Reflections on March Dreams and Goals

 

            As we wrap up March today, I am grateful for all we were able to accomplish in one little month! I’m also grateful that beyond accomplishments, we were able to get some much-needed rest. Prioritizing work and rest equally has been a game-changer. Let’s continue with that!

            Here are some updates on my goals for this month.

ONE. Finish unpacking. This is done in the spirit in which I wrote it. I don’t know that I said so specifically, but my goal was to unpack the house. We do still have boxes of things to sort through for the garage/storage/upcoming garage sale, but the house itself is unpacked and organized. The last room we finished was our guest room, and we both commented after that was done how much its chaos had affected us – and we didn’t even realize it until it was cleaned up! As the weather gets warmer and we have some free time, we’ll continue organizing the rest. But we are grateful to have the house assembled – even down to most of the art on the wall!

TWO. Figure out new daily rhythms. We made progress here! Having a time change wrapped up in this month did not help any kind of rhythm-setting, but we did make good progress in understanding what our days need to look like. We’ve figured out when we should get up, how long it takes us to drive to various destinations from here, and how our evenings now look. We’ll continue to work this out as we go along through the summer, but It’s been a good transition so far.

THREE. Host our first overnight guests. Done! And you already read about it. But I will say for the purposes of documentation that it was a joy to open up this new space to overnight guests and learn more about how that looks and works here. We loved it. We can’t wait to do more of it!

FOUR. Complete my writing projects. I had a burst of creativity at the start of the month and wrote the project for our church’s Good Friday service. It was meaningful to me to learn as I went, and I hope it’s a good fit for the service! I also finished the other project I was assigned for the month, and I felt it went as well as it could have. It involved grant proposals, and it was so helpful to see what I’d learned in my classes come into play in that adventure.

FIVE. Finish preparing and presenting my retreat material. I found out after the month started that the organizers made a schedule change, and I was only going to speak twice instead of three times. I had to scurry to restructure my talks to include all the information in less time, but I did it! I also put together my power point ahead of schedule. It’s one of my favorite things to do. The week of the retreat, we had to make some last-minute changes that meant Ryan couldn’t go with me, and that was really sad, but the retreat itself went well! I’m trusting God to carry the message forward however He sees fit!

SIX. Fix the roof. As you might remember, though our roof passed inspection when we bought the house, that information turned out to be inaccurate, and we were in need of some major repairs. Estimates took longer than planned, but we found a place we trusted and although they originally said it would be several weeks before they could get to us, they moved us up in line (because of the leak) and the roof is FIXED! Praising the Lord for that swift answer to prayer!

Other items checked off the list:

·        *   I finished reading Devotedly and moved on to another book on my reading challenge list – On Writing by Stephen King. I also read two books for work that were not part of my personal reading plan for the year, but I learned good skills from them! I wrapped up the month by reading Becoming Free Indeed by Jinger Duggar Vuolo, and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on that book soon. (This brings my total books read this year to eight. That might not be much for some of you, but for me in the busyness of life recently, this is huge!)

·        *   I completed a project related to my job that was a lot of fun to put together!

·        *   Ryan and I co-taught our Sunday School class one Sunday. It was fun to fill in and serve together in that way. Haven’t done that for a few years!

·       *    I did some editing on my website – it was long overdue! I also did some personal writing that I really enjoyed.

·      *     I had to find a new person to do my hair, which was so hard. I love, love, love the person I’ve been going to since we moved, but she only works during the daytime, so now that I have standard work hours, I can’t go to her anymore. I was able to find someone taking new clients, and I’ll be seeing her soon. Finding a good hair stylist is always a task! Also a task? This mop I’ll be taking to her for some help! I haven’t had a cut or color since November, so I’m kind of a mess.

·       *    I ordered an Easter dress. We will see if it fits or looks awkward. I tried to leave enough time for getting a different one if needed.

That’s been March in Shafferland. How did your March goals go for you?