At the end of the year, I took a look at my 2016 goals I set in motion back in January. You can read the post here.
I wanted to share them again and look at how I did on them. A lot happened over the year in many areas of my life, which means growth. I’ve grown from accomplishing them as well as learning from the mistakes I’ve made, or simply, the evaluation of each one.
So here’s a look at my goals in 2016 (I’ll be sharing my new goals for 2017 later this week).
1. Love the house I’m in – I focused on improving the house I’m currently in versus trying to move. And let me tell you, we did some neat things to our house. Nothing crazy, but made some improvements. Some we hired out, some we did ourselves. Here are a few things we did to the house:
Re-painted and decorated our master bathroom (toilet area)
Re-painted and decorated our guest bathroom
Installed vinyl wood floor in the office room
Completely made-over our front room from a playroom to an office.
Completely re-decorated (and painted) our master bedroom. I’m simply in love. I just took the pictures for this, so I’ll share the whole makeover soon.
Had a new fence put in (hired out).
Got a new roof (hired out).
Painted our kitchen cabinets white! We hired out for this (glad we did after seeing the process). But I installed the new hardware for each cabinet/drawer by myself which was a lot harder than I envisioned.
Created a new coffee bar area in the breakfast nook wall.
The longer I’m in this house, the more I learn exactly what I want in a future house.
2. Build my blog and start my own website – Oh my blog! I grew the most in this area during 2016. I moved from Blogger to WordPress, so I did achieve this goal. It was a good move. I also took some online courses to help learn more about blogging. Let’s just say this. The blog world has become saturated and you really have to work hard to monetize your blog. It’s simply time I do not have as a full time mom and business owner. From sun up to sun down (past that actually), I’m taking care of my boys (and house). Afterwards, I work on my shop. I neglected growing my shop this year to focus more on my blog and I didn’t like it. It was the most “out of whack” I’ve felt as a mom. Without getting into too many details, I’ve decided to continue being a mom, grow my shop (since I know I can do that), and blog as much as I can without feeling guilty for not doing it as the “blogger experts” say I should. I love blogging too much to quit, but I’m in a season of life that is limited with time and this is what works for ME. I’ll work my butt off and have God lead me in the right direction.
3. Find a home church – We did find a church this year. We are so happy with our church home and excited to see where our faith and family grow in our new home.
4. Sign Beckham up for soccer – Beckham played his first season last year. He enjoyed it and we signed him up for another season. We have a few games left for this season and we’ll see where he stands at the end. It was really neat to see him play sports. I cannot wait to see what else he plays and enjoys.
5. Nail down a cleaning routine – I thought I found a good routine last year, but it did not work for me at all. Perhaps, I’m just too busy to clean as often as I would like. I’m a clean freak so I probably prefer cleaning way more than the average person. Somehow I make it work, but there’s not really a schedule. I have laundry down well (I do 1-2 loads a day and fold at the end of the day when I watch a show), but mopping and wiping down certain things takes a back seat.
6. Cook more at home, but make simple meals – If I’m being completely honest, I sucked at this, especially at the end of the year. I’m frustrated with feeding children! It makes me not even want to cook anything because it gets pushed to the side or I end up making something else. Any suggestions?
7. Exercise – Yes, yes, yes! My favorite accomplished goal. This made me feel so good and I really enjoyed going to the gym with the kids and getting a workout in. The boys loved it and we were even able to swim in the pool afterwards during the summer. I’m not sure what Maddox will do when B is gone next year, but let’s hope he will go by himself.
8. Teach Beckham to write his name and read CVC words – He wrote his name early in the year (which I assumed he would), but I haven’t really done much reading with him (as far as him reading). I’m not too concerned with this, but I would like to get him reading a little before Kindergarten if he’s ready. I don’t feel like he’s really ready (or willing) to read words yet, but we’ll see how it goes.
9. Vacation – We took our first kid-free vacation to Vegas this year and had the best time!
10. Daily Devotional and Bible Reading – Like most goals, I started off strong, but ended weak. And I sure did feel the consequences of “doing it on my own.” This goal is not made out of it being a simple “chore” required by my faith, but as a desire to know my God more. The deeper my relationship with Him, the better I can navigate life’s difficulties (and joys), and the better I can spread the Gospel.
11. Become “More” of a Morning Person – Nope. Shocker. Once a night owl, always a night owl? I hope not. I hope that can be changed, but I’m losing hope. We’re definitely going to have to become more morning people once Beckham starts Kindergarten. They start at 8:00am so there’s that.
12. Tackle House Projects – This is what I had listed at the beginning of 2016:
-Repaint and decorate both bathrooms. Check.
-Repaint master bedroom. Check.
-Install wood flooring in the living room (and possibly kitchen). No, but in the works for 2017.
-Kitchen remodel (hired out job): Paint cabinets white, install new backsplash and granite counter tops…we might have to break up this project since this is a pricey project, but I cannot wait for this. The kitchen is where I spend a lot of my day, so this would be amazing. Just did cabinets, but that was enough for now.
-Repair or install a new fence outside. Check.
-New roof. Check.
-Redecorate breakfast nook. Kind of. We did redecorate by adding a coffee area.
-Refinish/Paint entry buffet table. No.
-Frame windows with crown molding. No.
I also reorganized my pantry which was a pretty big project.
13. Practice being a “calm” mother – Eh. I do think I was better at this, but I could always be better. Terrible two’s is the perfect stage to practice this. Lol.
14. Declutter my email – I actually did do this and got them down to ZERO (from over 30,000 unread emails), but they are creeping back up.
Overall, I feel like I really accomplished a lot. I learned so much this year as a mom and a person in general. I feel like I was saturated with so many people and shops on Instagram and Facebook telling me I needed this “next best product or ecourse or webinar or whatever” to FINALLY achieve what I wanted. I fell for some of them and realized those things weren’t going to help or “change my life.” What was? ME. Me making a decision to do something. And clearing out all the “self help products” that end up over saturating me…and instead, simplify things and just do them! I don’t think those products are not helpful, but I was getting inundated with them (how can 15 different paper planners ALL be the best one that will finally work for me?). Maybe I had a revelation or maybe it’s just maturing. I don’t know. But I know it feels good not to feel like I’m missing out and unable to accomplish my goals without them. Anyone else?
How did you do in 2016? I love the beginning of a new year. I’ll be sharing my 2017 goals this week!
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You did SO much to your house this year. It looks great! You are an amazing wife and mama. Give yourself some grace. If you would have aced every goal you’d be crazy bored in 2017. Right?
Haha exactly right? Just leaving some stuff to do in 2017 🙂 Thanks friend for the kind words.
I love that you keep it real! That’s why your blog is so inspiring to me….and your goal posts totally motivate / remind me to make my own goals so thank you!! 🙂
Jen, thank you. If I don’t write it down, it’s not even gonna happen 🙂
I’m in the process of giving my office a little makeover. Yours looks fabulous! So girly and beautiful. Happy new year
Thanks Kimm! Ooh fun, hope your office turns out good. I love having a space for myself.
It sounds like you had a very successful year – congratulations!