Reflection & Rejuvenation: My Goals for March

[Oops! I wrote this a while ago but didn't realize that it never published. Sorry!]

It's a Saturday morning as I write this post. I just finished a 45-minute run around the lake while my family played at the dog park. Now they are out running errands as I sit on the back porch. The sun in shining, the sky is a brilliant blue, my bloodhound is sunbathing on the deck, and the quiet chirps of birds are all around. I am so grateful for this life! 

I had a great month. Some highlights from my month:

• I made a really good friend. This story is much longer than I can fit in right now, but basically I had an acquaintance that seemed like a kindred spirit, I told him I thought we would make great friends, and then I started calling him on the phone and having really deep conversations. Now we are close friends! 
• I worked with a colleague at work to come up with our 20-year plan for our organization. It involves serving 50,000 children in 20 years (15,000 in seats in 25 schools around the nation and another 35,000 in public schools being taught by teachers we trained) and creating more than 13,000,000 education reform touchpoints through resources downloaded from our website, tours, visitors, books sold, etc. 
• I presented at a national educational conference. 
• I officially became a person who exercises again (after a 5-year hiatus!).
• I finished reading a second book (my goal is to read at least one book a month).  
• I started writing my third book (you can find the first one here and the second one here).

Whoa. No wonder I felt busy this month. 

Let me check in on my goals for the year and month:

1. Start the year with the 21-day cleanse from Clean and work through a book about breaking the emotional eating habit. Done!
2. Eat more salads with dinner. Nope, I have not been doing this regularly.
3. Drink at least 80 ounces of water each day. Not really...
4. Run once on the weekend and once during the week. Yes! I've been doing this!
5. Go to yoga once a week. Yes! I've only missed one class since the start of 2016!
6. Cultivate a daily meditation and gratitude practice. Half and half. I've meditated about half of the nights. I've been forgetting to practice gratitude. I want to be sure to do this. I need to start doing it at the dinner table again.
7. Publish five six books.  I am working on this!
8. Clean and organize our house before the boys go to bed each night. Kind of!
9. Track our expenses in Mint.com daily so that we are able to hit our saving goals. Kind of!
10. Invite friends over monthly. Henry's birthday party will have to count!
11. Use my work time in the evening to clear out my inbox and do bigger-picture planning. Yes!
12. Take a trip with Matt. Still trying to figure out childcare for this one...
13. Go on a retreat by myself. I started planning it! I'll write an update in another post.
14. Reflect each month about how I'm doing toward these goals. Here I am!

2016 Family Goals

• Take a road trip to Oklahoma: Yes!
• Take a road trip to Dallas to see Kyla: We are getting it calendared!
• Read three chapter books: I need to check out the third one from the library.
• Read all the BOB books: Working on it....
• Go camping: Planned for March
• Volunteer: Yes! 
• Take more day trips to small Texas towns: Not yet.
• Hang out at the creek in the summer: Too cold! 

Goals for This Month

• Keep up with the salad, running, yoga, and water. 
• Work on my daily gratitude and meditation. 
• Find a graphic designer to design the cover of our first book (Sebrina, I tried e-mailing you about this! I'll try to reach you through Facebook).
• Finish the draft of for my most recent book idea. 
• Make serious forward momentum on our house projects: refinishing deck, hanging the children's art gallery, recovering the chair in the living room, finding a wall hanging for the big wall, getting more quotes for permanent deck railing.
• Finalize summer plans for Henry and Tate. 
• Book my personal retreat.
• Have an awesome Spring Break! 

On my run today, I saw a poster or some graffiti (I can't exactly remember since I was huffing and puffing) that said: "Live a great story." I'm looking forward to it! 

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