2017 Goals

Resolution: A firm decision to do or not to do something

• The Dictionary

Goal: The object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result

• The Dictionary

I’m not a fan of resolutions in the New Year, but bring on the goals. Resolutions seem so stiff and unwavering, whereas goals are more fluid and attainable in my own opinion. Goals are definite, but the path is more enjoyable (in my opinion).

2017 is here, and it’s going to be an amazing year. We say that every year, and every year we are correct. 2016 was a year with so many beautiful moments, amazing memories, and unforgettable changes in our lives. It was a good year, but it was also one of our more challenging years in terms of family. There was death, there was illness, and our twins turned two in March.

If those three things don’t scream “awful,” nothing does.

We’re happy to say that the year brought with it so many lovely things, too. Illnesses were overcome, surgeries were successful, and lots of baby news came for those closest to us (not us!!!). My husband was offered the job of his dreams, and he left the career he had for 15 years to pursue his dreams, which meant going from working in an office 45-minutes away to working from home full-time (which, in turn, made him appreciate me and the fact that I’ve been working from home for 8 years even more than he already did!). We know 2017 is going to be amazing, because we’ve made some serious goals (and the twins turn 3 and will start school).

That said, I like a goal. I like making goals in the New Year because it’s fresh. It’s a new beginning, and it’s so easy to make new goals. We close out a business year, which means we get to see how we did in the current year so we can make changes for the following year. We enter into a new year filled with upcoming birthdays and holidays, vacations, and change; and we love it.

2017 is a year of personal and business growth in our family, and my husband and I sat down before the year ended to make a list of goals for our family in the New Year so we can be better than ever. I thought I’d share those with you, to help you see where we come from, how we work, and to let you into our personal lives just a little.

Goal Number One: Slow Down

We are busy. We have a competitive cheerleader, two little gymnasts, and 2-year-old twins. I have a business that allows me to travel often, we have a super close group of friends with whom we travel and enjoy many traditions every year. We have family in several states we love to visit each year on top of that, and we are Disney annual passholders with four kids who love Magic Kingdom a lot. We are never home.

We are tired. We are tired of being busy every weekend, every night, and every day. We are tired of living in our dream house, only to not feel we have any time to enjoy it. We want to slow down, to spend more time doing meaningful things instead of rushing from point A to point B every time we turn around. We want more time at home, more time to just relax, and more time to make spontaneous decisions rather than looking ahead six to eight weeks in our calendars to schedule a day to stay home and relax. This leads me into…

…Goal Number Two: Be More Health-Conscious

We eat well, I hit the gym 5 to 6 days a week every single week, and we are active. We take care of ourselves in terms of getting plenty of exercise, eating healthy, and spending time outside, but we don’t spend enough time resting. I don’t get sick. In 2016, I was sick so often that I thought there might be something seriously wrong with me. I was diagnosed with conjunctivitis several times (ew), double ear infections, head colds, stomach viruses, and the common cold. I had everything you could imagine, and my doctor told me I have to slow down because I’m run down. I know I am; I can feel it. There’s so much to do, so many little humans who need us, and so few hours in the day. I don’t know how to slow down, but I do know that we have to try this year because our health is affected by our lack of rest. This year, we slow down and we rest when our bodies tell us it’s time.

Goal Three: Spend More Meaningful Time with the Kids

With four kids and a busy schedule, meaningful time isn’t always possible. This year, my husband and I made it a goal to spend more meaningful time with the kids. We travel a lot with them, and we take them to Disney a few times a month, and we attend weekend events all the time. However, they’re geared more towards letting the kids play together while the adults spend time together, and we don’t really interact with our kids much during those outings. We miss them, and we want more meaningful time together. Our goal is to spend at three nights per week doing something fun with the big girls when the twins go to bed. So far we’ve had board game fun, a movie night, and we took them to see Sing (super cute, by the way). We want to take them outside and ride bikes with them, take them on the golf cart around the neighborhood more often, and play ball in the yard. Simple, but meaningful.

Goals Four: Do More Home Improvements

When the twins were born, we needed a new house. We needed more space, more bedrooms to accommodate our family of 6, and more bathrooms – and a bigger garage for a much larger car! It’s kind of a long story, so I’ll shorten it up. We wanted more than we could fit on the lot we purchased on which to build. Easements, restrictions, and property lines were giving us a run for our money, and each time we came up with a blueprint it had to be changed. As we were upset, struggling with how to make what we wanted work without sacrificing everything we loved most, my husband found our dream house in our dream neighborhood for sale – in our price range.

It was a foreclosure, listed at less than half the value of the home. We jumped on it, put in an offer that day, and we moved in six weeks later. The house isn’t old by any means, but it’s been vacant for years. Our corner lot is over an acre, but it was so overgrown and it was never properly cleared, so you couldn’t even see our house from either street. The bank painted the walls a lovely color, but it’s matte (which, if you know anything about paint, means anything that touches it stays forever and cannot be cleaned off – bad news with humans living in a house). Everything was taken from the house, so the bank traveled back in time to 1970 and found new cabinets, countertops, toilets, and other details to replace everything. Y’all, some of our kitchen cabinets were stained with two coats and some with only one. It was so bad.

We had all the big stuff done immediately – lot cleared, granite installed in all the bathrooms and the kitchen, painted, and replaced light fixtures and door handles – except the front door handle, which barely opens…but we never use that door so we always forget! We’ve since tackled painting our kitchen and bathroom cabinets white, but we have a huge deck and pergola that needs minor repairs and it needs to be stained and cleaned, we need to repaint upstairs, and we need to do several other things around the house to get it to the point it’s perfect. This year, we will make time to do those things.

Goal Five: Grow in Grace

Grace is something I need more of. I’m married to a man who is so patient and kind, he might just be a saint (ask anyone who knows him). I, on the other hand, have no patients, a slight temper, and no sympathy for people who make poor decisions or cause their own issues. I would like to work on growing in grace this year. I want to focus less on trying to make everything perfect all the time, and I’d like to offer myself more grace and more patience.

This year is something I’m so excited about. My blog is up and running, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for myself for so long but never found the time for, and so many lovely things are happening in our lives. Our twins turn three in March, and that’s something I cannot wait for. They start school soon, so they’re going to grow and change, and we’re going to have more focused time to work so we can focus more on the kids when we’re done. I’m excited, and I hope you are as excited for the New Year as I! I’d love to hear your goals, resolutions, or plans for 2017. Leave a comment below…I hope to be inspired by your goals to create more of my own!