When I was outside this morning there was a nip in the air, the wind was blowing and some leaves were starting to turn. It definitely feels like fall is approaching. I love this time of year to start fresh, even more so than January 1st. After the more care-free days of summer, it is time to get back on track and into school mode. That means it’s time for my Autumn Goals.

However, before we dive in I’ll review my summer goals. When I made them back in June, I knew there was a good chance a lot of it would not get done simply because it was, well, summer.

I was partially right. Some goals were completely ignored but some were accomplished so I’m chalking that up as a win. 😉

My main goals do not change but my mini-goals change depending on the two month interval and what projects I want to complete. So here is a summary of my progress and my mini goals for Sept/Oct 2016.

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Main Goal #1: To always have God at the center of my life and to deepen my love for Him. I want his will to be my will and motivation.

Summer Mini-Goals Reviewed

• 15 minutes of morning prayer. – Ohmygosh, I forgot how hard it was to pray with all the kids in the house. It required me getting up earlier than the boys but waking up early in summer seemed unnatural. 😉 Instead I tried to fit in prayer in the later morning after they were fed and playing on their own. Frankly it was hit and miss. Now that they are back in school I can resume my normal morning prayer time.
  
• Short exam and Act of Contrition at end of the day. – Again, hit and miss. Some days I did well but there were more days when I was praying and fell asleep. I don’t think praying in the horizontal position works for me!
• Monthly confession. – Done and done.
  

Sept/Oct Mini-Goals

• 15 minutes morning prayer – I’m going to keep working at it.
• Short exam and Act of Contrition at end of the day. – Continued goal. This time I’m going to do this before I get into bed.
• Add some spiritual reading to my week. – I have been reading a lot this summer and love a great novel but I have a huge stack of books by amazing Catholic women that would help me to grow spiritually. These books need my attention! (I’ll make a separate post about this stack of books.)

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Main Goal #2: To be a loving and holy wife to Brian and to work at keeping our marriage strong, to nurture our friendship and spend time alone to reconnect.

Summer Mini-Goals Reviewed

• Coordinate schedules and plan date outing with Brian for June, July and August. – Accomplished.
  
• Daily act of kindness for Brian. – Hmm…this was so-so. One thing I noticed is that over the summer I often skipped my nightly bullet journal review, which included reviewing my goals for the day. Not refreshing my memory each night of what I was working on often meant completely forgetting all about it. As a result, weeks would go by before I realized I was no longer being intentional about my treatment of Brian.
  
• Treat Brian like my husband and not my 5th kid. – For the most part, I think I was better but could still use more practice! 

Sept/Oct Mini-Goals

• Daily act of kindness for Brian. – I want to keep up this practice until it becomes second nature. (Do you want to work on this with me? I have suggestions in this post – 25 Acts of Kindness for your Husband.)
• Praise Brian in front of the kids. – I am finding this especially important now that Bella is older and watches more closely how Brian and I interact with each other. I don’t want her to think it is normal for a wife to be bossy and treat her husband as less capable. Brian and I will often playfully tease each other but I don’t want it to come off as disrespectful or demeaning. My playful teasing has to be balanced with words of praise and thankfulness towards Brian. And if the teasing sounds snarky then its best that I just shut up.
• Encourage Brian to talk more while respecting the fact that he’s more quiet. – Brian is not a chit chatter and if I ask about his day I’ll often get a “fine” answer. Instead of rolling my eyes or complaining that I never get any details, I can ask a few questions about specific things to encourage him to tell me a little more. Then I’ll listen to what he says and remember things that are coming up to ask about it more in the future. I’ve started doing this and although he won’t go into a monologue any time soon, he has shared more, which has been good for both of us.

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Main Goal #3: To be a good mother that loves her kids and spends time with them and is not always “too busy.” I want to teach them about their faith and how to love and serve God in their young lives.

Summer Mini-Goals Reviewed

• Have “no screens allowed” blocks of time during the day to make sure the kids (and mom) aren’t plugged in all summer. – We did fairly well, although there were some exceptionally crazy days when I allowed more Netflix than normal.
• Spend more time with the kids outside. – To be honest, this summer I helped Brian with some bookkeeping work for my inlaws and more often than not, I sent the kids out to play without me.
• Let the kids work on the scrapbooks and photo albums sitting in the closet. – Yeah, this project had to be shelved.

Sept/Oct Mini-Goals

• Return to family night prayers including a decade of the rosary. It was hit and miss during the summer months. We need our family prayer time.
• Use my free morning time to get all my work done so I can spend one-on-one time with the kids during homework time in the afternoon. No computer/phone use in the afternoon. – The helping kids with homework and getting dinner on the table part of the day is the most stressful for me. (Or maybe tied with getting us out the door on time.) All my attention has to be on these tasks at hand without distractions.
  

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Main Goal #4: To bring order into our home so I am not stressed out by the mess and chaos. When things are organized our family life runs smoother and there is more peace.

Summer Mini-Goals Reviewed

• Make a reference meal list. – Started but not completed.
  
• Put all my printed recipes into a binder for easy reference.  Started but not completed.
  
• Continue A Bowl Full of Lemon’s 2016 Home Organization 101 Challenge.  – I  actually did do a few things off my list as I am slowly trying to declutter and get rid of lot of our excess. 
• Pull out the Tahoe Trip binder and update any info for this year’s trip. – Done! 🙂
  

Sept/Oct Mini-Goals

• Finish my reference meal list.
• Make weekly meal plan. – Plan my weekly meals according to my schedule and make more use of my slow cooker, especially on the afternoons when we are booked with after school activities and speech therapy.
• Declutter boys’ room. – Finish boxing up the boys’ old toys, ask local friends if they want any of them, bring the rest to Salvation Army.

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Main Goal #5 – To take care of myself physically, spiritually and mentally so I can be a happy and healthy wife, mother and friend. Taking care of myself mentally also means challenging myself to come out of my comfort zone and facing my fears and trying new things.

Summer Mini-Goals Reviewed

• Do a little something creative every day. – Maybe 50/50.
• Continue basics – water, vitamins and start the 100 Miles in 100 Days Challenge. – I did well and I completed my walking challenge – 100 miles in 100 days!! woohoo! I’ll write more about this in a separate post.
  
• Schedule a girls’ night out with the IRL friends I haven’t seen in ages! – I did get together with old friends once this summer but I need to make it more often!
  

Sept/Oct Mini-Goals

• Continue with the basics – water, vitamins, walk and sleep. – The hardest part right now is getting out of late-summer-night mode. I am not a morning person and having to get up early and get all the kids out of the house in time for school means that I need to get to bed earlier or I am a cranky, crazed zombie. So shooting for 7 hours of sleep is my goal. I’ll have to adjust my bedtime accordingly.
• Use my bullet journal daily. – Over the summer I was much more relaxed about using my bullet journal and didn’t need the intense To Do lists and schedules. But summer is over and my September (and soon October) calendar is packed so more than ever I need to stay on top of things! I live by the motto “write it down right now” or else it goes in one ear and out the other. I must do my daily review of my bullet journal to check over my schedule, figure out where I need to be and what items must be completed that day. Nightly reviews of my bullet journal and keeping it updated play a vital role in keeping things together. My goal is to keep using it and referring to it as needed.
• Spend one-on-one time with local friends. – I feel like lately God has been placing on my path friends who need a listening ear and a hug. As women, it is important that we have human connection with other women, whether it is to laugh or cry together. A part of me loves that and longs for that connection but the introverted part of me sometimes takes over and I just want to stay home and watch a movie. LOL. I want t make sure I am being a good friend and giving of myself to others when I can. Sometimes family life stops me but in this stage of life I do have a little more flexibility to be hospitable to my friends. So I want to work on spending time with friends (old and new) and hopefully hosting another Blessed Brunch before the end of the year. 🙂

What about you? What is the one thing that you really want to work on this month(s)? Do share!

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