July Goals

What a month! As hard as I tried to post regularly in June, I just found that I was unable to. I spent pretty much the entire month in Ontario with Lil’ Ziggy, spending time with grandparents, great grandparents, uncles, family and friends who hadn’t seen him yet. It was a wonderful trip that I’ll cherish forever, but I’m glad to be back in Alberta with my husband, who was only able to spend the first week in Ontario with us.

The few posts I managed to get out were possible because I actually had photos to include in them. I have another Fluff Friday post ready to go, but the pictures to go along with it are on my desktop computer here at home. So stay tuned for that. It’s my first actual diaper review, and I’m very excited about it!

So now we are headed into July, and we are in a bit of a heat wave in Alberta. It’s been about 30 degrees (Celsius) for the past couple of days which has been nice, but now smoke from a northern wildfire has blown into town, so I’m stuck inside with the windows closed up. We went out and bought a fan yesterday as the stuffiness in our condo was driving me crazy. Since I can’t take Lil’ Ziggy out for our long walks in the trails, I’ve gotten to thinking about setting goals for July!

It’s so important to set goals, but I’m the first to admit that I’m awful at it, at least in my personal life. I’ve always been sort of a fly-by-the-seat kind of girl, but then when I look back, it’s hard to tell what I’ve accomplished. Oh yeah, I made it through another day, or week, or month. But what did I actually do? Have I made my life better? How about the lives of my husband and child? My home?

So I’m going to start making monthly goals, which I will break down into weekly objectives. The great thing about this blog is that I can hold myself accountable. And I need all the motivation I can get!

Here are my goals for July, 2015:

Goals for the Home

Create a chore list and schedule for daily tasks. I’ve spent so much time since Ziggy was born just trying to make it from one day to the next. But now that I’m (mentally) able to do more, I’ll create a simple and easy chore list. That way, I’m not overhwelmed on the weekends and unable to spend time with Chris on his days off.

Stay on top of the laundry. Since I’ll pretty much be doing at least one load of laundry every day, it doesn’t really fit into the chore schedule. I am actually pretty good at this already. Before Ziggy was born, I got caught up on all my laundry and since then I’ve been throwing in a load whenever a hamper gets full. And of course, there’s the cloth diapers. The prospect of not having clean diapers for Ziggy is motivation enough to stay on top of that!

Organize all the baby clothes. I have been so blessed by my family and friends over the past few months, and I feel like I won’t have to shop for baby clothes for at least a year! But in our little condo, space is tight. When we bought it, I considered the storage to be “ample”. And there is a decent amount of it, but it needs to be organized better, especially in the nursery. Right now I have all the clothes that are too small for Ziggy lying in a pile by his crib. Not good enough!

Goals for my Health

Work out for at least 30 minutes a day. We have a fantastic trail system just down the street from our condo building, with a paved walkway around the perimeter. There’s a loop I like to take that has me walking for about an hour and a half. I feel so peaceful when I’m doing it, even though I’m exhausted by the end. So my goal is to keep doing that loop as often as possible, but on days when it doesn’t work (like today where the air quality isn’t great), I’ll use other resources at my disposal to get at least half an hour of activity in per day. I have workout DVDs, I have YouTube, I even have a gym in my building! There’s no excuse, especially now that Ziggy is old enough to amuse himself for a little bit.

Eat lean and clean (with the occasional treat). I struggle with this even more than I struggle with getting outside and exercising. I’m a boredom eater, an emotional eater and… just an eater. This month, my plan is to eat more salads, less heavy starches. More portion control, less mindless snacking. More home-cooking, less fast food. It’ll require me getting back into my weekly meal planning, but I’ll be taking it a step further and working healthier snack food throughout the day, which is when I struggle most and am more likely to reach for carby grab-and-go foods.

Goals for my Heart

Take lots of pictures of Ziggy with our good camera. I snap pics with my phone several times a week, but they aren’t the best quality. My goal is to keep our good camera out on the end table at all times so it’s nice and handy when a perfect moment shows up. It would stay safe and clean in the case, but that’s not what it was made for.

Read more actual books. I read lots of blogs. And online newspapers. And magazines. But books give me a break from the screen and I need to make a better effort to actually finish the books that I start. Right now, I’m reading “A Year of Living Prayerfully” by Jared Brock. I wish I had some sort of robotic book holder that turns pages for me so I can read while I nurse Lil’ Ziggy!

Blog at least twice a week. Now that Ziggy is getting a little older, he’s tolerating being put down to look at mobiles and toys for a bit longer. I’m not saying I leave my baby on the floor all day while I write, publish and promote my blog! I’m saying I am starting to take advantage of those times when I don’t have to be holding him in order to work on my blog. I’d like to create a publishing schedule of sorts so that people can start to expect more consistency. Writing is such a stress-reliever for me and I love it so much. I’ve really missed it this past month when I wasn’t really posting at all.

 

What do YOU want to accomplish for the month of July? How do you go about setting goals, and how do you hold yourself accountable? Let me know in the comments!

 

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