Isn’t it neat how the concept of “goals” is so flexible? For me, at times it’s been most helpful to focus on daily actions and habits. In others, I’ve found a multi-year “bucket list” of sorts most useful. In still others, just focusing on ONE area I want to grow in has been best. (What has been consistent throughout my online goal-setting lifetime – since 2013! – has been posting monthly updates here for a healthy dose of accountability. I’ve literally never missed a month!)
Last year, I set 8 very specific goals for 2019, and I made little-by-little progress on all of them. I liked the satisfaction of having a very clear finish line to aim for (surprise, surprise!) and am taking a similar route again in 2020. Here’s what I’ll be working on, along with my inspiration board for the year!
1. Live a wild life outdoors. A central tenet of my parenting philosophy is that the more time spent outside, the better — but living that out does not always come naturally (ahem) with everything else competing for our attention. The importance of this was a theme that popped up all over my PowerSheets. I want my kiddos to exercise their creativity and courage, use their imaginations, grow their attention spans, be refreshed by the wonders of creation, and have FUN! (And the same goes for me and John!) Some action steps: Organize our garage to facilitate play. Consider our back bed a natural playscape and finish planting it. Consider a sand/gravel/water play area. Build fairy houses. Do our own version of “forest school” once a month.Read How to Raise a Wild Child and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
2. Be a generous friend. I say I go deep, not wide, with friends, and if that’s true, I want to go all-in on this strategy. To do this, I’m choosing a few (5-8) “focal friends” for the year to very intentionally love, delight, and care for. Some action steps: Choose focal friends. Assemble friend dossiers :) Make prayer notes for each. Schedule a get together with at least one friend two times a month. Brainstorm possible get togethers and individual ways to love on each.
3. Grow strong by biking regularly.Last year’s goal to become a biking family was a grand success, and this year, we want to continue the fun by taking our biking year round – and doing another race! Some action steps: Buy a stationary bike for indoor riding. Buy a bike rack for our car. Decide on a 2020 race and register. Decide on best time to ride indoors and set weekly goals for how often.
4. Read through the Gospels together with John. At our year-end dinner we talked about wanting to grow in our faith together this year, and this is how we’re going to start! We’re planning to read one Gospel a quarter. (I already bought these neat Crossway books for journaling!)
5. Build our family culture. Some version of this will probably be a goal until our kiddos are out of the house! Family is the primary responsibility we’ve been given — it’s our best chance to grow into the people we were made to be, and to have fun! :) Some action steps: Reimagine the loft to facilitate play. Make a family mission statement. Implement kiddo dates with each parent. Have fun with our grown-up date nights each month!
6. Complete our Advent calendar as a route to analog hours. Two goals have dovetailed beautifully with this initiative: wanting to spend less time on screens, and wanting to complete our new Advent calendar! After years of admiring this DIY calendar kit, I finally bit the bullet and purchased it. With many pieces, intricate details, and the need to learn new skills, I anticipate it will be a year-long project that will keep my hands busy in the evenings and on weekends, as well as produce a beautiful heirloom for our family! Some action steps: Open the box :) Read through instructions. Identify any new materials needed. Make a plan for completion before December. Get to work.
7. Complete our 3 family photo albums. After several years of organizing and streamlining our photos, both digital and physical, I’m excited to wrap this project up with the most fun part of all: creating actual albums we can enjoy for years! My hope is the visual record I’m building will help establish and reinforce our family story. We’re planning to create one album for every five years, so I’ve got 2005-2009, 2010-2014, and 2015-2019 to complete. Some action steps: Organize 2019 photos. Decide on an album company. Lay out albums.
8. Streamline meal planning. It’s a huge part of our life, and it could be easier and more joyful — and therefore free up time for even more important things! By the end of this year, I want to have a seamless system in place. Some action steps: Choose the best recipe organization system for going forward (I’m thinking binder). Compile and print favorite recipes for seasons and categories. Make cheat sheets for seasons and categories. Implement a system for knowing what’s in our freezer (white board?). Strategize meals that can be fully made the night before. Clean up Pinterest. Host a meal ideas roundtable and potluck? Make a shopping sheet? Share weekly meal plans on EFM? Buy a printer?
I’ll be back with my January goals post soon, but in the meantime, I’d love to hear what you have planned for 2020. Have you set goals yet? I’d truly love to hear, so please drop a note in the comments! I can’t wait to cheer you on.
Here’s something I’ve never done before: decided in advance what I’m going to read in a year. I might end up hating this structure and abandoning it two months in, or it might be the most satisfying thing I’ve ever tried – we shall see!
For each month of 2020, I’ve chosen a fiction or memoir and a non-fiction read. (I hope to read more, but two books a month is typical for me and a pace I’m confident I can keep up with!) You’ll also see that I placed a few books specifically to coincide with the 2020 reading plans of friends or other bloggers I enjoy, just for fun.
This is certainly not a book club in the traditional sense, but you are more than welcome to join me for any of these picks throughout the year, if you like! Even if you don’t, you might see them pop up in posts in the months to come :) I’m hoping to share a few brief thoughts on Instagram along the way, too, as well as in my monthly goal posts.
Many of these picks line up with my 2020 goals, which I’ve finalized and am planning to share on Monday! Without further ado…
January: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry | Val’s favorite book of 2019, and hopefully a great set-up for my year as a whole. Long Bright River | A brand-new book (releasing on January 7th!) by one of my literary-agent-brother-in-law’s authors. I got an early copy and have already finished it – it is FANTASTIC!
May: The Secrets of Happy Families | This has been on my TBR list for awhile, and when it popped up on Janssen’s plan I knew this was the year. Save Me the Plums | I’ve read two other Ruth Reichl books and loved them both. Can’t wait to dig into this one about her time at Gourmet.
November: Time to Parent | Can’t remember where I read about this one but reading the description got me excited all over again Make Something Good Today | I’ve always had a soft spot for Erin and Ben since Southern Weddings launched them onto HGTV (true story!). I’ve been wanting to read their memoir since it came out.
December: The Geometry of Wealth | Generosity and contentment seem like perfect topics going into the holidays The Nazi Officer’s Wife | One of the most-starred book on this list to finish the year
I’d love to hear: do you plan your reading in advance? Have you read any of these books? Would you like to read any alongside me in 2020? Let’s chat!
Here we are at the end of another year — another decade! As always, there have been ups and downs in 2019, moments I wish I could live in forever and things I’m more than eager to leave behind. When you have children, the span of a year brings such dramatic change (see: little bald Shep just sitting up to the big boy we have now!). I find it necessary to pause periodically and soak it in, and so here we are.
These posts are such a treat for me to write, and always some of my favorites to look back on years later. I hope you enjoy this year’s recounting: some of our favorite moments of 2019, in our lives and on the blog.
March is one of my favorite months in North Carolina, not because it’s the warmest but because its warmth is still unexpected after the early spring drudgery of my New England upbringing. We celebrated with a downtown Raleigh scoot (one of my favorite memories of the year) and I shared two posts that get a lot of play in our home: board games for two and our favorite way to print Instagram photos. June also tried soccer for the first time, at a field we can walk to!
There were many slow months on the blog this year, and April was one of them, but it still held a few of my favorites from 2019: tips for finding the right daycare, our experience with a neighborhood meal swap, and the tales of 10 of my favorite purchases. It was a joy to celebrate Easter as a family (and we got to show June faith in action in a very tangible way, too!), we scooted west for a zoo trip with cousins, and June had her first itty bitty dance recital!
We celebrated Shep’s baptism on Mother’s Day and Memorial Day with a flag cake, took our inaugural family bike ride, and traveled to Nashville to visit my sister Kim! I started a book hashtag and we chatted about how we read. We splashed in the neighborhood pool and had lots of picnics.
In a scary turn of events, my sister Kate was diagnosed with a brain tumor in May. She had surgery to remove it and, praise God, it was benign. After a summer of recuperation, she is pretty much back to normal and the outlook is good. This was the most serious medical issue one of my nearest and dearest has faced, and it was a surreal and jarring part of my year. (That train photo above is from one of June’s and my trips to visit her, which was a bright spot.)
June learned the joy of paper chains as we counted down to a week in the Outer Banks with John’s family, giving us lots of material to work with for Volume 4! On the blog, I shared a new insight into one of my Dad’s maxims, and answered your questions about our transition from one to two kiddos in three parts: one, two, three.
July saw us in Maine for lots of cousin giggles and early morning walks. We celebrated three of the best birthdays — John, John Shepherd, and sweet America — and I hosted my first (annual?) book swap party!
After limping through the summer with a string of 2-3-post months, I was grateful to come back swinging in August. We discussed not wearing makeup, the best books we’ve ever read, and our new mortgage plan. John and I kicked up our bike rides to three per week as our race drew ever closer; August was a very sweaty month. A highlight was celebrating Shep’s birthday at Pullen Park with dear friends and family (and the cutest animal party hats!).
We crossed the finish line of our MS race in September, though not without a few twists and turns along the way. Our seventh camping trip almost did us in (but we saw a whole new side of Shep) and I headed to the mountains for work. In honor of our seventh wedding anniversary, John and I answered your relationship questions here, here, and here. I also shared a peek at a few toy storage solutions that have been helpful for us!
Katie struck again with the most darling DIY Thanksgiving banner, our mini session photos came back (!), and we tucked in around the table to celebrate with the Terhunes and my family. I shared one of our go-to recipes (and some thoughts on trade offs) as well as six things on my November holiday checklist and my ideas for helper gifts.
Finally, we had a really wonderful December, one that was full of magic but didn’t feel stuffed. June, it must be said, is a most appreciative audience for all of my magic-making attempts, which makes the holidays a joy. I would bottle her up and keep her here forever if I could.
But alas, I cannot — and so, I stop to appreciate what is and what was. I notice the good things, do my best to facilitate more of them, and remember to thank God for every delight (and for being with us in the struggles) along the way.
I’m about to wrap up my PowerSheets and am excited to share my 2020 goals with you soon. I’m building off of what worked last year and can’t wait to dig in to them little by little over the next many months.
I know I’ve said it before, but I am SO excited for what we’ll discuss here in 2020. Thank you for being here, and for sharing so generously with me! It’s one of the delights of my life. Wishing you a healthy, happy, and abundant new year. I’ll see you soon! :)
Happy Christmas Eve, friends! I wanted to pop in quickly to share our 2019 Christmas cards and a few more favorites from our fall mini session with Anagram Photo. Sending and receiving holiday cards is one of my very favorite Christmas traditions, and I always love sharing them with you, too!
Our card, as always, is from Minted. I looked at many different options, but loved this super simple one in the end. Minted’s thick paper makes it feel extra-special, too!
On the back of the Minted card, we printed a few extra photos and a favorite verse. This is also where I wrote a little note to each friend or family member!
Into the envelope we also slipped our yearly infographic. I forgot to take a picture, but here’s a peek! We have these printed separately at UPrinting. Shep’s little narrative cracks me up :)
And now, a few more favorites from our mini session with Graham. We have trusted him to capture some of our most precious memories as a family, and these photos are no different! This is the first time we’ve ever done a session specifically timed for Christmas cards, and I think I’m in love :)
Friends, I am sending you all lots of love and wishesfor a cozy Christmas filled with sacred moments, delicious food, comfy pajamas, and laughing until your cheeks hurt with the ones you love. I will see you back here next week for my year in review – one of my favorite posts of the year!
Minted graciously gifted us our cards this year — so glad I can share them with you!
