we come up with our family goals?
At our end-of-year celebration dinner, one of the questions John and I discuss (after reviewing what went well and where we struggled in the past year), is “what are our goals for the year ahead?”
I’m usually in the middle of completing my PowerSheets Prep Work and finalizing my personal goals when we have our celebration dinner; all that the PowerSheets process has stirred up is fresh in my mind, and inevitably comes to bear on the conversation. In this way, though John and I don’t fill out PowerSheets together, they definitely play a part in our family goal setting.
Unlike my personal goals, which I land on after many hours of reflection and sometimes extensive hemming and hawing, setting our family goals is simple: we generally leave dinner with them in hand.
How do our family goals differ from my personal goals?
Our family goals are things that matter to both of us that we’d like to complete, achieve, or focus on in the year ahead. They fall into a few categories most years:
— Natural next steps of long-term goals we’re working toward — Goals that John and I both feel led to pursue and that we will be pursuing jointly — Goals that will have a noticeable impact on how our family spends our time — Household “to dos” that will require our effort, money, or time. (Think: not particularly visionary or exciting, but they need to happen.) — Fun things we want to prioritize that need extra visibility to happen. (Maybe we’ve struggled to follow through in the past, or they require more planning.)
We also usually throw John’s personal goals onto the family goals list, because he only has a few and doesn’t require a fancy planner to make progress on them :)
Overall, our family goals are ones that involve a significant amount of John’s and my, or our entire family’s, energy, buy-in, time, and/or money. My personal goals, on the other hand, mostly involve my own effort and time, and don’t really need anyone else’s buy-in.
How do we stay accountable to our family goals?
While I use a somewhat elaborate system to break down and track my personal goals, we go super simple with our family goals: we stick them to the fridge :) In the days after our end-of-year dinner, I’ll type them up and print them out. (This is a good chance to review them one more time and make sure we didn’t forget anything.) Then, they go on the fridge, where they’ll stay for the rest of the year.
It sounds simple (and it is), but it’s effective. We both see them every day, which keeps them top of mind. We’ll often talk while standing in the kitchen, so it’s easy to chat through a next step or remind each other of a goal that’s coming up since the list is right there. As you’ll see below, our family goals do tend to be more specific, which makes them easy to live out – they either don’t really need to be broken down any further, or the steps to break them down are naturally clear.
Finally, I would add that we take our family goals seriously, but we hold them lightly. Yes, we want them to get done, but neither of us are the type to stress out about whether or not they get accomplished. We know we’re moving in the right direction and that what most needs to get done will get done. Progress, not perfection :)
Are our kids involved in setting our family goals?
At their current ages (7, 4, and 1), they are not – John and I set them on a date night. I fully expect we will involve them more in the future, but for now, it’s just the two of us.
June did peruse the list after it went up on the fridge and let us know she thought they were “good goals,” so at least we have her approval :)
What are our family goals for this year?
I’ve organized them into the categories above and added a little explanation where helpful!
Natural next steps of long-term goals: — Increase giving to Home Free by X amount. “Home Free” is what we’ve dubbed our mortgage fund account. When we set our budget for 2023, we decided to increase the amount we’re transferring to it each month. It’s been three years since I last shared about our mortgage plan and I think we might be due for an update, because we’ve been in talks about changing our strategy…
Joint goals: — Eat more fish. We very occasionally eat shrimp and almost never eat fish at home, and we’d like to change that. Recipe or preparation recommendations welcome in the comments! — Stretch nightly and increase flexibility. We were in a great rhythm of doing a 10-minute Peloton stretch together before we went to bed each night, but John’s injury and Annie’s birth knocked us off course. It feels SO good when we’re consistent, plus it has other benefits, like helping us get to bed on time and at the same time. — Complete 5000/6000 Peloton minutes. After trying out several different strategies over the past few years, we’ve found that tackling our workout goals together – and for the most part, working out at the same time – is most effective for us. Happy to write more about this if it’s of interest!
Goals that will impact how our family spends our time: — Begin piano lessons for June. I am equal parts nervous about and excited for this. I am sure we’ll unpack this on the blog at some point in the future. — Enjoy monthly kid dates. We are scaling up the frequency and scaling down the expense/logistics for these after our inaugural year in 2022. John and I will each take one of the older kids to do something solo each month, swapping kids each month. Think: going on a bike ride, going to get bagels or ice cream. — Swim lessons for older kiddos. — Have a family over for dinner every month. One of my personal goals that will require the whole family’s buy-in! — Adjust to 3 day/week rhythm. We recognize that my shifting time away from work will have ramifications on our family life, and set this goal as a reminder to stay in tune as this change rolls out.
Household to dos: — Paint master bath cabinets. — Pressure wash the patio. — Update our legacy box. This also appears on my personal goals, as the portions that will fall under my purview will require dedicated effort.
John’s personal goals: — Read the Bible. He is followingBibleProject’s One Story that Leads to Jesus plan and usually listens to the scripture/watches the videos while getting ready for bed. — Reach first rung of compensation ladder. This is for his variable compensation at work.
Fun things we want to prioritize: — Camp in backyard. This is super simple, but just complicated enough that it’s easy for it not to happen (and it didn’t happen in 2022, which earned it a spot on this year’s list). — Play more tennis on weekdays. We did this once after my work hours changed, and it was an absolute delight. More of this in 2023! — Go to a Duke game. Because we live too close to Durham for us to have gone so long without seeing a game :)
I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about our family goals! And I’d love to hear if you set family goals, or your kids set goals, or if you plan to do either in the future.
As I worked my way through my PowerSheets and moved on to naming my goals, I felt some of the familiar anxiety creep in. This part of the process often trips me up: I dive eagerly into the guided questions and have no expectation that I’ll live out my goals perfectly, but in the middle of the process, I’m realizing that I do have expectations for the goals themselves. I want them to be well-organized and meaningful. I want them to fire me up. I want them to be winsome and interesting. I want anyone who reads them to immediately understand what I’m aiming for and the heart behind them.
Here’s something I already know that gave me fresh comfort in this season: I don’t have to be worried about whether my goals are perfectly named and framed, because I know I am headed in the right direction. My goals (however I organize them) are aligned with what matters to me and with my vision for the future (thank you, PowerSheets Prep Work!). I’m confident I’ll make the right adjustments and pivots along the way, and will fill in the next best action steps and choices, because I know what matters. That much is abundantly clear. My goals are just a plan, and plans can change.
That being said, I am really excited about my 2023 goals! They feel free and loose and fun, and I believe they help me steward what God has graciously entrusted to me.
This year, I decided to organize my goals into three pillars, based on my great aunt’s life motto: every day, seek to learn something new, do something kind, and see something beautiful. This is a prescriptive that has been repeated in my family for as long as I can remember. Of course, these pillars are loose, and many goals could fall under any of the three – but it seemed like a fun way to inject a little novelty into my goal setting this year. Without further ado…
Learn Something New
1. Create a book for the first ten years of Em for Marvelous. It’s baaaaaaack! This goal first surfaced in 2021 (I made no progress). I recommitted to it in 2022 (still no progress). In 2023, we’re going to hope that a slightly-freer schedule will give me the breathing room needed to make it happen, because it really does matter to me: while I place tremendous value on sharing here with friends near and far (and LOVE hearing from you when a post touches you – truly, one of my favorite things!), I have long thought of this place as a repository of stories, memories, and wisdom for my children. I’d like to create a physical book for them of the best posts from the first ten years of my writing here (I’m in year 16 now!).
I’m pretty sure I’m going to use Blurb to create the book, and using their software will require me to learn something new!
2. Tend to our home trouble spots in a new way. This is 2023’s boring goal :) We have a number of spots in our home that eternally frustrate me. No matter how well I declutter and organize them, they inevitably degenerate into low-grade chaos after a few months.
First, I’m learning a new way of relating to these spots: I’m choosing to see them less as a failure of my home-keeping skills, and instead as a natural byproduct of a growing, active family making the most of every corner of their well-loved home. (Expectations, people! See what I did there? If I expect the chaos to descend instead of treating these as one-and-done spots, I won’t be as frustrated with each subsequent decluttering session.)
Second, I’m going to try a new way of helping these spots thrive: once I’ve named them, I’ll assign them each to a month of the year and then address them one at a time, in rotation. I hope this will be a sustainable system to keep up with – even as it reduces my mental load – and that it will minimize my frustration with any creeping chaos, knowing that it is a part of life AND that I have a plan to address it.
3. Read through the Gospels with CWM’s boxed collection. I love our beautiful Gospels set and look forward to journaling my way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in addition to whatever we’re reading with our church’s sermon series. I’ll be following the easy reading plan provided with purchase and trust I will learn many new things along the way!
4. Secret goal. Eww, secret goal. I apologize, because I know I strongly dislike when Online People are ostentatiously evasive about things. To be sure, I could have left this goal off this list entirely, but selfishly, I’m including a marker here for posterity :) This is something that I have been wanting to develop for my own family, that I have committed to working on for 2-3 hours each week during some of my additional time away from work this year. If it turns out well, perhaps I will share it at some point in the future :)
Do Something Kind
5. Invite one family (or friend) over for dinner each month. Somehow, between COVID and a newish baby, we have gotten completely out of the habit of inviting other families into our home – last year, aside from our spring party, we did not have a single family over for dinner. When I realized that a few days ago, it truly shocked me. (To be fair, we did gather for a meal with our community group every other week, and I hosted Articles Club every other month, but to me those are in a different category.) A year with no dinner guests is not how I want us to live, and so this goal will be accountability to change that!
Since John and I are both introverts with full lives, it would be easy for this goal to quickly feel like a burden. To keep it light and fun, this goal mostly isn’t about getting to know new people – in most cases, we’ll just be inviting over people we already know, love, and want to see more of! (Though I hope to stay attuned to whomever the Holy Spirit might want to come to our table!)
6. Reach 5,000 minutes on Peloton. I ended 2022 having logged 3,964 minutes (more than doubling 2021’s 1,829 minutes!). To reach 5k, my loose plan is to workout (a mix of cycling and strength) about 30 minutes three times a week on set days, to stretch nightly, to bike June to school, and to take walks throughout the week. This goal is about being kind to my body and my future self.
7. Update our legacy box. This was inspired by PFC’s “dead box” (but legacy box sounds much nicer, ha!). A legacy box is a repository of important financial and life information for the people you love in the case of your death or incapacitation – a definite kindness to them! John and I have done much of this work already – we created our estate planning documents a few years ago – but we want to finish it out and update what needs to be updated (for example, nothing reflects that sweet Annie is in our family!). Maybe this is 2023’s boring goal…
See Something Beautiful
8. Complete our family photo album for 2015-2019. A few years ago, I decided to create a photo album for every five years of John’s and my life together. So far I’ve done 2005-2009, 2010-2014, and this year, I’ll tackle 2015-2019. I hope to complete this goal in the first half of the year and switch over to a goal to get kid memorabilia up to date in the second half!
9. Tend to our family culture. A thriving, life-giving family culture is one of the most beautiful things to behold, I think. This is a forever goal, and a bit of a catch-all one at that, but this year I anticipate it will include taking the Birds & Bees course, navigating a new summer rhythm, trying a new rhythm for kid-parent dates, our weekend anniversary trip to Charleston this fall, and potentially starting up either monthly parent-kid meetings or weekly family meetings (maybe in the fall? You know I’ve talked about starting them for years, ha!).
10. Have fun with my friends. Honestly, I could have come up with a catchier name for this goal, but this does the trick! :) I love creating fun, memorable experiences that bring together the people I love. I have a few gatherings in the works for 2023, and they all take effort that needs to be broken down month-by-month: to start, another book swap, a potluck party, and the very first Articles Club weekend retreat!!
Though they won’t make an appearance in my monthly goals posts, I also consider the walks I plan to take with individual friends in the spirit of this goal. I already have three in my calendar for January – to chat with one about kindergarten, to chat with another about church, and to chat with a third about retreat activities. It is beautiful to get to prioritize this time with the people I love, enjoying each other’s company and figuring out life together.
Thank you, friends. Sharing my goals here, year after year and month after month, is quite possibly the most potent factor in any progress I’ve made, so thank you, as always, for being kind, listening ears! :)
On that note, I’ll be back with my January goals post and my 2023 book list soon. I’m also considering writing a much shorter post on our family goals for 2023 – what they are, how we come up with them, how they differ from my personal goals. Would that be of interest? Please feel free to let me know in the comments, or let me know if there’s one of my goals that you’d love to hear more about as the year goes on! (I already know I have more to say about goals 5, 7, and 10!). OR, tell me what YOU have planned for 2023! Have you set goals yet? I’d love to cheer you on.
