10 on the 10th: January

It’s already January 10th, and while I have been working to consistently post blog posts, I feel like I still have quite a few 2023 reflection posts and several “new year 2024” posts coming! I love this time of reflection and planning and although I don’t do “resolutions”, I do find that I enjoy having specific goals to work towards.

What Worked for Me in 2023

• Reading chapter books out loud to the kids. We got through the entire Chronicles of Narnia series, as well as several other stand-alone chapter books. Theo is now reading the Harry Potter series to them. I’ve noticed that we rarely read picture books anymore, so this seems like both a win and a loss!
• Chickens! Having chickens worked great for us this year. We lost A LOT of them to predators but it has been amazing to collect eggs everyday. So far the thrill of picking up those warm eggs out of the nesting boxes has not worn off.
• Our Involvement at our school. 2023 was the year that Theo also started working at our school (as security) and now the whole family spends pretty much all day two days a week there! It’s an investment, but so far we see huge returns on our investment there 🙂
• Evening Activity as a Family. This is something we do almost every evening after dinner and chores are done. We take turns picking an “activity” to do as a family. Sometimes its a walk, sometimes its a game, sometimes we read or color, sometimes we jump on the trampoline or shoot some baskets or jump rope. It’s up to the person picking to be creative but the rules are that everyone must participate and there are no phones allowed.
• Maternity Leave. My maternity leave was so good to me. I especially loved that twice a week everyone else left the house and I had 8 hours of uninterrupted time to snuggle the baby and just be a Mom to a newborn. I’ve never had that before as I’ve always been a stay at home Mom in charge of all the other kids as well.
• Adding Orion and completing our family. This was BIG for me. Obviously, adding a new baby is huge and we are so thankful for his sweet life in our family. We ADORE him. Theo and I also made the decision that our family is complete (at least biologically) and I have felt such peace and relief about that decision. We are celebrating and loving each stage with Orion but also excited to move on to the stage of parenting bigger people and not starting all over again every 2-3 years.

What did Not Work for me in 2023

• Having a dog. Nope. Just no. We are not dog people. We don’t love them, they annoy us and we just aren’t attached enough to be good at consistently walking/training them. We rehomed our dog in Feb of 2023 and I was so happy to not have that responsibility!
• Bible in a Year plan. Now, I did actually complete reading almost the entire Bible in a year. The problem is that I didn’t enjoy it and I don’t feel like I learned or studied anything in the Bible. I know that reading the Bible is never wasted time, but I felt like I was just constantly trying to read 10-12 chapters a day just to check it off the list and keep up. It wasn’t working, and this year I’m not following any Bible reading plan and instead choosing to go SLOWLY and actually STUDY different books of the Bible.
• Church. Similar to the Bible in a Year plan, we are members at a church that we love. It’s not the church itself that is the problem. It’s the fact that Theo works shift work and church is not built for people who need to work the weekends. This has been a struggle for us for YEARS, but in an ideal world Theo would be able to work his job and go to church with the rest of us on Sundays.
• Evenings Together as a Couple. Theo and I used to get the kids in bed and then spend an hour or two together each evening. Since Orion came along, he’s a terrible sleeper and usually wants me to hold him/rock him to sleep at night. This is nice and snuggly and cozy and I don’t mind all that much….except that I can’t really talk to Theo, watch a movie, play games, etc.

10 things that I want to accomplish/create/learn and master in 2024:

• Finish my butterfly cross-stitch project. I started working on these 10 butterflies back in late 2020? I have three left and I would like to finish them all this year!
• Run a half marathon. I’ve already signed up and I don’t like to waste money, so this one is going to happen!
• No social media every other month. And the month that I am on social media, I would like to focus on a helpful theme and make reels/posts about that theme, instead of just mindless scrolling. So far I haven’t been on Instagram in January at all! Yay!
• Spend time traveling this year- in 2023, we literally did not travel at all (I left the state once for a family reunion). So this year I am looking forward to a sisters trip, a marriage conference, a family vacation, three extended family reunions and hopefully a homestead conference!
• Read at least 75 books. I love reading and have surpassed this goal several years in a row, so I think I can do it again this year!
• Get Ori to bed at a decent hour, and sleeping better at night. I haven’t done any type of sleep training up until this point, but I think that it is time. I don’t need this accomplished by January, but I do need it accomplished sometime in the next few months lol. Mama needs her evenings back.
• Deeply study 4 books of the Bible. I mentioned above that I’m done with Bible in a Year for now. Instead, I want to spend time deep diving into different books of the Bible.
• Work on truly enjoying my children and not speaking negatively to/about them. This is kind of a broad goal, and I need to narrow down the specifics a bit better. I hate the narrative that my kids are just burdens or “this is why we can’t have nice things”. I also feel like I’m frequently saying “I just need a break”, and I would like to break this habit. Yes, I do need breaks from the children, but I don’t need to mention it every 10 minutes in front of them.
• Clean out and organize our house. Believe it or not, I actually have already mostly accomplished this one as I went on a cleaning rampage last week and cleaned out every drawer, shelf, cabinet and closet in our house. I know I will need to repeat this multiple times this year but I’m happy with the progress already.
• Remodel our kitchen. Our kitchen is a problem, and it will be pricey to solve it. But it also really needs to be done because it is a sore spot in how our family operates. I have no dishwasher and no counter space next to the sink! And I have no dining room, so the whole family eats crammed around a desk in the kitchen. It’s cozy and it works, but now that we are adding Ori to the table somethings gotta change! I think that if we schedule a week to do it, we can do most of it ourselves.