Goal Check-in: January

Since we just started the blog up at the end of December, we didn't really establish our goals in a post yet. So this is both a review of January's goals and how we did. Starting February, we will open and close the month with posts like this.


Little Miss Boxy:

Before the holidays, I made a conscious decision to get things in order. I have too much stuff and it's cluttering the house. I had slowly been going through it, but it takes a while and I wasn't putting the time in that I should have been. So January started for me as a month of organization and decluttering. That was my official resolution - get rid of things I'm not using or at the very least store them in the attic (books especially). There's no need to see rooms full of things when they aren't being looked at or used.
















We're getting there. This is the current state of things (these are rooms we really haven't done anything with yet). As you can see, it's not dirty or anything, but there's just stuff everywhere. I know this will be a project of several months, but I want to be able to take these same pictures monthly to see progress.

In addition, we are trying to eat better. Neither of us really cooks much, and that's the biggest obstacle to being healthier. So we've established more of a routine for meals, alternating days and allowing ourselves one takeout day weekly. Menu planning and cooking has gone really well for us this month, with the assistance of Plated and Blue Apron. However, in the last week or so, we started using online recipes and our own stash of cookbooks to make things on our own - and it's actually turned out fairly well (except my pan of brownies, which were more like pudding than brownies).

This past weekend, we made buffalo tofu wings and vegetarian "chicken" a la king. The buffalo wings came from a combination of two recipes found via Oh My Veggies and About's vegetarian page, and the a la king recipe was pulled from Vegetarian Sundays. Sometime soon we are trying this blueberry balsamic grilled cheese. Tell me that doesn't look incredible!!

Going into February, those are my two goals - cook more and declutter. Eventually I have other goals, but I think it's more realistic to integrate a few things into your routine at a time.

Little Miss Crafty:

Wow! Check out Little Miss Boxy's look back at January.

I will be honest - my goals were not very clear to me until more recently. I spent most of January being blissfully ignorant. Until I wasn't.

I recently went back to school to finish my Bachelor's degree. It's something that I have put off for way too many years, and although I have two Associate's degrees, I felt like things were left incomplete with my education. So, at the start of January, I began working towards a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. One of my long-term goals over the next several months is to maintain my grades.

Mom's Weekly Planner and Diary 

Another long-term goal I have is to get myself organized. I realized a few weeks ago that my priorities needed some adjusting. Although people have told me this many times in the past, it wasn't until a few weeks ago that it hit me that I really did need to get myself together. So I went out last week and bought an awesome planner: the 2015 Red Mom's Weekly Planner and Diary. I love this thing! So far, in a week, I have become very attached to it; I keep track of everything in this. I really love that it provides you with five boxes for family members to help keep you all on track. Lucky for me, we have five family members. I also bought colorful pens to color code everything so that I can tell, in a glance, who has what going on.

On top of the planner, Boxy made me an awesome daily schedule to help me work in time for housework, family, crafting, and school. I plan to continue to work hard on keeping my schedule and working towards a happy home. Seriously, I thought I was happy for the most part before, but this past week has been awesome. I feel so good about getting things accomplished.

One of things I love best about working on this blog with Boxy is that we are two "normal" women, who became friends even with our differences. We now work to support each other and help each other reach our goals. Feel free to share your goals with us; we would love to help support you, too!

A Weekly look at Daily Activities for each family member.

Tear out "To Do" lists