GOALS: NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER

December!  A new month and one that will be filled with a lot of excitement and anticipation at our house.  On November first, I learned that Sam thought the next day would be December.  He was pretty disappointed when he learned otherwise.  But now it is here and I am so looking forward to the magic of the season and seeing it all anew through the perspective of a toddler and a preschooler who are starting to "get it," but still have a lot of questions and misunderstandings.

Onto the goals:

A look back at November:

1.  Decide on financial goals for 2017.  Done.  Our two big (and clear cut) goals are specific amounts saved for retirement and for Christmas 2017.  We would also like to pay cash (or have money set aside) for new phones for both of us, a patio for the backyard and a new car for Brian.

Retirement and Christmas savings will be priority and I have no doubt that they will happen.  I'm confident we can also pay for new phones and a patio.  The car savings might be a stretch, but I think it's possible.  In the meantime, I'm crossing my fingers that the car holds on for a long while yet.

Edit for clarification: We already have the majority of they money we need to pay for a new car saved.  We would just like to add a few thousand more to that total.

2. Walk a minimum of 300,000 steps.  Eesh.  Well, this is a fail.  Sick kids for the majority of the month, colder weather and a long holiday weekend with very few steps combined to kill this goal.  I am frustrated with myself for not being more proactive earlier in the month to make sure I met my goal.  Because, honestly, I knew that cold weather and a long holiday weekend were coming.

Still, I ended the month with 285,500.  I'm proud of myself for the strong effort I put in over the last several days to get pretty darn close to reaching the goal despite a poor showing over the course of the month.

3. Get the majority of my Christmas shopping done.  Yep.  All but done.  Thank you very much, internet.  Because without you I wouldn't have even started.      

4. Fill an Operation Christmas Box or two.  Fail.  The due date came and went and we did not fill our boxes.  We will try again next year.

December goals:

1. Decide on a word to be my One Little Word for 2017.  I have a few contestants - and even a front runner - in mind.  I would like to spend some time thinking and praying about this over the course of the month and then to come to a final decision.

2. Restart core-training exercises.  I have postpartum diastasis recti (abdominal separation).  Last summer, I was in a good habit of doing core-training exercises to strengthen my core muscles and decrease the gap.  It seemed like it was working.  Then I fell out of the habit when the school year began.  Time to get back to it.

3. Organize the basement desk area.  We moved our desk downstairs more than a year ago.  Since then, it has become a sort of depository for things that don't have a home.  The desktop is piled with a mess of random stuff that needs to be sorted through, purged and organized.  My goal is to have a clean desktop and organized desk drawers before our Christmas Eve party.

4. Walk a minimum of 300,000 steps.  It's cold outside, it wouldn't be surprising if the kids caught another round of infections and there is another long holiday coming at the end of the month.  Actually reaching this goal means that I need to step it up at the beginning of the month and on any days when I have the opportunity to walk a lot.  And that is my intention.

5. Advent success.  I am defining success as completing my advent devotional, making sure our Elf on the Shelf finds a new home each night and spending lots of time reading and talking about the holiday with the kids.

And that's it, folks.

I feel like these goals will leave me in a great place for the start of the new year while still fitting nicely into my "simplify" theme for this year.