2026 Goals

 3 days in to 2026 already!

My goals for the year, very similar to last year, a little hopeful to cross things off the list once and for all in 2026 :)

Marriage Goals:

- Date nights 1x a month.

- Do The Husband Project. 

- Finish reading Cherish together.

- Dance lessons.

Mothering Goals:

- Complete the Parenting from Surviving to Thriving workbook together. So close, only 2 more chapters to go!

- Continue "Monday Momming" prayer check-ins with Liz. 

- Mom and kid date nights

Faith Goals:

- Read through my Intentional Word Bible. 

- Family Service Projects

- Do several mini devotions thru my Bible app.

Fitness/Health Goals:

- Weight between 135-140#

- 5k fun run with Doug

- Get (and keep) cholesterol and kidney numbers within normal limits (I feel so old even typing that)

Personal Goals:

- Use the harp lessons from my 40th bday. 

- German lessons

- Find some time to play the piano

- Read more of my book pile

Home Goals: 

- Save $1k/month towards a mortgage

- Make some sort of progress towards moving

Travel Goals: 

- Go visit Joel

- Girls' roadtrip to go visit Brigetta

- Family cruise (signed up for it in February!! 🥳 excited to cross 2 more countries off my list!)

- Midwest road trip this summer

And again, hard to quantify, but this year more that anything I want more of Jesus - less of me. More of love and peace and patience and kindness - and less of short temper and selfishness. More hugs and cuddles with my kiddos, more smiles and hand holds and hugs for my husband. More of what matters and letting the things that don't - go. Here's to 2026!

Reflections on 2025

Yes, I know I checked out of blogging. 

Maybe I mentioned before, but this blogspot hosting site is actually really annoying to use. Everything is hard about it from start to finish: logging in, uploading pics- it always does it in the wrong order, and... I guess that's it, but those things make it time consuming when I really don't feel I have that much extra spare time to give.

I think this blog served its purpose in self-reflecting thru a hard time, and has been fun here and there, but mostly now feels like another chore. Hence, not being on here hardly ever.

That said, I do like setting goals and then reflecting on them later- so here I am. 

And here we go.

All year I kept this piece of paper in a desk drawer and I could look at it and see where I was at, that was helpful to see it consistently and be reminded, but there were A LOT of 'no's or just didn't get to it yets... 

Marriage Goals:

- Complete the Love & Respect workbook with Doug. I want to get back into doing this, it should be so easy to do this on the weekday when I work, when I really don't feel like doing much more when I come home after work. - nope, it's been sitting there all year 

- Date nights 1x a month. - probably 8 out of 12 months we had a date night!

- Do The Husband Project. - not yet

- Pray consistently for Doug and our marriage. - always going thru Power of a Praying Wife book of prayers, but still needs that consistency 

- Finish reading Cherish together. - nope

Mothering Goals:

- Complete the Parenting from Surviving to Thriving workbook together. 4 more chapters to go! - CLOSE, we did a few, and have just 2 lessons left

- Continue "Monday Momming" prayer check-ins with Liz. - yes! Liz and I have emailed every Monday and traded prayer requests, altho my prayer life could use some more time and fervor all around

- Be better with menu-planning/grocery shopping to save time & money - did good in the first half of the year, getting tired of making food day in and out every day!!

- Figure out a way to eek out more one-on-one time with each kiddo - hard to quantify. Definitely more time with Lucy as we have a couple days alone, August always gets alone time with me at bedtime to read, but the girls share it. 

Faith Goals:

- Finish BSF. - Finished last year's study, and going strong, AND LOVING this years' study

- Read through my Intentional Word Bible. (I got 1/12th through in 2024.) - No, only made it to 2/12ths 

- Family Service Projects - nope, Doug and I couldn't agree on what to do, so we did nothing instead

- Do several mini devotions thru my Bible app, ones I've got saved are: - I did the Grit & Grace one (super good!) and also Overwhelmed by my Blessings

Work Goals:

- Finish off my 100 pack of index cards with writing 2 flashcards per shift: 1 drug and 1 disease/condition to study up on. - nope again

- Look into getting involved with the new Nurses Union. - looked into it and no one got back with me??!

Personal Goals:

- Use the harp lessons from my 40th bday. - nope

- Sign up for German lessons - I did get a language app, Mondly, from my friend, but haven't used it much

- Gratitude lists - started, not consistent

- Find a way to bring in some extra income - made a little extra, but not really enough to do anything with

- Read more of my book pile:

(and maybe re-read a few of my favorite child-raising ones too as we are in a difficult season right now! But that stack is shrinking, so I've made some progress last year!) - I read Prayer in the Night, Mama Bear Apologetics, and many others not on that list. But I didn't finish the others in that pile. 

I did read all these:

Fitness Goals: 

- At least 2 Keto Challenges. - I did 2 weeks in February, and 1 week in July

- Maintain weight and BMI under 24. - close, but this wasn't a great year for weight. I did lots of strength training. Finished Ashley's Firm 30 program and her 10 min plan, I've been doing workouts with Nourish Move Love. It has just been hard to lose weight/even stay at a weight these days. Maybe it's the perimenopause? Maybe it's the carbs? I did find my testosterone is low. I don't know, but it has been disheartening. I just keep on keeping on.

There have been other 'health things' that got added in 2025 without being on the horizon back in 2024- the biggest is getting a grain mill and grinding our own flour and making a lot of the bread we eat. This too has been a learning curve, and we for sure have not switched completely. But we have definitely been getting more of the nutrients from the whole grains back into the food and I'm sure that is a good thing. This podcast inspired that decision. 

- Complete a 5k or Fun Run of some sort - nope

- Heal up my diastasis recti, I thought I'd healed it in PT, but seems to be cracking open again - I've been doing a lot of core in the above programs, so I think there has been some progress, but hard to tell without an official PT measuring. 

Not resolutions, but hopes: 

- More photos in our photo travel map (aka more trips... we are going to Florida in March, and plan to go to Pennsylvania, and up to the U.P. this summer. So that'd only be one "new photo" place, but still looking forward to them anyway.) - Yes! we added photos/checked off: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware & even squeezed in New Jersey

- Rental property/ and/or Move. - no surprise here, but yeah, no. We remain in our home and mostly priced out/ interest rates too prohibitive for moving. 

2025 was I would say overall a good year. A hard year. The kids are a blessing, but a definite strain on both me personally and our marriage. This year I have been intentional on having more "me" time. And while I feel selfish needing that, I think and hope it can make me more refreshed and ready to give back. Although in some ways, the more I have, the more I want. So that is tricky. But this year I both played tennis in the spring, and did country line dance lessons in the fall, and of course, my monthly book club nights out. Another thing I did was over the summer fly down to see my friend in Missouri, we road-tripped to Oklahoma and climbed a mountain we had climbed together 20 years ago. It was really hard. But so wonderful to have that time together and to see how strong we still were all these years later. 

It's really frustrating as these years go by my kids seem messier, not less, and some bad behavior patterns don't seem to be lessening. I know "it takes a childhood to train a child" but the progress of certain things, especially the annoying bad behavior ones, just seem extra draining. It has been hard to respond with patience and grace a lot of the time and I know I am the model and the barometer for the home, so that feels like a lot of pressure. 

Anyway, I don't know the HOW but I do want there to be a change of heart (mine!!) over the next year. 

Crafty things

 Made a new Barbie house for Jeanie for her 6th birthday.

Got this 4-cube thing off FB, Dad and I put a back on it. 

Stole the pool/frame off the old plastic Barbie house that my girls pretty much instantly broke a month or so ago. 

Dad built a tiny ladder so the Barbies could access their waterslide. 

He also built a storage box to store all the extra accessories.

Painted it all

The finished product, complete with a PVC slide and springy little diving board

Wallpaper from Dollar tree

Bedroom

Bathroom and garage

Living room

 She was super excited when she saw it, wish I had a video, there was a lot of screaming and jumping. Hope they have fun playing and imagining together. 

My second craft of April was a quilt for my new niece Daisy. 

Sad, JoAnns is going out of business, will have to find a new place for material!

My girls had fun giving me the next color to sew together

Started with this pattern, but didn't like it, so had to rip it up. And go back to JoAnns for more fabric.

I liked this simpler look better

Lining up with the back fabric and the batting in the middle

The part I hate, making binding and pinning it on. I always get poked 2-3x no matter how careful I am. 

Done!

I hope she loves it. 

I am really sad that my sister announced she and her family are moving to NC at the end of the year. I hoped having young ones and our aging parents would be incentives for them to put down some roots here. But alas, the travel bug, or desire for sun, or whatever the real reasons are, have overweighed when they said they had initially moved back here from Florida "for family" several years ago. 

So Daisy will have this quilt to remember me by. And maybe future family visits, but even that its quite a drive. I'm sad about it.

Florida trip

 Went on a trip to Florida, took my parents along for some "memory making" opportunity. 

Gosh, I hate this blogspot platform, can't even upload pictures in any sort of order. Deletes them if I try to drag and rearrange. SO here they are all randomized!

What we did: 

- Everglades Alligator Farm & airboat ride

- Everglades National Park

- SUP and kayak around Ohio Key, Bahia Honda State Park, Sombrero Beach

- Theater of the Sea

- Fed Tarpon at Robbies

- Pinecrest Gardens

We had a great time! Miss the sun and warm weather!

Fear

 It took me awhile to fall asleep last night. Which isn't that unusual for me, but last night I just kept thinking about fear. 

I really want to go visit my friend this summer in Missouri, BUT with all the recent plane crashes - I am afraid. There's no nonstop option to go see her, so it would be 4 separate flights there and back. Even though I know it's the safest way to travel, I am afraid. 

The other thing, August has been playing tennis a few years now, and I thought one day- "why does he get to have all the fun while I stay home folding laundry, etc?" I took one semester of tennis back in my college days just to learn something, and it had been pretty fun. So I signed myself up for a class last fall, and it was great! Being out in the fresh air instead of doing dishes after dinner, with other adults, exercising, it was fun. I want to sign up for another session this spring- BUT ... I can't remember when it started, I think after a fall off a skateboard (and no, I am no Tony Hawk, this was me standing on a skateboard while babysitting and instantly falling back on to my extended arm/shoulder) - ever since, I've had a problem with my R shoulder randomly sub-luxating. (Almost coming out of the socket). It does it at such random times, often with a extending/slight rotation combo. I could be reaching into the backseat to give something to a kid, or one time while stretching in bed when I was on my stomach, reaching up to kill a bug, the last time was around Christmas I went to hug someone who was sitting while I was crouching down to hug them. I can usually rotate it back in pretty quickly, but it HURTS. And with the motion to do a tennis serve, I am constantly afraid it is going to do it again. Even last night in bed, just imagining the move to do the serve, I could feel myself wincing. So yeah, that's where I'm at. Fear. 

The last thing keeping me up last night was thinking about my Dad. He will be 80 in March. And instead of being super thankful and so grateful (which I AM too) of his long life and the many years I've been blessed with such a great dad, I just felt that fear. Fear of just him being "old". And while he is healthy and active and mentally sound (and his dad just lived to 103) I just feel so afraid of impending loss or can-strike-at-any-time sickness. And possibly because we are going thru it now with Doug's dad having bladder cancer, at 79, I am just so afraid. 

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley,  I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.      Psalm 23

A friend was talking about Psalm 23 the other day and noting that part about "guiding". He leads us by quiet waters. He guides us along the right paths. The next sentence is walking thru dark valleys, and it is so easy to imagine being in them alone- although it says He is with us in them. He knows those dark valleys are there, in fact, He lead and guided us to and through them. Those verses do bring comfort, I do just need help focusing on the lighthouse in the storm (real or even just imagined in my mind!)

January

Made burp cloths for a friend at church who adopted a little baby girl. 

Took my girls to the nature center, there was a story, met a snake, and did a little craft.

Snow! 

I was pulling them around when my neighbor came by and made a sled train, that seemed much more fun than just being pulled by mom!

Jeanie lays her clothes out before school and it creeps me out. Like she's been raptured and I was left behind! 😱

Would you look at that, white boys CAN jump!

A much needed date night.

Had to switch the girls' beds around again. Lucy fell out of bed twice in the last week, so now she gets the toddler/child bed (the one with rails, but it is wider and longer) and Jeanie goes back to her toddler bed. Thankfully she didn't mind. 

My new car got delivered. The one in the back!

Sadly, I don't really like it, but maybe I'll get used to it. 

This little fox was "reading" to a bear at the library. So cute.