After 2020 felt like it was 17 years long, it’s hard to believe but we’re now over halfway through 2021 (does anyone else feel like this year is going SO fast!?) I thought it would be a great time to check in with my 2021 goals to see how they’re going (or not going). This list is a mix of home goals, personal goals, family goals, and a few random others tossed in. I remind myself every year, it’s not about perfection but about progress! Here’s how everything is faring so far:
1– Get involved with our church’s foster care ministry. I’ve at least taken the first step here and have reached out to the person in charge of this ministry to let them know I want to be involved. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts haven’t allowed me to help out yet but I’m hoping to be able to help out very soon.
2- Sort through 2013 pictures and create 2013 family album. I haven’t even touched this goal yet ha! I honestly don’t know if it will happen or not, but I’m still going to try to make time for it.
3- Register for Be The Match registry. Done! This process was super simple. Be The Match sends you everything you need and it’s a very straightforward process to swab and send your samples back in. This is something I have wanted to do for a while now and I’m so glad to officially be in the registry now.
4- Take LJ to swimming lessons. I feel like I should give myself some bonus points because not only is LJ currently taking swim lessons but so is Vi and they both love it! I was really hoping to get them into ISR but both instructors in our area are currently booked, so they’re taking lessons at a local swim school while we’re on the ISR waitlist.
5- Invest in footwear with a purpose. I haven’t done this yet, but I have my eyes on a couple pairs that I think I might be ready to pull the trigger on!
6- Continue to “level up” small areas of our house. This is an ongoing goal and so far we’ve upgraded the playroom light fixture, the mattress in our guest room, the curtains in LJ’s bedroom, and a few of the pillow covers in our living room. We’ve also replaced the window trim in the playroom with a chunkier trim (we’re slowly doing this throughout every room in the house). Just some small changes here and there that have made a big difference in the way our house feels!
7- Exercise at least 3 times a week. I have been exercising a bit more frequently, but still not 3x a week. I’m re-committing to making this a top priority for the second half of the year!
8- Give our bedroom some TLC. YES – although I’m not done yet! I’ve spent the past two months working on updating our bedroom and while I still have some projects on my list, I’m so happy with the progress I’ve made so far.
9- Commit to less screen time. I have not done a good job with this. I think it might be time to start actually using a timer to limit the amount of screen time, particularly on social media, that I have each day.
10- Learn how to use at least two new tools. I have not used any new-to-me tools yet but I have become a lot more confident with the tools I previously used. I especially feel much more confident with the miter saw and nail gun after replacing all the primary bedroom window trim myself! I’m counting that as a great first step for this goal.
11- Paint the main floor of our house. I would say this goal is about 75% done. I’ve painted the kitchen, dining room, and bottom half of our two-story foyer and still need to address our living room and the top half of the foyer and staircase. We’re slowly getting there!
12-Invest in a good night cream and eye cream. I still need to find a good eye cream but I have switched up my night cream and so far I’m liking the new one, although I’ll wait to truly review it until the end of the year.
13- Explore three new-to-us places in our surrounding area. Justin and I had a day date exploring a small town about 20 minutes outside our city and it was so fun to spend the day doing whatever we wanted: shopping, enjoying a bourbon and wine bar, dinner out, and splurging at a candy store haha. We’re hoping to find two other new-to-us places to visit, and ideally we’d like for at least one of those places to be somewhere we enjoy with the kids!
14- Build planter boxes for our patio. Well, we’re already halfway through summer and haven’t even started this project so I’m not sure it’s going to happen this year. Who knows though, maybe we’ll get inspired for enjoying planter boxes in the second half of the summer?
15- Create/enjoy a new family tradition. Last year we poured some hot chocolate and drove around to look at lights – I can definitely see that becoming a yearly tradition! This year, LJ was in soccer and we started having a weekly ice cream treat afterwards. Justin and I also recently had a day date where he took LJ to golf and I took Vi to the zoo; it was so fun to have special one-on-one time to bond! We plan to try to do this once a month, switching who takes who each time. I love small things like this that continue to build a strong foundation for our family.
16- Organize our utility room. I have taken one batch of things from this room to the local ReStore, but honestly, I need to commit a full Saturday to completely clearing this room out and re-organizing. It needs some serious attention!
17- Replace the boob lights in our house. Playroom, check! Dining room, check! I only have three more to go (two in our laundry room, one in our guest room).
18- Wake up before kids to have quiet time to start the day. I haven’t been as consistent with this as I’d like, but every morning that I do this, my day seems to go (or at least start) much more smoothly! I’m continuing to try to make this a regular habit.
19-Swap out our living room throw pillow cases. Thanks to a spontaneous decision at Ikea, I’ve swapped out half of the pillow cases so far. To be honest, I’m not sure the new ones will be staying super long term but the old pillow cases were in such rough shape (they’ve had large holes in them since Macie was a puppy seven. years. ago.) that I snagged a couple cheap cases at Ikea and they make the couch look so much better!
20- Support small businesses as much as possible. On our day date to a local small town I purchased a maple cutting board, linen napkins, and books for the kids from different small businesses. For our bedroom upgrade, I bought two gorgeous sconces from a small business in Texas called Illuminate Vintage. I’ve bought greeting cards from a vendor at our farmer’s market, small decor from a fair-trade business in my parent’s hometown, birthday gifts from our local children’s boutique…this is an ongoing goal that I’m going to continue to prioritize as I make future purchases.
21-Set aside one date night each week. We have been pretty good with this, although sometimes “date” is very loosely defined haha. Sometimes we play a board game, other times we go out to dinner, other times we watch a show together (we love This is Us and we’ve also really gotten into an older show called The Killing). Wednesday nights have become our night to set aside for time together and we’ve been able to stick to it almost every week so far.
Overall, I’m pretty pleased with all the progress I’ve made so far this year and I’m looking forward to the second half of the year!