Monthly Goals : September 2026

I always say that I can't believe it's [insert month here] already, but it does feel like time flies, and I really CAN'T believe it's already September! At least I'm consistent with my disbelief? 😂

Let's do a quick recap of my April Goals (the last month of goals I've posted...oops!). My goals were:

1. Put away winter clothes and shoes - I've kind of done this. We are in consignment prep mode for a big sale coming up, so I've been getting the winter clothes and shoes that she's outgrown together. That's been helping clear out her closet, but I'm embarrassed to say that she has piles of clothes everywhere in the house - winter and summer gear - we're a hot mess! I pulled most of my winter clothes out of my closet and put in a bin, but that bin has been living in our bedroom floor all summer. I really, really, really need a better system for switching over our clothes...or fewer clothes, like my husband!

2. Declutter and deep clean kitchen - I didn't do this. I cleared out our pantry over the summer, and the kitchen was next on the list, but I never quite made it there. Plus, now the pantry is a mess again! Ugh!

3. Work on daughter's room makeover - I worked on this a little bit but not nearly to the extent I thought I would. Just riding the struggle bus lately!

4. Put together daughter's trampoline - We did this! Okay, my husband did it, and he did it in August instead of April, but it's still done, minus the safety net around it, but we'll count this one as a win!

5. Read 12 books - I read 6, which isn't terrible but not quite enough to keep me on track for that month!

Now, onto this month's goals!

1. Clear off dining room table

Every flat surface in this house has piles on it, but the dining room table is particularly bad. I need to excavate it and get it cleared off and cleaned off so that we can actually start eating at it again and so Char can do her homework there if I don't get her desk put together this month, which bring me to goal number 2...

2. Work on daughter's room makeover

She has been so patient with us, but I feel bad that we haven't made much progress on this. If I can get it cleaned out and the unused furniture moved out this month, that would be good progress. Bonus goal - get her desk put together!

3. Do one of my craft or art projects

I have a diamond painting my husband got me for my birthday, Lego plants he got me for another occasion (Valentine's maybe?), bracelet making supplies, coloring and puzzle books, sticker by number books, and bedazzling supplies, and yet my screen time is abysmal. I really want to spend less time scrolling and wasting time online and stretch some of my creative muscles. So in September, I want to complete one of the projects or spend significant time working on one of the other projects. 

4. Find a cleaning schedule or cleaning inspiration that works for my brain

I know that some people don't need a cleaning schedule or suggestions for when to do certain tasks, but that's not how my brain works! I need at least a loose schedule of when certain things need to be done so that I can check tasks off a list and not wonder when the last time I've done something was. We also need to majorly declutter, so I hope that having cleaning inspiration will help on that side too. I'm looking into the index card system that's going around social media right now. I actually have the book it was inspired by (Sidetracked Home Executives) somewhere and need to find it!

5. Spend at least an hour per week working on courses

I have purchased some courses to help with gaining some new skills and changing career paths, but I have a bad habit of buying them and letting them gather dust (virtual dust of course, since they're online courses). Along with pursuing some creative outlets, I'm going to carve out at least an hour per week to work on these courses and see if I can get some trajectory making some long overdue changes!

6. Read at least 18 books

My reading goal this year is 150 books, and I've read 80 books so far. 70 books divided by the 4 months left this year is 17.5 books per month, so I went ahead and rounded it up to 18 books. I'm currently juggling a couple of audiobooks, a book with our daughter every night, and a couple that I'm reading, so I'm off to a good start for the month, and once again, if I spend less time scrolling, that's more reading time! Plus, I can listen to books while I do creative stuff - two goals in one! 

7. Decorate for fall

I used to decorate for different seasons/holidays, but I got out of that habit at some point. I miss it because it always gave me a little extra joy to switch the decor and see the things that I only get to see once a year. Plus, I feel like it makes use of things we've bought in the past, rather than letting them gather dust in the garage and basement, so this month, I'm busting the fall decor back out and bringing some fall whimsy into our home!

I have some fitness, finance, and other reading goals, but I'll put those on my other blogs and platforms (that I should share here at some point but one thing at a time!). What are your September goals? Share them below so I can cheer you on! 

Monthly Goals : April 2026

Somehow I blinked and it's already April! I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging regularly, so let's kick things off this month with some monthly goals!

1. Put away winter clothes and shoes

Even though we have some chilly mornings in the forecast, I'm hopeful that winter is over around here (especially after the ice storm we had in January...that was rough!!). Our daughter and I have a ton of winter clothes and shoes - both things that fit and things we've outgrown - so I need to clear up the winter stuff so that we're not sifting through those things this spring and summer!

2. Declutter and deep clean kitchen

Quite frankly, our entire house needs to be decluttered and deep cleaned. We are drowning in stuff!! I thought starting with the kitchen would be a quicker win than some of the bigger rooms. It will also make our house look so much better because our kitchen is tiny and the counters are so full! Hopefully I'll document the process and share here!

3. Work on our daughter's room makeover

Our daughter turns 10 this month, and we've decided instead of more toys or things to clutter the house, we're going to give her a bedroom and playroom makeover. The playroom makeover will just be decluttering and rearranging some things, but the bedroom makeover will be a little more detailed. She wants to repaint her room, get a new desk chair, and get a rug. We also need to move some unused furniture out of her room. She has some posters she's gotten at various Book Fairs, so we need to hang those in one of the rooms too - probably the playroom. We may not finish everything this month, but I think we can make good progress!

4. Put together our daughter's trampoline

I hate to admit this, but we got it for her birthday last year. My husband and I have been procrastinating on putting it together (understatement of the century), and she has been really patient, so it's time for us to get our act together and get this done!

5. Read 12 books

I want to read 150 books this year. I've read 46 so far, so to stay on track to finish my goal, I need to read 11.5 books this month. I'm just going to round it up to 12! 

I have a few other goals related to finances and fitness, but this is a good number for my personal goals this month. What are your April goals? Share them below so I can cheer you on!

Monthly Goals : February 2025

Happy 2025! I didn't intend to not write at all in January, but between snow days, sickness, and just settling back into the routine of life, things got away from me! Let's see if I can stay on track!

 It's the first Friday of the month, so it's time for some new monthly goals! 

December recap

I missed doing this recap in January, so here's how I did with my December goals!

1. Read 3 (or more!) books - Yes! I can't remember my exact number, but I hit my reading goal for the year!

2. Implement a weekday - and weekend bedtime - Failed on this one so hard! I think I need to revisit this one!

3. Deep clean/declutter living room - Another fail!

4. Finish Charli's clothes and shoes and move at least one furniture piece out of her room - I finished hanging all of her winter clothes and swapping out some of her shoes but didn't move the furniture piece out. Boo!

5. Blog and social media schedules - I stalled out on this one. Dang!

6. Stick to our budget and spending/income trackers - I did okay on this one but stopped tracking towards the end of the month during the holidays. 

7. Find one new quick dinner recipe and actually make it - Didn't do this one either

8. Make Charli's eye appointment - Yes! Done and we have a follow up appointment next month!

9. Order new glasses - Yes! Two pairs and sunglasses! I'll have to share pictures soon!

10. Schedule a donation pickup - I didn't do this one yet but want to wait until we have more to give. I hate having them come to our house for just one bag of items!

February goals

There are some repeats for this month too! Maybe this will be my month for some of these!

1. Read 13 (or more!) books 

My goal for this year is to read 150 books! To do that, I need to read 12.5 books per month, so I'm going to round up to 13 just to make it easier to track!

2. Implement a weekday - and weekend - bedtime

I'm so bad about staying up too late, and then I drag through my days. I really need to work on this! That's what I wrote when I originally made that goal, but it still stands!

3. Deep clean/declutter living room

It's such a mess, and it makes our house feel chaotic as soon as you walk in. There's a lot of decluttering work we need to do, but this is my starting point. 

4. Finish Charli's clothes and shoes and move at least one furniture piece out of her room

It's consignment season, so I should be able to get all of the too small spring/summer stuff out for selling and see what else I need to swap around...just in time to start phasing out winter clothes and boots next month! 

The first furniture piece I'm going to move out is a small entertainment stand that has piles of toys, clothes, and who knows what else on it! I'll either donate it or just put it on a local buy nothing group!

5. Blog and social media schedules

I have a lot of this listed in a document, but I printed some schedule templates that I need to fill in so that everything is in one place, and I can check things off as I write and post!

6. Stick to our budget and spending/income trackers

I slacked on this a lot in January, but I have some financial and career goals, so I need to get on top of these so that I can make progress on those goals!

7. Find one new quick dinner recipe and actually make it!

I think I'm going to find a slow cooker meal to do, especially since next week is supposed to be cold and rainy!

8. Schedule a donation pickup

I've got a full black trash bag of items, plus I'll have that entertainment stand from Charli's room, and I'm sure as I work through consignment stuff, I'll come across more items that are still in decent shape but not pristine enough to sell.

9. Gather/hang up consignment stuff and start inputting them into the system

The two consignment sales I'm participating in have March drop off dates. If I at least get everything gathered and hung up and start inputting items into the systems, I'll be in decent shape in March and should just have to print and place tags. I'm usually doing everything the day before the drop off days, so I'll be doing really well this time!

10. Schedule an oil change for both cars

My car isn't overdue because I don't drive very far, but it's had an issue with running out of oil without warning before, so I'm trying to stay on top of the oil changes! My husband has a longer drive for his job, so we need to keep his running smoothly also! The oil changes may not happen this month, but I can at least get them scheduled!

Hopefully I'll do better this month than I did in December! 

I'd love to hear any goals any of you have this month!

Monthly Goals : December 2024

 It's the first Friday of the month, so it's time for some new monthly goals!

November recap

Before I dive into my new goals, let's see how I did with my November goals!

1. Read 8 (or more!) books - Yes! I read 12 books in November, so that takes me to 97 for the year! Just 3 more to go!!

2. Start tracking my food again - I started the month strong, but I stopped tracking a few days into November. Oops!

3. Implement a weekday - and weekend - bedtime - Huge fail. I didn't do this at all!

4. Deep clean/declutter living room - Huge fail here too! I started this and then completely stopped working on it! 

5. Switch out Charli's summer and winter clothes and shoes - I'm almost completely finished with this one! I've got all of our her winter clothes hanging in her closet and her boots/closed toe shoes are near her shoe rack. I've still got to sort through some summer clothes and shoes to see if we're saving them for next year or putting them in the consignment pile. 

6. Blog and social media schedules - I did a little bit of scheduling but still have some work to do here

7. Stick to our budget and spending/income trackers - We did okay with this one. I got behind on tracking our spending and a couple of other things, so we definitely have room for improvement!

8. Find one new quick dinner recipe - I found several but didn't make any of them, so this one was half complete.

9. Make Charli's eye appointment - Fail - didn't do!

10. Order new glasses - Also a fail! I'm having a hard time choosing a color/style!

December goals

I'm going to have a lot of repeat goals on here! There are a few that I'm not attempting this month because I know I'll fail with all of the holiday activities, but those might make a reappearance next month!

1. Read 3 (or more!) books 

This shouldn't be any problem! I'm going to hit my yearly goal!

2. Implement a weekday - and weekend - bedtime

I'm so bad about staying up too late, and then I drag through my days. I really need to work on this!

3. Deep clean/declutter living room

It's such a mess!!

4. Finish Charli's clothes and shoes and move at least one furniture piece out of her room

I think finishing her clothes and shoes won't take too long. Moving the furniture piece will be a little slower but she has so much furniture in her room that she doesn't use, and it's taking up floor space that she could use to play in!

5. Blog and social media schedules

I've gotten a good start on these, but I want to set up all of my 2025 schedules!

6. Stick to our budget and spending/income trackers

Let's see if I do better with this one this month!

7. Find one new quick dinner recipe and actually make it!

I've got a couple of ideas from things I've saved, so hopefully I'll actually make one this month!

8. Make Charli's eye appointment

I used to be able to make appointments through the app, so I think since I have to call and do it now, I put it off more!

9. Order new glasses

I need to just commit to a pair and get them! I'm squinting more and more, so I need to be able to see better!

10. Schedule a donation pickup

This isn't urgent, but I didn't want to have an odd number of goals!

Phew, that seems like a lot! Hopefully I'll do better this month than I did last month! 

I'd love to hear any goals any of you have this month!

Monthly Goals : November 2024

Hello, November! I love a new month, and I love to set goals for new months. Unfortunately, I haven't set many goals lately, so it's time to start sharing goals publicly again and giving myself a little bit of external pressure to finish them! ;) 

November 2024 goals:

1. Read 8 (or more!) books

My goal for the year was to read 100 books, and I'm currently at 84 books, which leaves me 16 books for the rest of the year. So, if I read at least 8 books this month, and 8 books in December, I'll hit my goal!

2. Start tracking my food again

I don't necessarily want to dive into counting calories and macros and trying to lose weight this month, but I do want to at least start tracking my food again and being a little more aware of what I'm consuming, especially since we're heading into the holiday season, and there's a lot more junk food available. 

3. Implement a weekday - and weekend - bedtime

I'm such a night owl, and while I don't think it's terrible to stay up late during school/work breaks, I've found myself staying up later and later, even on work nights. I've been hitting snooze a lot more and am so rushed in the mornings, and I'm tired of doing that! My goal is going to be 10 PM on weeknights and midnight on weekend nights. 

4. Deep clean/declutter living room

This was a goal in January 2021, but I never finished it. Lately I've been really tired of how cluttered and messy our house is, so this seems like a good time to start taking steps to improve things. Plus, it will help us have space to start decorating for Christmas!

5. Switch out Charli's summer and winter clothes and shoes

Even though it's supposed to be in the 80s here next week, eventually it will get colder, so I need to finish switching out her summer and winter clothes and shoes. It's a tedious process because she has so many clothes and shoes, plus I have to put the things that don't fit somewhere that I'll remember when it's consignment time, but it has to be done!

6. Blog and social media schedules

I've got ideas for this blog and a couple of other blog and social media projects. I've started making schedules for everything, but I need to finish those so I can really get things rolling.

7. Stick to our budget and spending/income trackers

I started a new way of budgeting and tracking our incomes and spending last month, and it seemed to help. This month, I want to be more proactive about tracking our spending and making sure that we're sticking to the budget. 

8. Find one new quick dinner recipe

We've gotten really bad lately about getting fast food or eating frozen meals for dinner. I want to find one new quick dinner recipe for us starting this month and going until I've got a list of items that we can throw together to keep us out of the drive through and freezer section. I'll take any suggestions that anyone has!

9. Make Charli's eye appointment

I've been so behind on making her eye appointment since we had to cancel the last one when she was sick. I know she's overdue for it, but I'm so bad about calling and doing it, especially because I don't want her to miss school, and since her doctor only works at one location now, so we'd have to see another doctor. I need to just do it!

10. Order new glasses

Rounding out the month is a task that I've been needing to do since at least July. I've had my glasses since March 2020, and I'm so tired of them! I went to the eye doctor in July and got my updated prescription, but I haven't managed to order new glasses yet. I have decision paralysis because there are so many good options on so many sites! I may have to crowdsource to figure out my best option!

Ten goals may seem like a lot for the month, but a couple of them shouldn't take too long to complete, and a couple of the goals will be fun to do, so hopefully I don't overwhelm myself!

Do any of you make monthly goals? If so, I'd like to hear about them!

Monthly Goals : February 2021

Happy February! It's a new month, so it's time to revisit my January goals and set some new ones for February! 

First, let's see how I did with my January goals. If you don't remember them, I'll recap them here. If you want to read more about them, check out my post. 

My five goals for January were:

1. Read 13 books - Done! Look for a recap of allll of the books on the 9th.

2. Deep clean/declutter living room - Nope! I picked up a little bit, but I didn't do anything near what I wanted to do in there. 

3. Finish putting away Christmas decorations/items - Done! Plus, we even got some Valentine's Day decorations out. Look at us!

4. Lose 4-5 pounds - HUGE FAIL!! Not only did I fail on losing weight, but I actually gained weight this month! Ugh! We ate waaaay too much fast food and had too much coffee shop coffee, so I know that contributed. This was not a good start to my weight loss journey!

5. Determine where we stand financially - Half credit for this one. I still don't have the exact amount of debt we owe figured out, but we have made a budget and got everything caught up, which was a nice feeling!

January progress 2.5 out of 5 goals. Not perfect but some beats none, right? Onto February's goals!

February 2021 goals:

1. Read 13 books 

This one will be a repeating goal and hopefully an easy win each month!

2. Deep clean/declutter dining room

I have a plan to do a room or area of the house each month this year, and February's room is the dining room. Since our dining room is fairly small, it shouldn't take long, and I should be able to revisit the living room, which I'm making goal 3...

3. Deep clean/declutter living room

Bringing this one from January. Ugh.

4. Lose 4-5 pounds

This one is a repeating goal too. Unfortunately losing 5 pounds will put me exactly where I started in January since I gained 5 pounds total last month. I really need to figure out my plan of attack for this one!

5. Blog calendar/clean up

I've written on here and on my old Wordpress blog about how I messed up the Wordpress blog and lost some content. I want to get all of the Wordpress stuff back here, which will be tedious but good when it's finished. I also need to finish filling out my blog post calendar for this one and my other blog so I will publish more consistently. I may not finish the clean up process this month, but I'd at least like to get it started!

6. Finish setting up my planner/goals/vision board

During the last couple of weeks of December, I was good about getting my planner set up, making a neat goals tracker for my planner, and gathering things for a vision board. Then, in January, I just sort of fizzled out before getting any of those things completed. I'd like to get them done before February is finished!

One extra goal this month, but that's okay (especially since it's from last month anyway...ha). I'm ready to make this month even more successful than last month!

How did you do with your January goals? Have you made your February goals yet? Let me know so I can cheer you on!

Monthly Goals : January 2021

Hello everyone! I won't go into my "thank goodness we made it through 2020" introduction (partially because I'm going to say it during my December Sentence a Day recap that'll be published tomorrow...ha!). 

I wanted to start out the year on my little online space by talking about my monthly goals. I know it sounds odd, but when I read other bloggers' monthly goal posts, I get inspired/motivated to work on goals of my own. I used to post about my own monthly goals but haven't done so in a while (and I can't find it on my messed up Wordpress blog to know the exact month), so I wanted to jump back into it. Hopefully by posting this, I'll not only inspire someone else to work on their goals, but I'll also give myself a little public "butt kicking" when I have to post my follow up next month and show how productive I have or haven't been!

January 2021 goals:

1. Read 13 books

I want to read 150 books this year. I have a couple of reading challenges I want to participate in (like Lauren and Lindsi's Read the Alphabet Challenge!) that will help me choose books to read this month. I'm already reading Anxious People as my A title! Half a book down - 12.5 more to go this month! 

2. Deep clean/declutter living room

Even though we were home basically 24/7 in 2020, our house is still a disaster area. I think that the uncertainty of 2020, plus our family's personal challenges made me shut down instead of being more productive. However, this year, I'm ready to change that! I've broken our house up into 12 rooms/areas so that I only need to focus on one per month. We'll still do all of the regular cleaning and home maintenance tasks that need to be done, but each month, we will really focus on that month's area and deep clean and declutter it. I decided to start with our living room since that's the first room you see when you come in our house, and I thought it would be nice to have a calm and clean space to come home to. We have a couple of flat surfaces in our living room that are dumping grounds for papers and random junk, so even just clearing those off will make a huge difference! Deep cleaning this space involves things like washing the curtains, cleaning the window tracks, and borrowing a rug cleaner in order to really freshen up the space. Those are things that we aren't doing consistently right now, so even doing them annually from now on will be an improvement.

(If you're a clean and organized person who does those things on a really regular basis, then I'd love to see your cleaning schedule. I probably won't follow it, but I'd like to know what else I need to work on improving!). 

A couple of pictures of our living room from last night. Yes, those are the Christmas decoration bins with things, such as decorations, planner stuff, and a few Christmas presents piled on top of them. Ugh. Also, the second picture is one of the two flat surfaces that is the catch all spot of doom. I know our letter board needs to be changed too. We're a hot mess around here...but not for much longer!

3. Finish putting away Christmas decorations/items

This one is the easiest goal of the month because I'm already almost finished with it! I figured I needed to put at least one guaranteed to finish goal on my list! I took our tree down yesterday (and the area where it was looks so empty and dark now), and all of our decorations are gathered in one spot to be put back into their bins. I see this one being finished this week! Phew!

4. Lose 4-5 pounds

I'm about 100 pounds over the weight I want to be at (and that's about 30 pounds more than the "suggested weight range" that BMI charts so helpfully provide people). I'm about 7 pounds heavier than I was when I gave birth to Char nearly five years ago. It's time for me to get serious about losing weight. However, I want it to be sustainable and realistic for me. I have jumped into restrictive eating plans in the past, and they have not been good for my mental health; obviously they haven't worked either, since I'm heavier than I've ever been! So, my new plan is to be slow, steady, and sustainable. This means that I'm looking at this 100 pound loss over the next couple of years. I may lose more quickly than that, but I'd rather exceed my slow goal than to set something unrealistic and fail spectacularly. 50 pounds in a year puts me needing to lose between 4 and 5 pounds per month or around a pound a week. Yeah, it's not glamorous or exciting like big, quick transformations are, but it's going to be what works for me. Also, I'm totally making a weight loss and rewards chart for my planner (nerd alert) so that I can stay motivated during this long process! I plan to talk about my weight loss plans more here, but I'm waiting to see if there is going to be a Wellness Weekend linkup this year or not so I know when to share!

 

Me in January 2015 (at my post 100 pounds weight loss goal weight) versus August 2019 (one of the most recent full-body pictures I had and probably around 10 pounds lighter than I am now). Also, I am wearing pants in that picture...they're not flattering, but they are there... 😂

5. Determine where we stand financially

I won't talk much about our finances or our debt free journey here since I have another blog dedicated to that, but I will say that we need to figure out what bills we are behind on, how much we are behind on them, and what our updated debt total is. Blah. This goal sucks, but it's a necessary evil. 

There you have it! I have a tendency to make really long to-do lists or think that I can accomplish 600 things in a week, and those thought patterns lead to failure. I'm going to keep my monthly goals between 3 and 7 items in order to make it realistic and manageable for myself. These aren't my only goals each month or for the year, but these are the ones that will help me achieve my bigger goals. For example, with my big goal of reading 150 books this year, I need to read 13 books per month to reach that goal. My goal of deep cleaning and decluttering our entire house can be done by the end of the year if I break it down to one space/area of the house per month. Plus, I can use the same room and area rotation next year to make sure we maintain a neat and clean home. 

Each thing I do monthly is another layer in achieving big goals, plus it helps me break it down into bite-sized pieces, rather than thinking, "I have to deep clean and declutter my whole house in a month, while I lose 50 pounds, and in between reading 150 books." Yeah, that may seem ridiculous to a lot of people, but my brain works that way! Also, you'll probably see some of these goals (like the books to read, decluttering, and weight loss ones) repeated each month. I'll try to mix it up a little with before, during, and after pictures, book reviews, etc, but it might get repetitive to read. Sorry in advance! However, life is repetitive sometimes, so maybe it will be good to see consistency. Possibly...

Do you make monthly goals? Share them with me so I can cheer you on!