At the end of every year, I like to talk about the resolutions I made, however loosely, and see how I did. You guys might have noticed that this year has played out differently than everyone expected it to, myself included. I’m actually really curious to go back into my goals for this year and see what actually got done, what didn’t even get looked at, and all the things we did that we didn’t expect to do!!
This year, I had a theme, and I had a list. When I wrote the list of more tangible goals, some were already done, haha! Because sometimes a to-do list needs some items that are already crossed off. So I’m going to start with those.
We had already moved kids into different rooms.
We had already tidied up the Christmas mess in my room, though you’d better believe there is another one in there as I type this!
We (but actually my mom) had already washed off the high chair, which was a horrifying mess that I somehow could not face.
We had made an anniversary plan.
We had retrieved our blanket box from my moms house.
We had priced out a drop ceiling.
We had backed up the laptop (though it didn’t fix our problem, and we bought a new one with credit card points during quarantine)
Brady had finished his quarterly report.
We had reorganized the toothbrushes now that we had kids moved downstairs.
Ok, so that was the things we had already crossed off of our to-do list! This is what was left on the list as of mid-February.
Physical restoration. Remember my crazy hand and shoulder pain? I did eventually find my way back to a pain-free life, thanks to antidepressants calming down that part of my brain. I had NO idea that would work, but thank you Lord for modern medicine!! Sometimes, I truly feel that is the answer, and I feel like this was a total answer to prayer!
Make noodles. Still have not done that. Whoops.
Organize craft stuff. YES! I did that!!! Only this fall, but it happened! We found and redid our now bright pink craft cabinet, and organized our craft stuff SO well. I’m very very happy with how it worked out 🙂 I dont feel instantly overwhelmed when the kids want to color or craft now!
Wash car seat covers. Whoops. Have not.
Make a Pinterest board for the backyard. This is kinda moot now, honestly. I think I started one?? But then I had bigger fish to fry and we just did the backyard! Hahaha!
Make a Pinterest board for the garden. Same story.
Get knocked up. Ha! Ya, no. I mean, I did, but I miscarried again. Its been a weird discouraging year in that sense, but what I can say is that I have an OB appointment coming up in the new year, and I’m excited to bounce ideas off of a specialist.
Plan trips! Hahaha! Ya right. I mean, I went on a spontaneous birthday trip to Edmonton! That was fun! And we did book a weekend at Christopher Lake! Aaaaand then everything changed and we built the camper sooooo we spent a lot more time on that than planning vacations.
Wash the dining room floor. It happened. It needs to happen again.
Meal plan. Ok, so I definitely didn’t do that, but I did get WAY more capable in my kitchen and cooking meals is far less overwhelming to me than it used to be! So while I dont have some aces meal plan method down pat, I feel more organized in that area than I did when I made this list. So it feels like a win, still.
Price out a fence and a shed. Ha! Ya. Priced and built. Woot!
Price our grass. Planted. Boom!
Order Vitex. Check! Done and done, taking it everyday!
Keep saving blog books. I definitely didn’t do this. Waaaaay bigger fish to fry!
Create a system for the island. Sadly, I do not have a better system for the island. I’m not sure I will, honestly. But I’ll keep trying.
Hose off the living room rug. Hahaha! This was actually horrible, lol! It didn’t get done and didn’t get done, and I was getting really irritated with it, but its just too huge to move it around on my own, and I didn’t know how to work the pressure washer, and all that stuff. Finally, the day came and Brady tried to set up to do it. But he set up in the dirty backyard, and then the pressure washer wouldn’t work. As you can imagine, it got WAY dirtier, and its back in our living room, looking vastly worse than before! Oy, lol! Maybe next year!
Knit something wearable. So I didn’t do this, but I did crochet something wearable! Three cardigans! Wavy doesn’t like hers, because she likes hoodies with pockets, lol! But Laela and I wear ours regularly 🙂
Get contacts. Ya, no. The worldwide shut down made that kind of non-essential trip even less important. I still really want them tho. Hopefully someday.
Set up my fitbit. Set it up, used it for a bit, now it sits. It was SO inaccurate in terms of steps, and that was mainly what I liked it for. Id be more inclined to use it if I could figure out how to get the active minutes to show on the main screen rather than step count, but I haven’t gotten that far. Just wasn’t a priority I guess.
Clean the carpets. We did not. We spent WAY more time outdoors than we ever have this year that the inside got a little neglected. But we’ll get there 🙂 I’m not worried.
Get more gravel on the driveway. We did that! When we got soil hauled in for the yard, we got gravel in for the driveway too!
I’d say, all in all, we did pretty great on this list, considering the global pandemic, getting our lake spot, building a camper from the shell up, and all the bizarre health concerns were not in the plans!
I felt like the theme of the year was meant to be glory strength! And guys, I could never have anticipated just how accurate and PERFECT that would be!! If you want to read the post where I talk about it, I really think its bang on! But if not, I’ll share the verse that motivated it in me!
The Message version, 1 Colossians 1:11-12…“We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul – not the grim strength of gritting your teeth, but the glory-strength God gives. It is the strength that endured the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that He has for us.”
This year could’ve very easily been a grim strength year, but I truly feel like God prepared me for this year, unbeknownst to me! I couldn’t be more grateful! The year has been challenging, and loaded with opportunity. Thank you, Lord, for knowing more than me, and for keeping us afloat – maybe even better than we were.