March 2023 goals
The daffodils are blooming in our backyard and the weather has been delightful these past few weeks. There are a few in water on our kitchen table right now – a gift. And another: your birthday well wishes. They were so thoughtful and kind, and one of the best parts of my day. Thank you, thank you. Onward to 36! :)
On my calendar this month:
— My favorite kids consignment sale! I’ll be volunteering on Friday morning, so come say hi if you see me :)
— The Survivor 44 premier! The Ted Lasso season 3 premier! Lots of good TV to look forward to this month.
— Easter basket shopping with all three kids. I’ll go on individual mini shopping trips to Target with each kiddo to choose items for baskets we donate through a local program. One of my favorite traditions! There’s more in this highlight.
What I’m loving right now:
— These Souper Cubes sat in my house for over a year before I tried them (long story), but wow am I glad I did! They definitely qualify as something you don’t think you need, but that end up making life just a smidge better. It is SO much easier to freeze and thaw manageable portions of soups without dealing with the mess of ladling liquid into a plastic bag or squeezing it out of one. (We’ve also successfully frozen and thawed mac and cheese and rice dishes.)
— I enjoyed this piece from AHP on archiving the teen self. Lots to chew and reminisce on!
— Brooke Ligertwood’s new live album, Seven, has been on repeat over here. Perfect background music while prepping dinner :)
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 February:
— Deep Work | Though the author’s writing was a little supercilious, I took several practical ideas away from this book – most notably, grand gestures and timed internet breaks during the day. He also expounds on the virtues of time blocking, which you know I love!
— The Maid | Though some of you pushed back on my calling this book “delightful” in this year’s reading list, I’m going to gently push back again, because I really do think delightful fits, ha! Or at least, I was delighted by it. Yes, it’s a thriller, but it’s not scary or stressful – just a really good story with a memorable narrator, endearing characters, and a heartwarming resolution. I loved it.
Starting out strong with my reading list for 2023! Here it is, if you’d like to follow along.
Revisiting my February goals:
Finish culling and sorting 2021 photos (I made progress!!! This goal has been on my list for months (IYKYK), so completing January through June feels like a huge win – even if it shouldn’t, ha!)Print our favorite Instagram photos from 2022 (Yes! See the transformation here. Do you like seeing the process on a Reel? Even if I don’t share it, it’s always motivating to film a time-lapse! :))
Tackle our upstairs hall closetSell or clear out the remaining items from our kitchen refresh (Done! Gifted them all on our neighborhood Buy Nothing group.) Share some thoughts here around my birthday (Yes! This post took a bit of a turn from what I had expected, but I’m happy with it.)
March goals:
— Cull and sort second half of 2021 photos
— Paint our master bathroom cabinets (I’m thinking green!)
— Tackle the coat closet
— Meet with a lawyer to update our estate planning documents
— Make a style guide for the EFM book (basically, a sample page to decide on layout, fonts, text treatment, etc. and get familiar with the Blurb software)
— Capture photos of our kitchen and bedroom to share updates – finally!! My sweet friend (and reader!) Anna is coming by to take photos and I am so grateful.
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2023 goals!
Happy belated birthday, Emily! Thank you for sharing the essay on the teen self; I loved it and identified many of the sentiments she shared. I especially loved this quote: “I wasn’t saving in the hopes of someone else discovering who I was. I think it was much more a case of ensuring my future self’s attention.”
Yes, totally! I wrote about this a little bit in a post I wrote a few years ago, about saving/organizing my childhood memorabilia, but for me, it was much less about sharing anything with my own children than reminding myself who I was/am.
The picture of your Valentine’s mailbox makes me so happy! We adopted this the first year you wrote about it and to say it has delighted us and our littles is an understatement! Thankful for this space on the internet and to you for helping us start many traditions that will carry on through generations (maybe- hopefully) and that bring so much joy to our lives.
So sweet, Hales!!! Thank you for sharing!
I’m so glad you loved The Maid! I truly did as well. My pushback on delightful was mainly because of the ethical ambiguity that I found very thought provoking (assisted suicide, covering up murder). I liked how the book was so fun to read but also caused me to pause and consider the ethics of it all. :)
That is a great point, Julie! Duly noted :)
I cannot wait to see your home updates!! So exciting! And yes – green sounds lovely for bathroom cabinets! We had the lower cabinets of our kitchen painted green 4 years ago and they still bring me joy every day!
It’s just a color that brings happiness, I think!
I agree with you — The Maid was delightful!
Oh my gosh that article from AHP took me back. I’m an archivist for my job and also a millennial who definitely passed cool folded up notes written with extremely cool gel pens extensively in middle school and now I desperately hope such things end up in collections in archives and libraries in the future. My daughter who’s 7 has loved drawing pictures and writing notes to her friends at school since preschool and this article makes me hope that impulse for her never ends (and makes me glad I’ve tried to save some of the ones she’s gotten from friends) I’m a strong proponent for getting physical prints of photographs and putting them in albums (vs photo books or strictly keeping things digital) and it’s because that sort of ephemeral culture keeps memory so much better than our fleeting digital one!
What a cool job, Kristen! And yes, I often struggle with what to save for my kids… for example, when considering which of the very sweet handmade birthday cards June got from her first grade class, my thought was: what if I throw away the one from her future husband or best friend?! Irrational, but a thought nonetheless :)
So much progress! LOVED the closet reel! So “realistically” inspiring.