Things that I want to do by the end of the year

It has been a long time since I was at school, but September always feels like the chance for a reset. Even though it has still been really warm today I can sense the approach of Autumn, and a few months to countdown before a fresh start in January.

Here are some of the things on my current to do list:

Sort out our digital photos

I try to keep up with our digital photos, but sometimes I get a bit behind. Last week I finally finished off the 2024 photos - removing the blurry ones, random screenshots and duplicates - making sure that I keep only the very best photos. Now I need to work through the 2025 photos, and I'll aim to keep on top of them as we go along.

Make a plan for displaying my favourite photos

Whenever I sort through photos it makes me realise that I want to see them more often. We haven't printed out any photos out for years, and I'd love to put some more recent ones on display. We have a photo frame in my study which holds 15 photos that were printed around the time that Harry started school in 2013 - that definitely needs updating!

A longer term project is to think about putting together some photo books. I'd love to make one for each year, with the best photos in chronological order along with some text and other memories. Actually making the books will be a job for next year, but I'd like to make a plan for what I want to do and maybe start setting aside some photographs.

Sort out our family history archives

My Dad died earlier this year and left behind his life's work on researching our family history. Many large boxes have been piled up in my Mum's dining room for months, and it's finally time to go through it all. I've volunteered to be the custodian and store the majority of it, but having gone through it with him a little bit last year I know that there is quite a lot there that I feel we don't need to keep. I want to curate everything so that the most interesting and important things are easily accessible to myself and my siblings. It's a big job and also an emotional one that the family will be working on together, but I'm now ready to make a start on sorting it all out.

My Nutcracker cross stitch

This has been a work in progress for far too long! It's not a particularly difficult piece as there aren't very many colours, but it can be tricky working on the dark fabric if the lighting isn't good. It's stitched in two layers, a basic cross stitch layer underneath and then a top layer containing some more elaborate embroidery stitches. I've completed over half of the first cross stitch layer, so I'd really like to finish the rest of the cross stitch base before Christmas as a minimum.

Pick up my journalling again

My journalling has sadly fallen by the wayside. It's been a busy year with lots going on, and some of that would definitely have benefitted from being worked through in my journal. I need to get in the habit of writing again, even if it's just a small paragraph every day.

Finish my current decluttering round

I've been having a major declutter this year, and I'm loving how the house is looking clearer and tidier. Decluttering is a job that is never really finished as more things are always appearing, but I'm determined to just get a few last things out of the way and the remaining spaces sorted out ready to go into the new year.

What would you like to achieve by the end of the year?

Trying out some new running routes

At the beginning of the year I set myself a few goals. One of them was to do with fitness, specifically to find myself some new running routes. I try to run three times a week and I've maintained that fairly consistently for several years now. I like to run from my home, but although there are lots of houses my village is small, and I don't have much variation in my running routes - 5k only just makes a loop around the edge. I wanted to come up with some new routes to keep things interesting, as I enjoy using my run as a way of exploring the local area.

At university I spent a year living in Germany. There wasn't much to fill the time - no television, no phone, I only had what I could fit in my suitcase! - so at the weekends I started taking myself off for walks. I bought a big map of the area and I would pick out something interesting, maybe a church or a park, and plan myself a long walk there. I'm trying to do a similar thing now, having a browse on Google maps for a place that I've not been to before and taking myself there on a run.

I use Strava to track my running but for planning routes I use MapMyRun as I find the interface really easy to use and it's free. You can choose your starting point and then click along the roads that you want to take, it even automatically follows roads for you. It tells you the distance that you've plotted and then you can save the routes to refer back to. I think that if you use the app on your phone while you are running it will also direct you, but I've managed quite well with remembering the way I want to go. I sort them by distance so I can select my run depending on how fit I feel that day!

Last week I ran a new route which I had been putting off because it involved going over a level crossing twice and I don't like having to stop and wait mid run. But there was no train in either direction and I discovered a new park! It was a bit muddy at this time of year but it's somewhere to return in the summer when I can run across it properly. 

I challenged myself to map out five new runs, but I've already come up with lots more. Some of them are admittedly variations on a theme but even running a familiar route in reverse switches things up a bit. Now I'm going to think about how I can incorporate my run with the school run, stopping somewhere on the way back and doing a run from there that might be a bit more interesting. Hopefully this will help with my motivation when I'm really not in the mood for my run that day!

My reading goals for 2023

I'm not a fan of reading challenges, like reading a certain number of pages every day or working through a particular number of books in a year. I love tracking things, but when it comes to reading I find it more difficult because sometimes I read a book in a day and sometimes they take me a couple of weeks. I don't want to bump up my numbers with easy books when I enjoy a longer read too! 

I track all the books that I read on Goodreads - I like to see what other people have thought of a book and it also helps me to remember the books that I've read. But just because I don't like specific challenges that doesn't mean that I don't have a few goals when it comes to reading. So I thought I'd have a think about some reading goals for 2023!

Like all readers I have a tottering to be read pile by the bed, along with a huge wish list of books that I want to read. But it's the hidden books that I need to work on, and those are the ones on my Kindle! So my first goal is to work through the To Be Read collection on my Kindle. I'm terrible for stacking up books that are free with our Amazon Prime subscription - the Amazon First Reads which is either one or two books every month and the Amazon Prime Reading library which lets you borrow ten books at a time. I also frequently scour the top 100 free books on Amazon. I've been caught out a few times with ones that were just short stories or part of a series, but I've also found some good ones. 

Then secondly I want to read War and Peace which I have started but didn't get that far. It's fairly readable and there are plenty of study guides with summaries and so on to help, it's just getting on with it and not being daunted by the huge size and tiny text. I might have to come up with some kind of system where I alternate a section of it with a different book!

Thirdly I need to work my way through some of the other books lying around. Several of these are books that I've actually already read - I borrowed them from the library and loved them so much that I couldn't resist picking up my own copy when I spotted it in a charity shop. Part of the reason they are sat there is that I don't have the space to fit them on my bookshelves which leads me into my next goal...

Photo credit Florencia Viadana via Unsplash

Fourthly I need to sort out my bookcases a bit! I've had my new bookcases for over a year now and I soon managed to fill the empty spaces. I do have a backup bookcase in my study but it's probably time for a bit of a clear out. I'm quite happy to pass books to the charity shop when I've finished them as that's where I buy most of my books, and I can usually tell quick quickly whether I'll want to re-read a book or not. Most of the books I own are ones that I've read several times.

Fifthly I want to organise my books, or at least my fiction books. My friends bought me a brilliant library sticker set for my birthday, and I do love lending out my books! I might log all the books on my fiction shelf into Goodreads and then share the link with friends and family so that they can let me know if they want to borrow any. I also have some lovely bookplate stickers that I want to place into the books that I know I'll be keeping.

Finally I just want to make sure that I always have a book to turn to, and to make sure that I do turn to it, rather than just picking up my phone or sitting down at the PC and scrolling the news or social media. I have so many opportunities to read during the day - while waiting in the car at pickup, while eating lunch, making dinner, before bed... I love getting lost in a book and I want that to continue!

My resolutions and goals for 2023

It's that time of year again, Happy New Year!

In December I held a 2023 planning session with Mia. We are both very much into our planning and organisation at the moment. We have both started Bullet Journals, which is something that I've been eyeing up for some time. It's a way of organising yourself using a dotty notebook and lots of pretty accessories like washi tape, stickers and lovely pens. For the last few years I've been doing all my planning digitally (you can read about my Trello organisational system here) but the analogue Bullet Journal method really appeals to me, and I'm intending to continue with the habit through 2023. I'll be sharing some posts on how I've set mine up soon!

During our planning session we each came up with lots of goals, resolutions and tasks for the year ahead. I've given myself five main goals to work on, and for each one I've tried to break it down into manageable steps which I can work on each month. 

My first goal comes up every year - lose weight! I'm not overweight but I'm heavier than I'd like to be and I want to lose a few kilograms by next summer. I've also been a bit worried recently about my processed sugar intake. So I'm going to weigh myself regularly to keep on top of it (I've made a tracker for my Bullet Journal!), keep up with my exercise and find some new running routes, aim to eat a healthier lunch (soups and salads) and avoid snacks between meals. 

Next is to work on crafting through my stash. I'm not going to say that I won't make any craft purchases this year, but I'll try to buy things that I need rather than want - for example things like glue and pens. I've been building up some Pinterest boards filled with inspiration and I'll be making myself a list of projects to work on each month.

It's also time to get on top of the to be read pile. I have lots of books stacked up, both on my Kindle and on the bedside table, and I was lucky enough to receive a generous pile for Christmas. I have a page in my Bullet Journal where they are all listed out, to be ticked off when finished. This helps because the Kindle books have a tendency to be forgotten about as I can't physically see them. Then it's just about making the effort to get on and read!

Photo credit Florencia Viadana via Unsplash

I want to get organised with my blog content, ideally planning three posts a week for the month ahead and getting as many written as I can. Then that leaves gaps for personal update posts or things that I want to write about as they happen.

Finally I have a new idea for a series on my blog that I want to get started. I still need to do some brainstorming but it's something crafty and will hopefully start the first week in February. Just something to stretch my creative muscles!

As well as the goals I also have tasks which are specific one off things that I want to do this year. They include scanning in some of my old photos, sorting out some of our larger toy sets that are no longer played with and a few home improvement jobs. I've also come up with an ambitious list of regular jobs in the home, things like cleaning out the tumble dryer filter and defrosting the freezer that I tend to only do when they can't wait any longer. Hopefully this will be the year that I manage to keep on top of everything!

Photo credit Markus Winkler via Unsplash

September goals

For me September always feels like a new start, maybe even more so than January. Of course it's linked to the children going back to school, but I think even when we are done with school it will still feel like a new start! At the end of a long, hot and lazy summer it's a chance to get organised, get the house back into shape, and it's an uninterrupted stretch to work on some new projects.

So here are some of the things that I'm hoping to achieve this September.

I want to get on top of my blog. I have a number of posts scheduled for the run up to Christmas, with lots of gorgeous crafts to share. But the next few weeks are looking pretty thin. We have just returned from holiday and so I have plenty of travel content to write. I'm aiming to publish at least four holiday related posts, and ideally I will be able to spend this month both planning and writing posts to schedule until the end of the year.

As I said we've just returned from holiday and following a summer of unhealthy eating it's time to reign in a bit and cut back a bit on the calories. I don't like to call it dieting, but there's definitely some reducing to do!

Photo credit Elena Mozhvilo via Unsplash

On a similar note my exercise routine fell by the wayside due to the lack of routine and also recovering from Covid. As well as getting back into my running, over the summer my daughter and I bought some roller skates and I'm intending to get myself down the seafront for a skate from time to time. I also need to make the most of our gym membership.

I have several sets of friends that I've neglected over the last few months so I'll be planning some catch ups.

The house needs a bit of a tidy, and I find that a good way to go about it is with a decluttering challenge. I've not decided yet whether to do the Minimalism Game again or whether to come up with my own targets but I'll definitely be doing something! I'm most likely to try the Minimalism Game in reverse where you get rid of 30 items on Day 1, 29 on Day 2 and so on, making it easier as you go along.

I'd like to get back to daily journalling as I find it very helpful to write out the things that are on my mind. I need to also set some limits on my screen time, in particular the mindless scrolling and the obsession with stories in the news that aren't healthy for me to keep reading about. To fill my time I have some borrowed jigsaws to work on and plenty of craft projects to think about and start.

Here's to a productive and relaxing month!

Different types of decluttering challenges

I always find myself in September with a longing to sort out the house once the children are back at school. I find that a good decluttering challenge helps me to stay motivated and can make a big difference to the tidiness of my home, so I thought I'd share some of my favourite challenges below. Some of them I have tried in the past with great success, and others are ones that I definitely want to attempt in the future!

The Minimalism Game

I love playing the Minimalism Game, and I've done it several times over the years. It's very simple, you just discard the same number of items as the number of the day in the month. So Day 1 is one item, Day 2 is two and so on. It's very easy to start with, but it's pretty tough by the end! It also requires a certain amount of self-policing - for example do you count smaller items in a container as a group, or as individual items? A twist on the game is to play it in reverse, so that you get the most difficult part out of the way first thing. 

A certain number of items each day

This is the challenge that I'm working on this September. It's a variation on the Minimalism Game, but you remove the same number of things each day. For me, ten items per day is a manageable amount.

A particular amount of time each day

Set a timer, for example fifteen minutes or half an hour, and declutter as much as you can during this time. This challenge doesn't work so well for me because I get easily distracted and then panic that I'm not working efficiently, but I can see this being effective if you have a very cluttered house or lots of rubbish lying around.

A different area each day

Plan for this by making a list of all the areas in your house that need decluttering but try to keep it manageable, for example a cupboard or drawer at a time. Then work on one area each day. It's best not to be too rigid about it, and to keep the larger or more difficult spaces for days when you have more time.

Photo credit Elena Mozhvilo via Unsplash

A different category each day

This is the core of the Marie Kondo method and I find it works really well for me when I need to have a big clear out. Sorting by category means that it's easy to get rid of duplicates which might be missed if you are working on different areas at a time. It can be quite overwhelming and messy at times though, and you need to have the space to set aside an area for sorting.

Declutter the things that you don't use

This challenge works really well for clothing but can also be used for other items. Take out all your clothes, and only return them to the wardrobe or drawers once you have worn them. After a certain amount of time you will easily be able to see the clothes that you don't wear regularly and pass them on. Of course there are exceptions for seasonal items and special occasions, but it's a good way to remind yourself just how much you own.

Photo credit Sarah Brown via Unsplash

One item in, one item out

Every time something new enters your home, something else must leave. Ideally this would be something from the same category, for example a new pair of shoes or a book.

Join in with an online guided challenge

There are plenty of online challenges that you can take part in which can be very motivating and inspiring if you want to share your progress with others. Often there is an attractive printable calendar available for download.

My favourite challenges are run by Apartment Therapy, and they host regular free decluttering challenges using a daily e-mail to keep you on track. The next one starts on the 19th September 2022 and you can sign up here - Decluttering Cure 2022. You can also find the older completed challenges with links to the daily tasks, for example the January Cure which I did this year, or a previous two week Decluttering Cure challenge.

I hope that I've given you some inspiration for a September declutter!

Goals update and goals for September

August felt like a funny old month. We hardly saw the sun and we all spent far too much time indoors. I did do reasonably well at my August goals though, especially with getting the garden sorted despite the fact that our garden waste collection seems to have ground to a halt. 

Another good effort made was working on my cross stitch map. Here's what it looks like now, and I'm really pleased with my progress on working around some of the fiddly country edges. 

I always find that September is a good time for a fresh start, or more specifically the first week in September that the children are back at school. I find it even more motivating than the beginning of the New Year. 

So without further ado, here are my goals for September:

* Get my tummy muscles back. I had a fairly toned tummy back in the spring because I was doing abs exercises daily. I stopped, and now the muscles have gone. I do a leg workout most days already so I'm going to add in another short workout every day and make most of them abs workouts. Just quick ten minute ones but they make all the difference. 

* Get back to regular gym trips. We agonised over whether or not to renew our gym membership and in the end we made the decision that we would, but downgraded to a joint membership rather than a family one. I've been a few times already, but once the children are back at school I can get into more of a routine and I'll be aiming to get there at least twice a week, hopefully more often.

* Pick up regular blogging again. I do love blogging but it's been a bit hit and miss since covid started. I have lots of ideas, and at this time of year there are so many seasonal things to write about. I want to write about books and reading, crafting, homemaking, the children, days out and travel.

* Get the garden and garage winter ready. Do a last cut of the hedge and lawn, empty out the pots and the vegetable patch, tidy and sweep out the garage. And cross my fingers that next summer isn't as much of a washout as this one was!

* Sort out my clothes. I'm normally very good at keeping my clothes under control but I've gone for a bit of a change in my outfits recently since I lost some weight. I've ditched the unflattering jeans that I've worn for years and moved towards leggings and long tops or dresses which I'm finding really comfortable (and hopefully the look suits me!) I need to reorganise a bit and think about which clothes I genuinely enjoy wearing.

September for me is generally a month for getting everyone back into the routine that has been lost over the summer, bringing the house back into a clean and tidy state and enjoying plenty of time to myself to get on with my own work and hobbies. 

I'm off to a good start, so hopefully September will be a productive month!

My goals for July

I'm a little bit late committing my goals for this month to blog post, but I made it in the end! This month things are a bit more mixed up, we have the countdown to the end of term, hopefully we'll be spending a few days away, and then we have a few social activities too. So instead of lots of things that I want to do every day, there are a few tasks that I want to make the effort to work on and complete.

* Sort out and delete old e-mails. I have been using the same e-mail address for a long time now and I have e-mails going back years. I'd like to have a bit of a clear out and come up with a better filing system for the e-mails that I want to keep.

* Update my household notebook. I started my household notebook when I learned about the FlyLady system years ago (she calls it a control journal), but I've been very bad at keeping it updated. I;d like to have some current notes about the children for potential babysitters, important contact numbers and so on, and there are also some new pages that I want to add. 

* Type up and laminate my recipes. Last month I challenged myself to sort through all the recipes that I'd cut from magazines, try out some and cull the rest. Now I want to take the ones that I will actually make again, type them up and laminate them to fit in to my recipe box. 

* Write a summer bucket list of things to do with the children over the long summer holiday.

* Take part in our village garage sale trail and find a way to dispose of everything that doesn't sell. I will be having an enormous 'free' pile outside our house!

* Swim in the sea pool that is in walking distance of our holiday AirBnB. I saw it last year and regretted not having my swimming costume, so I promised myself that if we made it back then next time I would swim in it (or at least get in, and jump out very quickly afterwards!).

* Work on my cross stitch map. My cross stitch map is a very long term project. It's a cross stitch canvas with a map printed on, and the idea is that you stitch in the countries that you've visited. But even if you are pretty well travelled, there is still quite a lot of white left over. So I'm intending to fill the entire canvas with little pictures that represent my travels, then fill in the other areas with different shades of blue. This month I want to add as much blue as I can, so that it starts to look a bit more finished!

My goals for June - update

I can't that believe another month has come and gone! It's been a quiet month over here hasn't it, but I've not forgotten about the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the month. Here's how I got on with them:

Don't obsessively scroll the news websites. This has been a failure. All sorts of emotions lead me to scrolling - anxiety, boredom, tiredness - and having made a good effort at breaking my Twitter addiction, the news websites have unfortunately become a replacement. This month we've also signed up for an Apple News+ subscription which has massively increased the number of news stories that I now have instant access to. I need to find a better outlet than my scrolling but I'm struggling.

Throw away or recycle at least 5 things per day. This on the other hand has been a major success. I do well with a daily target of items, it really encourages me to root around in the back of cupboards and find lots things to get rid of, and usually more than five each day. 

Just some of the things that I put in to the recycling or threw away this month - instruction leaflets for things that we no longer own and unnecessary ones, old bank and credit card statements, old electrical items that go out with the general waste for separate recycling, Gu ramekins, recipes that I won't try, broken kitchen utensils and cardboard boxes that I was saving in case they came in useful. 

Think about taking part in the local garage sale trail. I'm all signed up and already have several boxes ready of things to put out! It's a decluttering exercise for me rather than a money making one, so most of my things will go in a big box out the front marked 'Free', and after lunch I'll probably move most of my sale items to that pile too just so that I can get rid of them.

Try three new recipes. I sorted through all the recipes that I had cut from magazines over the last goodness knows how many years and found three to try. One was a big success - a Mexican dish with beans, sweetcorn and spicy wedges. Another was also really good - pasta with a cheesy, buttery sauce and lots of green veg. Only one didn't work out - butternut squash and gnocchi. I like gnocchi but this recipe tasted very plain and the butternut squash is a pain to prepare, so I won't be making that one again!

Don't pick up my phone as soon as I wake up. This was a failure. The trouble is that I find it very difficult to get myself up in the morning and I find that the brightness of the screen as I scroll through the latest headlines really helps to wake me up. If I avoid the phone I end up falling back to sleep!

Play the piano every day. Another great success, I have played the piano every day and found some old favourites and new pieces to play. One piece in particular that I've really worked at was A River Flows in You by Yiruma which is a beautiful piece and that I can now play to a decent standard.

Tidy up the front garden, in particular the area around our front hedge. This is an area that we can't see from our house or driveway, so I'm keeping the area tidy more for the benefit of the neighbours than us. I hope that they appreciate it, because it was quite a bit of work to start with and now that I've done the initial work I'm feeling the pressure to keep it looking tidy!

So a bit of a mixed bag this month. I am finding setting myself these monthly goals really helpful, it definitely gives me something to focus on, and so I'm busy thinking about how I want to challenge myself in July, stay posted!

My goals for May - update

The last month has gone by so quickly! We seem to have been very busy, we've started to go out and about a bit more and see friends and family now that the restrictions are gradually being lifted. 

At the beginning of the month I shared my goals for May, and so here's how I got on with them:

Publish a YouTube video - Perhaps a bit of a cheat this one but I got a video published! I hunted through the family home video archives and put together a video from our visit to Euro Disneyland, Disneyland Paris as it is now, back in 1994. I've published similar videos from other Disney parks and they've done well so I thought it would be nice to share the footage. 

Don't go on Twitter - I have managed this very well. The only time that I went on Twitter was to look for photos of Mia on a school trip that were being published throughout the day. It's definitely made a big difference to my phone use. I didn't do quite so well at the second part of this goal which was to avoid looking at the news constantly. I have cut down though.

Read at least two of the books stacked up on my Kindle - This was a fail I'm afraid. I borrowed so many good books from the library this month that I didn't even pick up the Kindle! Perhaps when the library stops doing free reservations I'll get back to the Kindle books. 

Get even closer to my flexibility goal - I've been continuing with the daily stretches and am still noticing improvements, I'm getting close!

Publish at least two crafty blog posts - I've enjoyed working on some bloggable crafts this month. I've shared my Hama bead flower upcycled tin cans and my white painted pallet planter.

Make a start on the border of my cross stitch - I've not worked a huge amount of my cross stitch this month but I have begun the border. It's more difficult than it looks, and the whole thing is going to take me a very long time!

Make Mia's birthday special - I hope that she had a lovely birthday. We were finally able to host the sleepover that she has been looking forward to since it was cancelled last year. Her best twin friends stayed over and they did everything that she wanted to - they played a game where they had to eat doughnuts suspended from string, went in the hot tub, played Roblox together actually in the same room instead of online and ate lots of party food. 

For her cake she requested a chocolate cake themed around her Roblox YouTube channel. I can bake a decent sponge but I'm not very good at cake decorating so I cheated a bit and ordered a printed fondant cake topper from Amazon. I think that it fulfilled the brief!

You can see my new goals for June here. 

My goals for June

I'm really enjoying making myself a list of goals for the next month, I find it really makes me focus on what I want to get done. I did fairly well last month with my goals for May, and so here are the things that I want to get done in June.

Don't obsessively scroll the news websites. I did well avoiding Twitter last month and hopefully that can continue. Now I need to do the same for BBC News, the only news website I really check. I will still check the news, but maybe just at certain points during the day like first thing and lunchtime. 

Throw away or recycle at least 5 things per day. I desperately need a decluttering challenge, but it is  difficult at the moment to find a charity shop taking donations and the drop off box at our gym has been removed. But I'm sure I have plenty of things that can go in the recycling - I'm thinking expired paperwork, instruction leaflets, empty boxes, packaging and so on. I also know that I have a number of small electrical items lying about that can be put out with our household rubbish for recycling. From playing the minimalism game in the past I know what a difference even just getting rid of a few things each day can make. 

Think about taking part in the garage sale trail. My village holds an annual garage sale trail where a number of houses take part on the same day with a map showing all the different locations. I've taken part a few times and we had a pile of stuff for last year, then of course it was cancelled. So I need to make a decision as to whether we take part this year, and if so I can start putting together some things that I can sell. 

Try three new recipes. I have a box filled with recipes that I've pulled out of magazines but never tried! I need to try them or chuck them.

Don't pick up my phone as soon as I wake up. Even though I find that it helps to wake me up instead of falling back to sleep, it would be much better to just get up and get on with chivvying children and making breakfast.

Play the piano every day. I like playing the piano, I make sure that Harry does his piano practice every day, I can easily find ten minutes to sit down and have a play.

Tidy up the front garden, in particular the area around our front hedge. It's hard to describe, but we have a large hedge that goes around the house and we never see it from the other side as our driveway is on one side. I cut it back last week and discovered that areas have become very overgrown and were blocking a couple of small drainage grills. I sorted out the worse bits, but I need to go back and have a good weed underneath, as well as sweeping away lots of dead leaves. 

I think that all this will keep me busy!

Photo credit Alexander Schimmeck

My goals for May

A new month means a new list of things that I want to focus on! May is one of my favourite months, it's when the weather finally starts to warm up properly, the garden starts looking nice, and there's a half term holiday as well as a couple of bank holidays to enjoy. 

So here are my goals for this month:

Publish a YouTube video. My YouTube channel doesn't do too badly, considering that I rarely promote it and I have very low production values. It even brings in a small amount of money from advertising, and so I want to make sure that I keep publishing regularly. I don't have any thing specific in mind for a video yet, although I do have a few ideas.

Don't go on Twitter. I'm very bad at mindlessly scrolling through my Twitter feed and as well as being a waste of time it also causes me anxiety so it's best for me to just avoid it entirely. Only exception - following a direct link to a specific tweet from a friend or news article, then leaving immediately before I get sucked in.

On a related note, avoid constant refreshing of the BBC news website. I'll aim to check first thing in the morning and then late afternoon. Ram is constantly on his phone, I won't miss anything.

Read at least two of the books stacked up on my Kindle and ideally more. I love searching for free books on Amazon, I use the Prime Reading library selection and also browse through the top free Kindle books to download. But then I go to the library and come home with a pile of physical books that call to me first because they are more visible. It's time to make a dent in the digital pile.

Get even closer to my flexibility goal. I'm hoping that my new yoga blocks will help me to deepen my stretches.

Publish at least two crafty blog posts. I like to think that I write a craft blog, but it's been ages since I posted a real craft tutorial. 

Make a start on the border of my cross stitch project. I've spent the last month working on a more fiddly area of the piece, so this month I'm going to take it easy with some mindless repetitive stitching.

Make Mia's birthday special. It's at the end of the month, and last year we promised her a sleepover with her best friends which of course had to be cancelled. Fingers crossed it will be able to go ahead this year!

Photo credit Glenn Carstens-Peters

I'll update with my progress at the end of the month!

My goals for April - update

I can't believe another month is over already! Time has been going so quickly now that the children are back in school and we are back to some sort of a routine. At the beginning of the month I posted my goals for April, and it's already time for an update.

So here goes:

Finish my pallet planter - Well it's not finished but I have made a start. I sawed my pallet into two pieces, a smaller one and a larger one. I've taken the smaller part, sanded it down and painted it with some white emulsion that we had lying around. Now I'm leaving it outside for a bit to see what happens to it when it rains, before I paint the larger part. My plan is to fill it with old tin cans that I've been saving, each one with a marigold or similar plant in. If they work out well then I'll share how I made them in more detail!

Spend lots of time in the garden - I've definitely done this. Even if most of that time has been spent sitting in our hot tub! When it's sunny I've been taking my morning hot chocolate outside and often my lunch as well. A couple of times I've taken my yoga mat out and done my stretches on the grass, I love lying on my back and looking up at the sky.

Plant out the rest of my seeds - I've done well at this too, I have a windowsill of vegetable and flower seedlings ready to plant out in the garden this summer.

Keep up with the exercise - Again this has been going well, with a good combination of outdoor runs, indoor cross trainer workouts and core exercises. 

Continue my leg stretches - I'm working towards a particular flexibility goal, which I'll share when (if!) I ever reach it, but I'm carrying on with my stretches and noticing improvements. I also bought some yoga blocks to help deepen my stretches, and I've inspired Mia to join me (she's doing way better at it!)

Spend time down at the beach. Oh yes. I've spent a lot of time at the beach. There's a particular seafront café where we often meet friends, and I think I've been there on average twice a week this month. I've also been for some seafront runs, and had a nice sit with Harry while we waited for Mia to do an afterschool club.

Refine my YouTube stream - I was doing well at this for the first couple of weeks but it's now got worse. I start to watch one video that doesn't interest me and then suddenly my feed is clogged with similar videos. I delete my history and set YouTube to forget my viewing history and then of course I see the same videos that I've already watched over and over again. I think the answer here might be to spend less time on YouTube and just watch new videos from channels that I'm subscribed to. 

Publish more blog posts. I'm very pleased with how I've done on this one. I've published three posts a week this month and I'm more than happy with that frequency. Now to keep the momentum going!

Pick up my cross stitch more often. Setting this as a goal really helped with my stitching motivation this month. My current long term cross stitch project is Olde World Map by Janlynn and I'm really pleased with the progress that I've made on the bottom left hand corner. This chap was quite challenging to stitch, as there are lots of different colours mixed together, plenty of half stitches, some detailed backstitching and a couple of French knots. You can see the corner where the border will go and that's the next part I'll be working on. It's a wide border but quite repetitive with only a few colours so I'm hoping it will be quite relaxing to stitch, and the sort of thing that I can work on while I'm watching television. 

Thank you for reading! I'll shortly be publishing my goals for May, I find listing out my goals a really useful way to help me feel more productive and get things done. It's definitely helped me to get lots done this month!

My goals for April

Writing a monthly goal list has become a new thing for me, and I'm finding it really motivating to have both long and short term goals to keep me focussed during the month. 

So here's what I want to achieve during April:

* Finish my pallet planter. I've been putting this off because it's been so cold, but as soon as the weather has warmed up a bit I'll be out there with the sandpaper and the paint.

* Spend lots of time in the garden. I've spent several hours out there today, it's still a bit chilly but I wrapped up with a blanket and a hot drink and I even took my exercise mat out there and did some stretches (well away from our Ring security camera!). I feel really good for the fresh air. So I intend to sit outside for at least a few minutes every day, as long as it's not raining!

* Plant out the rest of my seeds. I ordered plenty of seeds back in February but I've only planted out tomatoes and sweet peas so far. I've been saving plastic trays and for my planter project I need lots of marigolds, I also have other flowers to do. I might plant some more tomatoes as well as I'm always successful with those and had a lovely crop last year.

* Keep up with the exercise. We spent some of the money that we saved on our gym membership over the last year on a decent cross trainer, and I'm enjoying using it on the days when it's too cold to brace myself for a run outside. I also want to keep up the core training and flexibility routines that I've been doing.

* Continue my leg stretches. I'm interested to see how far I can get with my leg stretches this month, I've been seeing a lot of improvement, so I definitely want to keep up with my short ten minute daily stretch routine.

* Spend time down at the beach. I enjoy a run along the beach after school drop off once a week or so, and I can also run to the beach from my home. I find it so relaxing to sit on the beach and watch the waves for a little while, especially after I've been exercising.

* Refine my YouTube stream. I've been really into YouTube recently but I find it far too easy to get sucked into watching mindless videos that end up being a waste of time. I have massively reduced the list of channels that I was subscribed too, and when I go through my home feed I'm being diligent about reporting videos that don't interest me. That has made a big difference and has also introduced me to some new channels. I've found some lovely relaxing videos like the one below, and I've been watching organisational and productivity videos while I'm on the cross trainer. I'd love to hear any recommendations if you have them!

* Publish more blog posts. I'm finding that writing in my journal has been a really good way to come up with ideas for blog posts, I just need to find the uninterrupted time to write them up properly. It's been tricky lately as I've had quite a bit of work on, so I need to get better at organising my time (and possibly spending less time on YouTube!).

* Pick up my cross stitch more often. I'm really pleased with my progress so far, but it has been a little neglected lately. My goal is to start working towards the first side of the border. There's a lot of it, but I don't mind it because it's quite mindless and I don't need to follow the pattern too closely. The design is Olde World Map by Janlynn. This is where I'm at so far:

I think that these goals are very achievable. Many of them feel geared towards making my life feel a little calmer and more relaxing, which I definitely need to concentrate more on!