February Authentic Goals Check-in

Happy February everyone! January sped by for me. With moving into a new home, in a new state and getting our family settled it just whizzed by! How about you? How did your January go?

We didn’t have a lot of snow in our area. Just an inch or two over several weeks. But, we are expecting snow tomorrow I believe. 

Since I shared with you my goals for the year I want to do a monthly check in to share how I’m doing managing these goals. I do hope that you feel comfortable also sharing your goals with me, you can leave them in the comments below and we can dialogue and encourage one another. 

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February Goals Check-in

1. To be more diligent in my daily Bible study – With all of the upheaval over my life this past year, this time has become so very precious to me. I have been (most days) waking early or when my husband arises and setting down to study. I have 2 studies I am doing right now. The first is a study through the gospel of John.The second is using the Bible Marking Topics from Come Fill Your Cup, (free) to dig into a variety of studies. I have been scrolling to the earliest published articles and working my way forward. These articles provide a marvelous way to mark your Bible by topic so that it becomes your very own chain-referenced Bible. As I go, I write in my own observations or prompts to help me remember what I am gleaning from the word. I can generally complete one topic in about 30-45 minutes so I try to do 2 or 3 a week.
2. Set a home cleaning routine. I’m  not quite finished unpacking, so this is a work in progress. I am doing a general routine but I am hoping to make some minor adjustments this week. >Daily – Make beds (Young Man makes his own), put laundry in baskets, cook 3 meals & snacks, wash dishes before bedtime (Young Man puts them away in mornings).
   >Monday – Planning for the week; school lesons, meal planning, blogging, budgeting.
   >Tuesday – Clean bathrooms, take out trash (Young Man), 
   >Wednesday – sweep & mop kitchen and bathroom floors, Young Man plans & cooks.
   >Thursday – Laundry and grocery shopping (if needed). 
   >Friday – Dust & Vacuum
   >Saturday – Special project that might require Beloved’s help. Currently our washer and dryer are out of commission so that means going to the laundromat. I actually like utilizing the laundromat! Here’s why. All of our laundry gets done in about 2 hours, washed and dried, when I get home it all gets put away, I don’t have to think about it again for a week! And, on top of that, I’m not having to pay a lot extra on my water bill. 
3. Be more controlled with things that I speak – This is so very hard! But I am more mindful. I am becoming more and more aware of what I say, how I say it and finding that I am more remorseful when I’ve spoken unkindly, or from a heart of discontent or disrespect. It is proving to cause me to seek forgiveness. My prayer this month is to learn to consider my words before I speak rather than after it’s already been said. My verse (see below for free printable) for this month concerning my tongue is…
   

   Proverbs 31:26 NKJV“She opens her mouth with wisdom,And on her tongue is the law of kindness.”

   Download your Scripture Printable Here. 

4. Organize our finances and set up a family budget – I have in fact begun to manage our family budget. It’s been a little difficult because of the move and having 2 banks in 2 different states because of a delay in changing Beloved’s automatic deposits. We are working to get our budget in order now that we have an idea what the new income will look like and have a month’s worth of utility bills to work from. We ended January in the red, but I anticipate we will be back in the black within a few short weeks. 
5. Healthy eating – The Trim Healthy Mama plan, is proving to work well for me. I am down 16 lbs and this is with gaining 4 lbs during the move. But, I’ve shed those and several more. Today, I am beginning a THM 100 Day challenge. This means for 100 days I will do my best to eat entirely on-plan, add in an exercise routine that includes exercise at least 5x per week. I’ve also decided to kick off the challenge with a 2 week Fuel Cycle. That means I’m attempting to be a bit more intense with the on-plan options and rotating through fuel types on a pre-determined pattern set by the THM sisters. 
    
6. Visit my mom once per month. Young Man and I drove to visit my mom and spent a week with her the last full week of January and we have plans to return east the last week of Febuary. We have several plans lined up while on that trip which includes a youth conference for Young Man, a mom’s retreat and speaking engagement for me, visiting with our former congregation and many friends, as well as a trip to visit my mom and take her to a doctor’s appointment.

Family Goals Check-in for February

1. Continue family devotional time each night – We have been working through a yearly reading list using YouVersion. This devotional study incorporates Old Testament beginning in Genesis (we’ve reached Exodus), readings from the New Testament beginning in Matthew as well as daily readings in Psalms and Proverbs. We are currently on schedule.
2. Do family dinner no less than 5 times a week – So far we are accomplishing this.
3. Do family togetherness activities 2 times a week – While we haven’t done specific family time 2x each week we have purposed at least once per week and we also have enjoyed other non-scheduled times of family togetherness. We’ve taught Young Man to play Monopoly and we’ve played it a few times. We’ve also played Qwirkle a couple of times, as well as went out with the local church for a roller skating night.I must say, Beloved has truly adapted well to our new life in MO and his schedule allowing him to be home more. He is doing a good job (in my opinion) of bringing Young Man into the various tasks he’s been working on around the house. These are just little things, like tightening the bolts on the legs of dining chairs, but it’s serving a few purposes. He’s teaching Young Man life skills, manly skills, and spending good quality dad/son time.  
4. Have family photos taken this year. This is still on my need to schedule list.
5.  Do a family service project once per month – For January our service project was combined with a family togetherness night. As stated above, we went to a roller skating gathering which also served as a fundraiser for a local Bible camp. 
6. Establish family with new family doctor, dentist and eye doctor. Well we’ve started this process. Beloved quickly got established with a dentist, I still need to schedule appoinments for the rest, but I have gotten some recommendations.

That’s my February check-in. I know the current month is a busy one so I’m hoping to keep up the momentum. How are you doing with your annual goals? Tell me about it in comments.