February Goals

Happy February! January took its sweet ol’ time getting outta here. I don’t think February has ever been so happily anticipated by a human being. There are at least a million and two crazy good things planned and then that HUGE EXCITING FACT that husband is going to be home soon. YES! I scream YES!

January Goals went swimmingly. On about January 2, I realized that I started out a bit ambitious in 2013. February Goals are reflecting a bit more realism.

• sew pillows- nope but I did do my first sewing project and it was sew much fun (see what I did there?)
• organize the office/craft room- Favorite goal of the month. It’s hard to take a picture of the whole room but here is most of it. 
• knit and give away two scarves- I knit two scarves, three headbands and gave them all away. You saw two of them here.
• Do CrossFit four times a week and yoga three times a week- Success! I loved this goal and met it every week except for only completing two days of yoga the last week of January.

I used a homemade calendar as my accountability buddy in January and I really liked that system. I bought a foam board at WalMart ($1.40) and made the calendar grid. Each day I wrote my workout on the multi colored post-its. The yellow post-its are my blog ideas and titles. Some weeks I planned and wrote the posts ahead of time and other weeks I just did the blog spur of the moment in the morning. Ideally, I’d like to have a post up daily at the same time so this was a good month to start working towards that goal and “blog planning.” In February I’m also using the calendar as a menu planner.

• volunteer every week- I started volunteering weekly at a crisis pregnancy center here in town. My official training is next month and I’m praying about what role God wants me to have with that ministry.
• redesign the blog- Shoot.
• start Project Life- Such a fun project and a great way to document the every day. I’ll show you my spreads in upcoming posts.
• submit an article to a Christian publication- I didn’t submit an article but I did contact the editor and she told me to submit an article. So, that doesn’t count, actually but it’s progress.
• memorize Scripture- This is an unmet goal. We’ll try again this month.

Over the hill

Let me tell you a little something something. We are on the downward slope of this deployment y’all. Still way, way, way too many get ups to count but little things need to be celebrated so “whoo!” At this little-more-than-halfway phase I think it’s a perfect time to reflect, assess, and reevaluate. Wow, hi, I’m a teacher.

I need to remind myself that I prefaced these goals with the following: “I feel freedom to pursue these goals, not pressure to achieve them.” Let’s take a little looksee at the First Half Goals and see how I did (some of these goals I mentioned here, some of them I kept to myself).

Start each morning digging in the Word.

I’m proud of my progress on this goal. Largely in part to God being God and partly in part to working through Beth Moore’s Patriarch study, this semester I’ve had a season of really intentional, exciting personal Bible study. I’m super jazzed about that. And really thankful for it. And committed to committing to it. Know what I’m saying? A commitment sandwich, if you will. With a real thick layer of grace in the middle.

Record my days and my thoughts and my dreams using Project Life.

Here’s the thing. I bought the binder, and was all set to start but then I found out that one of my favorite bloggers, Elise Blaha Cripe, (we have the following in common: tangerine wedding colors, DIY passion, sorority presidents, military spouses, bloggers. We have the following differences: she is wildly successful and self-employed from her blog. I am not.), well I found out she designed the next Project Life kit and it is available mid-December. So I did a little pros and cons list in my head of starting Project Life and not using her design or waiting and using her design. The winner?  I’m waiting and using her design.

Pray for Jeff’s platoon and their wives by name.

While I have more or less been in a continual praying posture covering Jeff and his platoon since the second he left, (Jesus, please, please, please, help, help, help, thank you, thank you, thank you.) I’d like to be more disciplined in praying specifically by name for soldiers and spouses in the second half.

Memorize Psalm 91

I’m just going to tell you straight up that this did not happen.

 Have people over once a month.

I totally kicked this goal’s booty. Since moving on post I increased my goal to twice per week. It’s going swimmingly. Hosting is my happy.

Journal Daily

Nope.  Not even close.

Blog four times per week.

Fail. But I did increase my postings pretty dramatically in the last few months and feel like I’m slowly turning a task into a habit. That would be ideal.

Invite platoon wives over.

Check. And check. Love them so much!

Facebook every other day and not on phone.

Not only fail, but epic fail. I like Facebook. I don’t know how to stop liking it.

Read up on financial planning.

Why, yes, yes, I did. In fact, I also just finished Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Revisited. Which reminds me, it’s due at the library today.

Learn a new skill every three months.

Well…. I didn’t learn to play the piano or speak a different language (so far… but we’ve still got time) BUT I learned:

• How to legally get out of a rental contract.
• How to sign a housing contract without your husband seeing the house.
• How to move unexpectedly on your own without movers or your husband.
• How to obtain your Master’s degree.
• How to pack for four states, four weddings, three different climates, and two months.
• How to buy a washer and dryer without your husband.
• How to ruin your hair. (Great Clips military special for a full cut. Don’t do it.)
• How to enjoy, really, truly, enjoy four months that have the potential to really suck.

So I’d say that goal went well.

 Try two new recipes per week.

Pretty good progress on this when I’m home and not travelling. I’ve found some gems that I can’t wait to cook for J.

 Improve in CrossFit and yoga.

My yoga routine drastically decreased since this summer. I miss it and my body is reverting to its unstretchy self. My Crossfit has been average; I need to be more brave in working on techniques that I’m not strong in rather than gravitating towards WODs that involve the things I’m good at.

 See my body as God sees it. Hurt like He hurts every time I think poorly of it.

Ugh… not so much. I have good days and bad days with this but overall I still am consistently struggling with my self-image. Yuck. I have found it is especially challenging when I don’t have my super affirming, encouraging, gushy husband around. This goal will be a permanent fixture on my list.

Serve. Serve. Serve. Repeat

Loving this calling on my life right now. Grateful that I have time in my days to follow through with this goal.

Next post I’ll discuss my new (and overflow) goals for the second half. (Don’t forget the scoreboard is always 0-0 at the start of the 3^rd quarter.)