Looking back at 2015 and ahead to 2016

I’ve been having fun reading everyone’s top 10 posts for the year, and how they did with the year, and looking back.  As I was enjoying everyone else’s posts I realized I wrote a goal post last year, and I really should look at how I did.

And I did, and was both happy and sad because as usually happens I wrote the goals and then promptly forgot my specifics.

So, let’s take a moment and look back at 2015 goals

Spiritual Goals

I completely forgot about my goal of writing all of the “I will” verses in Psalms, I made progress in reading Psalms, but for working on Psalms for 2 years I’m rather pathetically not done.  But I get about 2-3 chapters in and then it’s all emotional and angsty (I really don’t care spell check if you don’t think angsty is a word, it totally is, and so there), and I just can’t take it, and I start whining to anyone nearby.

I did transcribe all of 2 Timothy, and that showed up from time to time on my Instagram account, I want to do this again.

I didn’t write a Bible study, I had grand plans, but got distracted with other things

New GOALS

1. Read all of the Gospels with my church.  Our church is going through all 4 Gospels and “discussing it”  I get things done when I have to talk about it with others.
2. Transcribe/Illustrate another book of the Bible.  I don’t know which one, maybe an Old Testament prophet?  Though that gets back into poetry, and read my comments on Psalms…
3. Write my Bible study, or at least figure out what I want to do for it (every time I think about it my ideas get grander and grander, it’s quite ridiculous)

Parenting Goals

Parenting goals I did pretty well with.  I restarted one on one time, not weekly, but semi-weekly.  I read at least one of the parenting books, the others are somewhere in my house, and I have some idea of what makes me kids tick.

New GOALS

1. More intentional time spent with kids, we fritter time away so easily
2. More parenting books
3. Think ahead to parenting teens in the scarily near future

Homeschooling goals

As I reread what I wrote last year, I still need to learn what I wrote about not doing everything and knowing when to keep and when to throw out the schedule.

As to my goals, all of them are in progress, the kids have improved their writing and their typing, but it’s going to be our goals again for this year.  I did find a way to teach math that doesn’t drive Princess batty, and that was vital to me.

New GOALS

1. Continue to improve their writing, and for me to be more organized in how we work on this and grade it (I’ve fallen down on the organized aspect I wanted)
2. Find and consistently use a Latin and Italian curriculum (what Princess and Superman which to learn).
3. Reorganize our school room to accommodate the transition from lots of manipulatives to other materials needed.

Homemaking goals

Let’s see, I didn’t finish out the decluttering program I found, but I ended up finding something that worked better for me, but I am still making progress.  It’s slow, but it’s progress.  My room getting better is slowly happening, it helped when I cut my wardrobe in half.  Lunch is better….  Mainly because Jeff stepped in and said “The kids are eating sandwiches, and they can deal with it.” (That may have happened because I called him and threatened to give our kids away in a fit of frustration one day, and I only mildly exaggerate my frustration).

New GOALS

1. We are continuing our decluttering and organization.  I need to redo our pantry organziation and that’s my January project.  Right now we are rearranging the kids’ rooms and making a KIDDO room for all 3 kids (yes I am that insane).
2. Continue to teach the boys to cook (We semi-arbitrarily declared 10 to be the age for cooking dinner, which Princess is quite upset about).
3. Be more intentional with teaching Princess how to sew, and then start the boys on it.

Personal goals

Well I got pretty much all of those done, but they were almost all sewing projects.  The time more wisely……  I’ll pretend I did get that one done.

New GOALS

1. Read 1 nonfiction book a month.  This should be easily doable, I’ve got a few ideas in mind.
2. Write beyond this blog.  I’d love to write short stories or something like that.
3. Continue to sew down my fabric stash.  I’ve always got a longer list of projects I want to do than I have time for, so ideas are not the problem, it’s the time.

Blogging Goals

 

A lot of my goals here I attained.  I’ve figured out I dislike number goals because that’s not in my control, but I can control my actions.  So, here’s the actions I can control

1. Set up and create a newsletter.
2. Write an ebook and publish it (I’ve got like 20 ideas for this)
3. Finish updating my Bible category
4. Get 50% done updating my history category << these last two relate to updating with blog content
5. Create landing pages for homeschool history and homeschool geography similar to my Sunday School landing pages.

Well, that’s my crazy BIG goals for the year.  I think this year I need to either check back each month to see how I’m doing or print out this list because otherwise I will forget.

How do you make sure you achieve your goals?