Monthly Goals-- March

Good morning everyone! I hope that wherever you live you are starting to get a break from the winter weather and that spring feels just around the corner for you. We are soaking up the beautiful warmer weather here and trying to spend as much time as possible outside.

It's the beginning of a new month, which means it is time to set some new goals. But first, I wanted to take a look at my goals for last month:

1. Decluttering-- Holy moly... I cannot express how much better I feel after decluttering our home this month. It was so freeing that I cannot stop talking about it to everyone around me. By the end of the month we had either donated, thrown away, sold on Facebook, or given away over 400 things from our house. 400 things that were taking up space in our home that we did not need. Granted most of them were small (old pairs of earrings, socks with holes in them, clothes the kids had outgrown, etc.) but still. It feels SO good to open up my former junk drawer, and it is actually organized! When I open my jewelry box to grab a pair of earrings, I'm not searching around for the match for 5 straight minutes. Life just feels a little easier with less stuff to take care of 🙌

2. No Spend Month-- Another thing we tried this month was a "no spend month". After a few months in a row of our spending getting out of control, we tried to scale it back to only buying things that were "needs" vs "wants". At the end of the month we looked at our finances from February vs the average of the past several months. It turns out that we were able to save an absurd amount of money when we stopped going out to eat, stopped swinging by Starbucks in the afternoon, stopped buying impulse buys at Target, etc. It was really eye opening, and while I am happy that we can return to a little more flexibility on our spending now, I think I am back in the habit of being better about spending.

3. Read 3 Books-- Done! I wrote my monthly book review here.

4. Mail Out Valentine's by 2/8-- We had most of them out, but our whole family got hit with the flu so we had a few go out later than expected. I'm willing to give us a pass on that considering what we had going on 😊

5. Workout in the Morning Before Work-- YES! I am so happy to be back in the routine of doing this. I have significantly more energy throughout the day when I start my day with a workout. I also love not having it hang over me throughout the day. I plan to continue this one into March.

Now let's have a look at March:

1. Prep for Liam's Baptism-- Liam is getting Baptized at the end of this month and we will have a bunch of family and friends in town to celebrate. Sometimes hosting that many people can be stressful/overwhelming, but I want to be able to enjoy this special moment and celebrate it, not be overwhelmed. I want to make sure I have everything done and ready a few days in advance so I'm not scrambling at the last second. 

2. Keep Exercising Before Work-- As I said, I feel significantly better throughout the day when I start the day with a workout. I also love having something major checked off my To-Do list before 7 am.

3. Spend Time Outside With the Kiddos-- Spring in Charlotte is absolutely beautiful and it is one of my favorite times to be outside with my family. The weather is warm but not too hot and the mosquitos aren't out yet!! Over the weekend we drew up our plans for our garden and have gotten to work ordering/prepping everything. I am beyond excited to get to share my love of gardening with Lily Grace this summer. I know that each year she will "get it" a little bit more and can't wait to see gardening through her eyes this year. 

4. Say No-- Ugh, unfortunately this has been a problem for me the past month or so. When Lily Grace was first born, I was so desperate to "feel like myself again" which unfortunately meant "do all the things". I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to spend as much time as possible soaking up my sweet baby, but still have quality time with my friends, spouse, family, coworkers, etc. I wanted to feel productive and like I did more than "just change diapers all day" (yes I know it was so much more than that!!), yet I was also taking care of a new baby. Long story short, I was burning the candle at both ends and finally wore myself out. Eventually I was able to find a healthy medium that worked for me, and was in a very good place of being both mom AND the other parts of me... and then Liam was born and I went through the whole cycle all over again. My goal for this month is to "say no" to everything else that comes my way until I'm able to figure out the new happy medium. I want to be able to have my independence and my own identity, but I don't want to blink and both of my babies are grown. Does that make sense? So in the meantime, I'm focusing on just the babies. I will add the "other stuff" back in little by little until I find the "Goldilocks fit".

Thanks for reading along today! I hope you all have a wonderful day. See you back here tomorrow for probably my most favorite "healthy recipe" of them all!