January 2022 goals

It finally feels like “ordinary time” in our family – we’re home from celebrating Christmas, we feted our birthday girl, we toted our tree to the curb, and we waved goodbye to my parents yesterday as they headed north themselves. The house feels a little empty without all the people and the decorations, and the calendar feels that way, too, as I look ahead. And that feels SO good.

In terms of goals, this is where it gets good, too – these monthly posts where I break down my big goals, take little steps forward on the things that matter to me, and hold myself accountable (with your help!). Let’s take a peek!

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 (mostly favorite books and kid stuff!), you can find that here!

On my calendar this month:
— Celebrating our best six-year-old girl! For weeks she’d been talking about making pumpkin pie for her birthday dessert then took a hard turn toward make-your-own sundaes at the last minute :)
— Our 17th dativersary! Since we started dating at age 17, this milestone marks the point where we will have spent more of our lives together than apart. I will probably have more thoughts to share on that, but here’s one to start: we are the luckiest.

What I’m loving right now:
— I’ve wanted a dimmer switch for over our dining room table basically since we moved into our house. I’d think about it multiple times a week, but apparently I never mentioned it to John… and when I did last month, he promptly went out and bought one and installed it in, like, 20 minutes. I don’t even have a link for you (I think he got it from Home Depot), just a testimonial that the dimmer switch of your dreams is approximately 20 minutes away, ha!!
— My sister-in-law introduced us to the Nate Bargatze Netflix specials (there are two of them) over the Christmas holiday, and they are such winners! Like our other favorite, Jim Gaffigan, they’re family-friendly and truly funny. Recommend!
— With a kindergartener now in the family, I’ve been on the hunt for a school-years memory book. I recently purchased this one and am so pleased with it! It’s modern, stylish, has great prompts, and covers kindergarten to senior year (sob).

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:
Reading slowed down in December with travel, holiday prep, and sharing more than my usual number of blog posts, but I did squeeze in a last read for my 2021 list: The Book of Longings. Though it came highly recommended by a number of trusted sources, it took awhile for me to add it to my queue – a book about a fictional wife of Jesus just made me raise my eyebrows. But I love Sue Monk Kidd’s writing, and I’m glad I took the plunge. I think overall The Invention of Wings is better, partly because of the writing but also partly because I never quite fell in love with Ana, the protagonist. It’s just hard to measure up as the wife of the son of God, ya know? But I did really love the first half of this book, where she lends some color (backed up by lots of research) as to what the years before Jesus’s public ministry might have looked like.

Revisiting my December goals:
Set our 2022 budget (Done! This always feels so good!)
Finish embroidering the numbers and sewing the pockets for our Advent calendar (Done!!! I finished the numbers and my angel mother-in-law sewed the pockets for me. Bless!)
Edit Sheptember (I chose a song, downloaded and uploaded the clips, and edited the first 15 seconds! Then the holidays carried me away, ha!)
Embroider shirts for I, J, M, and T (M completed! The rest tabled.)
Book our spring break and Michigan trips for next year (Done!! So excited about returning to Michigan after 5 years!)
All the blog posts. Just, all of them. (I did not get to all of them, but I did get to 9, which is pretty good!)

January goals:
— Finish culling and sorting 2021 photos + print our favorite Instagram photos from 2021
— Prep for Valentine’s Day fun
— Edit Sheptember
— Paint prayer sticks with the kids (an idea from this episode of the Risen Motherhood podcast)
— Morning time with New Morning Mercies on Fridays (my sister also has this devotional, so texting her when I read it will be a good way to stay accountable – and connected! :))
— Lay out 2012 in family album
— Choose a DR program (thank you for all the recs!) or meet with an actual IRL physical therapist
— Complete the first month of our fam Peloton challenge
— Choose a contractor and set a start date for our kitchen refresh
— Organize the new Best of EFM page (right now it’s just a random list of posts inserted by my developer, but soon it will be fun and useful!)
— Fill out 2021 entry in our Christmas memories book (I need a new memory keeping commitment like I need a hole in the head, but here we are.)

As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2022 goals!

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