Hello 2024! I guess I’m a little behind, but I prefer to let the new year sink in a bit before I dive into goals and aims for a new year. There is always room for improvement, but it’s been fun to reflect on this list and see where I grew, things that really didn’t matter all that much to me after all, and things I still need/want to work on. I’m sharing my reflection of each item on my ’23 List in italics below each aim.
Reviewing My 23 for 2023 List
(in no particular order)
1. Find WAYS to Make My Kids Laugh More
I’ve decided I need to be more child-like. Life is too short, and I’m far too serious with my kids a lot of the time. Why? I don’t know. I think I am trying to hold the line on parenthood and don’t want to let my guard down. haha! And, I’m tired… it’s hard to be funny and have fun when you’re just so sleepy. But, they’re only kids for so long and I want more memories of them laughing at/with me! And, if they’re laughing more, I hope I’m laughing more, too.
Hmmmm…. I feel like we all laughed more in 2023. This isn’t a very tangible/recordable task, so it’s hard to really gauge its effectiveness. Overall, I think I made more of an effort to meet my kids where they are, experience things their interested in, and generally find joy in being a child again.
2. 30 new blog posts
I absolutely tanked this last year. I had 10 new posts. I’m keep this just the same because I know I can do it. I just need to, you know, DO IT!
Ugh. This one always gets me. Clearly, I have a hard time prioritizing this. So, in 2024, I either need to figure out why I don’t prioritize the blog and reevaluate, or I need to change/remove the goal. I’ve reflected a bit this January on how I feel about my blog and what, if anything, I want to do with my blog moving forward.
3. 2,000 IG followers/Email List Growth/150 Pinterest Followers
I really just want to refocus my efforts on my blog growth. Instagram has become a major time-suck. I really enjoy it, but if I want to actually grow my blog, I need to re-prioritize things. Unfortunately, all of these things are pieces of the bigger, more successful picture, so I need to figure out a better balance between them all. I think these are good aims to help me get there.
I didn’t hit the mark for IG this year, but I did grow and ended just under 1,500 followers. My email list did grow, and I am over 200 followers on Pinterest, so overall, I feel like progress was made here. I still need to reevaluate how I spend my time, and determine how I want to move forward with my blog and social media presence.
4. Vigorous Exercise 3 times a week
I hope to be more active this year, but I know that my overall well-being needs vigorous exercise more regularly to help me function better – mentally, emotionally, physically. I want to get a good sweat session in three times a week, and then lighter exercise 1-2 other times.
We got our rower in January of 2023, and I used it fairly consistently. In the warmer months I did slow down a bit, but in the second half of the year I really started buckling down and using it consistently again. My goal was to row three time a week, and I definitely go there and more by the end of the year. I am really enjoying rowing, and it provides a great vigorous workout while still remaining low impact. I will definitely carry this into 2024!
5. Read 12 Books
I love to read. Really, I do. But, I am just not consistent about it. I also have a hard time putting a book down once I start, so that causes problems in other aspects of my life. LOL I just want to gain more consistency here and get lost in 12 good books this year! I should also note that this needs to be adult books, I probably read 500 children’s picture books in a year… I need something a big more mature, ya know?!
Yay! A goal I met and exceeded! I had so much fun reading last year. I believe I ended the year with 20 books! So many good ones. I also joined a book club at our local library in the last quarter of the year. That has been fun and motivational, too. This is another one I’ll continue in 2024.
6. Get INto the Habit of Walking
I love to walk outside. I want to become disciplined in walking more, in all seasons (within reason).
I did do some walking in 2023! In fact, I walked 53.84 dedicated “outdoor walk” miles. I was not very consistent about it, so there’s room for improvement. But, I’m glad I actually took the time to go into my fitness tracker and see how much I’d walked. It was better than I remembered. I find it hard to balance two different workout types… I ended up prioritizing rowing workouts, especially during colder months. I’ll consider better planning and a better balance of the two in 2024.
7. Declutter 2023 items from our household
Two years ago I purged 1,000 items from our home. Now that renovations are done, and our storage room is getting full/organized again, I know it’s time to get rid of a ton more! I’m hoping to have a big garage sale this spring to off-load a bunch instead of spending time listing on marketplace. The trick is remembering to track things!
I did not have a tracker in 2023 to keep good tabs on this. However, I did have a big garage sale in September 2023, and I got rid of so much stuff, you guys. My goal was to make $500 from that, and I exceeded that when all was said and done! Plus, I’m assuming I was in the realm of 2,023 items because I have about 15 totes cleared out just from selling/donating things last fall. It’s wild! Garage sales are a bit of work, but I find them to be fun and a great way to make a bit of money and feel like you’re not just sending things to the dump or another pile for donation centers. Anyway, I feel really good about this one, and I’ll continue on the decluttering journey… because it never really ends!
8. One-on-one dates with each kid, each quarter
Now that Emmett is older, I think this is much more doable. I’m keeping this from last year because we weren’t great at it.
Boo. LOL I don’t really think we did a good job of this. I’m not getting to worked up about it though because I think we do a great job of spending quality time with each kid regularly. It’s just not a big to-do, and often times goes unnoticed because we’re just doing it, ya know? We also had two awesome, awesome family vacations in 2023 – spring break in the Wisconsin Dells and summer vacation in Michigan – so we’re doing okay. I’m not sure I’ll keep this on my list for 2024… we’ll see.
9. 1 date with Eric every month
Doing it again! We had some really fun dates last year, and I want to keep that momentum going.
Maybe 2024 will be the year?! LOL Man, child-rearing and marriage is a tough balance, right? We did have some great dates, but nothing as consistent as I’d like.
10. Fill our walls with family photos and art that I love (order, frame, and PUT UP!)
I don’t know why this is so hard for me. I think it’s putting holes in the walls for fear that I get measurements wrong. Haha! How silly! I did make progress in this area last year, but I’m keeping it so that I continue the momentum!
I have some projects that I’d like to complete for this one! I did get more photos and artwork up last year, but I want more. I have a couple of ideas that I’ll add to my list for 2024 for this one!
11. 3 Family-Focused Trips
I am SO excited for these. We have dubbed this the year-of-family-time since we’re not taking on any new major house projects, and I’m so excited to go on adventures with the kids! A spring break trip is booked, and I hope to do a trip in the summer, and maybe another in the fall or a camping trip or two. We shall see!
2023 was a fantastic year for family vacations. We had two excellent family trips that the kids still talk about to this day. One was the Wisconsin Dells for spring break. We stayed at the Wilderness Resort and it was a perfect week! You can read all about our trip here! The other trip we took was our summer vacation to Michigan. It was also one for the memory books. We went with my parents and visited some other family over there, too.
We did take a great third trip, but it was just for Eric and I’s 10 year anniversary! We ended up going out to explore Sedona, Arizona in October. It was lovely, and we had a great time reconnecting and exploring together.
In 2024, we’ll be doing some camping here locally and we cannot wait!
12. Figure out better photo/keepsake management and memory keepsakes (photo books? File system for kids items?)
I actually got a good chunk of this one done in 2022 – each kiddo has their own tote for important papers and keepsakes. I want to take that a step further and get our photos organized. Eric is actually getting this one figured out for us by using a hard drive to house all of our photos/videos. This way, we can off-load easily, and then find what we need quickly and efficiently.
I’m excited to maybe start getting yearly photo books printed for each of the kids or maybe a yearly family album? The only other thing I need to do here is designate another tote to each kid that will house their bulkier, more tangible items. Things like their coming-home outfit, favorite stuffies, etc. This will be really easy to put together, I just need to make it happen.
I did get a Memory Tote made for each kid last year, and it feels good to have a dedicated home for those important keepsake items. I’m still using their other “important papers” totes for school keepsakes, cards, pregnancy keepsakes, etc. Those two things are working, so we’ll continue using those.
Eric did have a hard drive system in place for our photo/video storage, but here actually upgraded us again to iCloud over Christmas break. I have to say, this is absolutely the way to go if you are an Apple user. It’s taken nearly a full week to get our inventory of photos and videos loaded onto the cloud. But now that that’s done, we can literally grab any photo from nearly any point in our life in an instant. And, there’s no more backing up (unless we want to on a hard drive) and it’s there across all devices. This will be a major game changer for our family, as well as for us as content/video creators. This is a $10 paid subscription, and we believe this will be the way of the future for digital storage.
Lastly, I do want to start doing yearly photo albums for our family. I’d love to also do one for each kid, but I don’t know that I have the capacity to do both. We’ll see!
13. 1,000 hours outside!
So, I’m not sure how this one will go, but I have good intentions of making it happen. I love to follow 1,000 Hours Outside on IG! I need to print out a tracker from 1,000 Hours Outside, so we can get a bit more motivated. We’ll have our work cut out for us here, but we’re all better off spending more time outside than inside.
You know me, spending time in the outdoors is a big piece of my SAHM journey – both for myself and the kids. I prioritize time in the outdoors as a family because I believe in the benefits so strongly. I did not track for the 1,000 hours last year. I have already downloaded the app for 2024 and have started tracking in there. We also printed off the tracker, and that’s been fun to color as we go for the kids.
14. Plant a Cutting Garden
I’ve never been so excited for spring! Since getting most of our landscaping done last year, I’m so excited to see how things look in full bloom in 2023. With that, I’d like to plant a cutting garden in 2023! I think it’ll be fun and new and something I’ve never done.
Technically, I did this! I planted Zinnias and sunflowers last summer. It didn’t go quite like I’d planned, but I suppose that’s how most things go the first time out. I learned a lot and will be doing some this year, too!
15. DIY 5 projects by myself
I did this last year, and I’ll do it again this year!
Um… I think you could say that the boys’ room refresh last January, and my flower bed work could count for as DIY projects. I don’t think I ended up doing much more than that. I’d love to get some more projects done this year!
16. Learn something new
I’m really just putting this here because I’m having a brain fart, but it’s always good to learn something new! Can’t wait to see what this is for me. Haha!
Gosh, I actually love that I put this on here without much thought. I actually learned a few new things last year. Rowing was a new skill I’ve developed and have grown to love it so much!
I also learned a lot about putting on a Gala fundraiser! I am heavily involved in putting this on annually for our school’s Education Foundation, and I love that I got to use my marketing/event planning skills to help get this launched. It was so fun!
I also was enlightened last year about local elections, and I participated more to learn about how our school board works. These are fascinating processes right in your local community, and it’s been interesting to dig a littler deeper in those areas.
Something else I tried for the first time this year was setting up my Parks + Picnics Program through my Homegrown with Grace following. It was so fun to gather face-to-face with many of my followers here in Central Iowa! You can learn more about this here. I’ll be gearing up for this year’s program in March!
17. Save for Phase 2 of House Renovations
This will be our main financial goal for 2023. We have future plans for our home, and we want to be able to cash flow as much as possible. Therefore, we’ve made the decision to take this year off of all major house projects and instead focus on family time and saving for the future.
Taking last year off from major house projects was really good for our family. We did work on saving, but we made the decision to invest in a new work vehicle for Eric so that he can continue to grow his videography business. We’ll continue to save and prioritize getting plans in place for our large renovation.
18. 12 Months, 12 Spaces, $200
I’ve had this idea on my mind for a while now. I’ll make punch lists for 12 areas of our home that are 95% done, and focus on one a month. I’ve given myself a $200 budget to finish that final 5% of tasks to actually finish the space! I’ll be blogging more about this concept, but I think it’ll also provide great content for the blog/IG.
Boy, this one really started with a bang with the boys’ bedroom refresh (which I still adore!), but it kind of fell flat after the spring. I spent the spring months mulching and finishing out our flower beds, so I did get all of that accomplished. I just didn’t do a great job of documenting for the blog like I did for the boys’ room. I still have punch lists for spaces in our house, so maybe we’ll tackle some more of those in 2024!
19. Meet with a fellow blogger/IG Friend
I’ve got a few people I need to do this with in 2023. It’s always great to have peers and mentors in your field that you can reach out to, and I hope to build more relationships in-person this year!
I did not meet with a fellow blogger in 2023. I’ll keep this one, or potentially consider another relationship of value for building an on-line presence and blog.
20. Practice Daily Routines for Myself
As I mentioned above while discussing my word of the year, I do a great job of giving the kids structure and routine, but I’ve lost it for myself. I want to build my own routines and structure back into my day-to-day living.
I got better about this in 2023. It’s not rigidly consistent, but I’m finally finding it easier to stick to a routine because the kids are older and are more predictable! yay!
21. Try a new recipe each month
Gosh, I really enjoyed this one last year. Looking forward to trying new recipes in 2023!
This is a fun one that I enjoy doing. I did not track this as well as I did in 2022, but I know that I did try new recipes throughout the year. One of my favorite new recipes is this butterscotch bars! They are heavenly. I hope to continue this in 2024 because I really enjoy cooking for my fam when I make the time for it.
22. plant a Small Vegetable Garden
We’ve done a garden about every other year here. This year, though, all three kids will be old enough to really take part in the process. So I think we’ve got to give it another go! BUT, one thing I’ve learned is to keep it small, manageable.
We did keep our vegetable garden very manageable in 2023, and that was so nice! we just did a couple of tomato plants, a cucumber plant, and we have our asparagus and strawberries well-established. Looking forward to the 2024 growing season already!
23. Invite People INto Our Home MOre Often
We’ve been so deep in the trenches of parenthood and house renovations, and I’ve missed inviting people into our home. Whether it’s family, friends, neighbors, etc. I love having people in my home. I love visiting about life with people. It’s one of life’s greatest gifts to connect and break bread with others, and I hope to have a home that makes people feel welcome and comfortable.
We definitely made progress here! We were able to host each of the kids’ birthday parties at our home. We also hosted what’s become our annual Memorial Day picnic with friends. We had 21 kids attend this year! It was wildly fun to see so many friends we often only see one time a year and have their whole family there, too.
I’d like to take this one a bit further by inviting people into our home more spontaneously and in smaller doses, as opposed to more formal occasions like birthday parties/events. I want to get comfortable hosting more informally!
How did your 2023 go? Did you make progress in what matters to you?
I’d love to hear if you do a similar list as you plan your year, or if you’re more of a traditional resolution maker? Leave a comment below. Keep an eye out for my 24 for 2024 List! I’m working on that one next! Whether you make a list or not, I hope you have a fantastic year doing things you love!
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