One of my goals for this year is to nurture seasonal rhythms with my family.
My focus for this goal is to increase our awareness of the role that the seasons play in our daily lives. I want to find ways to highlight for the seasonal shifts that occur in in the foods we eat, the activities we do, our celebrations, and even in how we feel.
Today I wanted to share the seasonal focus that we’ve added to our morning routine.
Continue readingI’m a big fan of resolutions, BUT I’m also not one to attach any guilt to them… at first glance, I bet a lot of my goals don’t look like resolutions, BUT, it’s all in how you frame them. Wearing more makeup? That’s really devoting a few minutes to myself and my mental health before the day starts, and maybe I end up with a bit of mascara on. Who knows.
I think it helps to look back on the past year, and list your accomplishments. Anything counts! Went to the dentist for the first time in 5 years? Attended a yoga class a month? Created your first piece of embroidery? It all counts!
Continue readingHey there! I don’t know about you, but I need at least three more weeks of November. I need time to SLOW down. There’s just too much good stuff to pack into one month. Too much eggnog to drink, too many candles to burn, and too many festive events to attend.
So, I’ve done what any holiday-loving person would do : I started December by jumping in with two feet. This past weekend was spent hanging decorations, walking slowly among the shops downtown and finding the perfect gifts, and evenings on the couch working on holiday photo projects.
As the year comes to a close, it’s natural to look back at the previous 12 months. For me, much of that reminiscing starts the moment I start compiling our annual family photo album. If you’re still feeling overwhelmed by the thought of a year of photos, putting together a personalized calendar with family photos is a great alternative. I just ordered ours on Shutterfly, and (big surprise) these make great gifts for grandparents! Word is that Sarah’s working on a few photo projects/gifts that she’s going to share on the blog this month.
The photo projects are always the first on my to-do list because of their early printing deadlines, but once I’m done with those, I have a few other projects up my sleeve. Similar to last year’s coffee mugs, I’m going to work on another project from the boys. This one requires a little bit of work on my part, and I’m excited to see how it turns out. I’m sure I’ll share the results, but it’ll probably be after the new year.
As in previous years, I’m starting to think about my 2019 resolutions. For us, these are part self-improvement, part check-list of things we’d like to accomplish. I’m sure we’ll share our resolutions when January arrives… I just checked my previous resolutions posts, and realized that this year may be a catch-up year, because I have a few unaccomplished goals that are still nagging at me!
Between the looking back and looking forward, there’s going to be plenty of living in the now this month. For me that involves not over-scheduling our days. I want to enjoy the holidays without getting caught up in having/wanting to do everything. And yet, in the process, our days will feel so full.
There will be plenty of days like today. Our favorite Christmas music will be playing. I’ll set the boys up with a holiday craft or two. I’ll spend a bit of time in the kitchen and a bit on the couch working on gifts. We’ll make sure the bird feeders are filled for our feathered friends. And, if we’re lucky, we’ll take a brisk walk before the sun sets.
Of course, If you’re starting to feel the angst of being cooped up on these short winter days, the end is near! December’s Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year, and you can take solace in knowing that by the end of the month, we’ll be creeping our way back towards summer and longer days. And definitely mark your calendars for the Christmas Bird Count. It’s a great reason to get outside. Want to do it with a group? Many parks and wildlife organizations hold group bird counts near the end of the month.
There’s no better time than now to decide how you want to spend these precious and oh-to-short December days. We hope yours contain plenty of joy and nog.
Want to see how this list compares to the past? Here are my 2016 and 2015 resolutions.
I know everyone’s not in the same boat, but I love setting intentions and goals for the new year. I like that it creates a challenge within a timeframe. I’m always trying to better myself and create a better home for our family in a number of ways, but saying and writing specific ideas down at the beginning of the year gives me a bit of focus that I don’t have when I just say “become more healthy”, “do more of this or that with the boys”, etc.
I also like that when creating the coming year’s resolutions, we take a moment to look back and reassess how we did the previous year (who am I kidding, since I live with the Resolution Master, our assessing starts in August!). With that in mind, I thought a little looking back would be nice before diving into 2017.
As I titled last year’s resolution post, it’s always a lot of same same, but different. I’m so SO happy with how well-nourished our family was in all aspects of mind, body, and soul. We ate so well (did you see those farm share posts?!). The boys are growing and learning new physical and mental skills left and right. As a family, we spent so much time outdoors. We filled every weekend and many weekdays with adventures, some big and some little, just like I wanted. Personally, I ended the year feeling really happy and content, and I think this is a reflection of how much I was able to take care of myself with exercise, creative projects, and doing it all while taking care of the day-to-day business without feeling overwhelmed. So, while the world seemed to be crashing down around us (I’m looking at you, presidential election), in our home, all is well.
This year, my biggest goal is just to keep on, keeping on. I want to keep doing all that good stuff, and improve it with a few key goals.
Those are my big goals for the year. I think it’s such a manageable list, but what’s not on it are some of the goals that I keep setting and then not finishing. I’m looking at you, room full of instruments. I would really love to spend more time practicing the piano and violin. I decided not to make it a specific resolution this year, but I’m hoping that as I spend less time changing diapers, I’ll eventually find more time for making music.
I’ve also taken this excitement of the new year to make a few simple changes. I was getting tired of my old exfoliating face wash, so I picked up an alternative that I’m loving (more on that after a few more weeks of testing). I also decided that I want to drink more water, but somehow this seems too lame to be a resolution. I’m doing it and tracking my progress in Streaks (also tracking my daily sun salutations and how much I read), and I hope that’s enough to make me more aware of my water intake, and that in a few weeks it’ll just become habit… hope springs eternal (ha! pun intended).
What about you? Any resolutions that you’re excited about this year? Any that you’re re-doing from last year?
That’s my plan for 2016. Last week, I talked about my goals from 2015 and which of those I managed to tackle. This year the list is a little bit shorter, but it was given just as much thought. I haven’t added any stragglers from last year because I’m starting to realize which resolutions are more like a pipe dreams and I’ve decided to leave them off the list this year. Form a solid daily routine? Pshhh, never gonna happen. Call people more often? I’m finally ready to admit that I’m just not a phone person. I never have been. I love when people call me, but I never ever think to call people in my spare time. So this year, I’m going to try to do more of everything I like to do and less of everything else. That’s the master plan. I’ll let you know how it goes. Here are the specifics:
All those are pretty straightforward, but they do take some prepping and planning. I’m excited to share my progress with you as the year moves along, which had me thinking I should give you some proof of success with some of my 2015 resolutions. One of my favorite resolutions was reading two books per month, which felt more like a treat than a resolution, but it certainly took some dedication. Ohhh those hours on the couch or in the hammock, such hard work! I actually read my fair share of not-so-spectacular books, but here are three favorites off the top of my head in 2015:
The Alchemist
The Kindness of Strangers: Penniless Across America
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth: An Autobiography
I now realize all three novels are about pretty amazing journeys so I suppose it makes sense that my life is starting to follow suit. Hope you have a journey or two planned for 2016. Tonight I’m headed south to Florida to visit my childhood best friend and a family of amazing Brazilians that I haven’t seen in over three years. I’m excited to escape to warmer weather for a week. I’m also thinking about visiting the Everglades and potentially the Florida Keys, can’t wait to see where this week takes me.
Calder’s the keeper of our resolution list. For years now he’s the one who motivates the discussion as we’re all sitting around the table on New Year’s Eve. As we share our goals for the coming year, he writes them down, and then reads them during the same discussion the following year. He’s also become a little too good at adding truthful remarks into the resolutions as he’s writing them. What do I mean?
I looked at the list that we put together last week, and on one of my resolutions he noted that I may “not necessarily enjoy it”. On other resolutions that someone says year after year and then fails at year after year, he’s been known to add the “stop laughing” suffix. As in, “take a weekly yoga class. stop laughing.” or “reach 150lbs mofos. stop laughing.” And then, of course, we’re all laughing at whoever set themselves up to fail again that year. We’re a bunch of dreamers over here.
It’s a tradition that’s become a lot of fun, and the fanfare of the discussion and review has made me take the idea of a resolution much more seriously. Although, you wouldn’t know that based upon my record for 2015. It was a fantastic year, there’s no doubt about that, but I think I failed miserably at almost every resolution!
Above are my 2015 resolutions, and as you’ll see, their underlying intentions aren’t much different from my 2016 resolutions. I’m just going to keep knocking away at them and see what happens.
I love Sarah’s 2015 resolutions, don’t you? Such a perfect blend of goals to improve her body, mind, and spirit, while thinking about others too. I’ve set a few resolutions for the coming year, but mine are a bit more modest, because if there’s anything I’ve learned since Little A came along, it’s that I’m not always the one steering this ship, and that’s ok.
Over the past couple of years I would come up with a long list of specific goals and resolutions, and then be woefully disappointed when I realized how few I accomplished. So this year, I tried to keep it simple, most of these are goals that easily integrate into my daily life ~ I’m already mothering, so why not try to do it with more grace? I’m taking photos every day; let’s make them better. As I was writing this post, I couldn’t help but also share a few of my pipe dreams ~ I didn’t declare these as resolutions when Calder and I were sharing our goals for the year, but secretly, it would be awesome if I woke up tomorrow with some kicka$$ leg muscles.
… because if I’m magically able to make these things happen amid the chaos and the bread baking and the new work pursuits, then I’m a magician.
Boy oh boy, the whole process of setting resolutions makes me excited for the year ahead. What about you? Do you have any resolutions? We would love to hear them, and I’m sure we’ll continue to share our progress throughout the year. Happy 2015!!!
Happy New Year! I finally got around to thinking about goals for this trip around the sun. Each year I make a whole host of goals and if I feel like I’m slacking, I make mini new moon resolutions too! Fingers crossed that I abide by this list in 2015.
We are interested to hear if you made any resolutions this year or if you’re anti-resolutions, tell us more! Xo
