Hello there, February! This is one of my most anticipated months. After a dreary month of January cold, February is the perfect pick-me-up with the Valentine’s pinks and reds. So cheery! Ryan and I are not huge Valentine’s Day celebrators. However, when it comes to decor, I’m all for it! It makes me so happy to have cute hearts around our house. It’s a glimmer of hope that March will be here soon, and March means the beginning of Spring!!
Here’s my crew last year, decorating some fun Valentine’s Day treats. Love these kiddos so much!
Okay, so before I share my February goals, here is the recap from January…
1. Set goals with each kid. I sat down with each of my kiddos, and let them tell me what is important to them right now. I reminded them of the things I’ve heard them talk about or “wish for” in recent months. Together, we came up with a main goal for the year. Both of the boys’ goal is sports related. One girl’s is a (horse) riding goal, and the other girl’s is a new one for her (and our family)…a performing arts goal! This is so helpful as I sign them up for various activities this next year, to streamline what we commit our time and money to!
2. Make a list of cold weather activities. We were able to cross off a few on our list already, but still have a few more creative ideas for family time…
3. Clean out junk drawer. I jumpstarted my bigger goal of extreme purging and organizing our home cleaning out our junk drawer! It was such a small task, but has had a huge impact on me feeling accomplished and ready to take on more!
I quickly organized a second highly used drawer in our kitchen and it felt so good!
4. Create monthly movie night list. To combat movie-decision fatigue, we came up with family-friendly choices for movie night at our house. It can be a chore to figure out what all ages will agree on at this stage of life, our range is 7 to 13 years old. We tried to vary it up enough, so that one kid doesn’t dominate the decision. Here’s what we came up with…
5. Intermittent Fast (IF) on Mondays. This one has been easier to implement, since Ryan is doing this every day. My schedule of choice is to stop eating on Sundays at 8pm and not eat again until Mondays at noon (16:8 ratio). It feels good to give my body a digestive break and start my week off with energy. It seems counterintuitive to have more energy without feeding your body, but I have found that I have more mental focus and clarity! (Disclaimer: I am not a doctor nor do I assume to know what is best for your body. Please do not attempt to follow my advice, but rather seek a professional and/or do your own research on this topic).
6. Reset: Workout and Laundry Habits. Well, this is where the wheels fall off! It’s safe to say I averaged doing each of these about once a week. Kids/researchingwebsite/dishes/cleaning/homework/ after school activities/hosting/dinner/dishes. It all just added up in January, and pushed these two aside. As much as I love working out and NEED to do laundry, these were the ones that fell off the priority list.
I came up with a different game plan as I was reading The C.H.A.O.S. Cure, as it pertains to developing and sustaining new habits. This new game plan is to apply a solution of practicing one habit a month. It was a bit ambitious to incorporate two big goals at the same time, especially since I loathe one of them (laundry). In this book, the author mapped out ONE habit per month. That way, once a month I’m only committing to one task for 30 days at a time. For example, January – Declutter; February – Move my body; March – Organize; April – Do a load of laundry each day…and so on. My goal is to develop routines that would bring order to my home life, where I can eventually be on autopilot and not have to think about what to do next. That way, my mind can focus more actively on other things!
That being said, February’s list is…
1. Sign kids up for activities that support their 2022 goal.
2. Schedule a few winter activities from our Winter Activities list.
3. Clean out our master closet and linen closet. I’ve been avoiding this for quite some time, knowing full-well that once it’s done, I will feel much more at ease each morning and evening.
4. Implement monthly movie night list. I’ll let you know how this goes and if it makes the movie-choosing process smoother!
5. Keep up with IF. I know that Ryan feels supported by me continuing to incorporate this into my weekly routine.
6. Move my body each day. I’m prioritizing this one because we have an upcoming ski trip next month, and I don’t want to be so sore I can’t enjoy it!
If you follow me on instagram, I’m asking a few questions today on stories… “What is your favorite book/novel to read-aloud with your kids?” My sister-in-law is going through A Wrinkle in Time, so I may check that out! Second question is…”What are your February goals?”. Either comment below or answer over on stories, I’d love to get some fresh ideas!
Happy Wednesday! xoxo
