31 Things To Do While I'm 31
1. Blog more frequently. I really enjoy taking time to read blogs and write a few of my own, but a lot of the time I will put it off to tend to other matters. The goal is to give my self permission to take time for me and sit down and write about the things we are doing since it is something I enjoy doing.
2. Plant my first herb garden. Last year was the year of our first garden and this year will be the first for our herb garden. Hopefully I will even get some nice cutting flowers in there with them!
3. Stick with a work out regiment for a whole year. My husband has impressed me with his one year anniversary of going to the gym 4-5 days a week. His body has changed and gotten stronger and it has done wonders for his mood too. I feel good when I complete workouts and getting stronger makes my tasks around the home and yard easier. My goal is to stick with it for the whole year which is four times longer than I have ever stuck to a work out. Wish me luck!
4. Spend more time with family. After having my parents live far away for so long I feel like I am not taking enough advantage of having them so close. Also it has been hard to get all of the family together at once so I plan to make up some good excuses for us to spend time together.
5. Read one book a month. I love reading, but it seems a luxury I never have time for! As part of the taking time for myself bit I want to make up for lost time and read at least one book a month. Any good reads I should add to the list?
6. Take up bike riding. My babies are finally big enough to pedal around with us! The only problem is that it has been too many years to count since I last rode a bike! Lord have mercy on my thighs.
7. Be a better budget-er. One of the tasks I took on when I became the stay at home mom was the budget. (Who am I kidding? The OCD in me probably never relinquished this task to the husband, even pre-baby.) Either way, it became an important role when we were living off a single income as a family of four. Over the past year I became more lax on this task and a lot of money was wasted as a result. The goal this year is to be purposed with our money and particular about what we are spending it on.
8. Write more letters. Who doesn't love getting mail?? I plan to single-handedly keep the USPS in business. Well it may not be to that extreme, but thank yous? Card in the mail. Thinking about you and how great you are? Mail. Birthday? Mail. Why did we stop doing this? A quick message on facebook is fine, but not nearly as thoughtful as taking time to put your words down on paper and send them to someone.
9. Fold and put away laundry as it is cleaned and dry. I never said this list was going to be filled with profound thoughts! I despise laundry, specifically folding and putting it away. I will let clothes sit on the loveseat until there are multiple loads and one of two things happens: it becomes too full and it starts to spill to the floor, or people are coming over and I don't want them to see my slacking (that and they need somewhere to sit.) If I can stick to this my house will always be company ready which leads to my next goal:
10. Make time to spend with and expand my circle of friends. Being a stay at home mom with one vehicle means our days are spent in the house doing our own thing, This consistency I think has done wonders for the routine and sleeping pattern of toddlers, however it comes at the cost of making connections with people. As the girls are getting older it is easier to be flexible in our schedule and I crave connection with people. I'm hoping that our monthly play dates will become something more along the lines of weekly. I also want to take some time to spend with my friends without children in tow so I can remember what adult conversation is like!
11. Get bee ready. I want bees! I really, really want bees. I want to learn as much as I can about keeping bees and get myself bee-ready for next spring. If I can get them before then I would be beside myself with excitement, but realistically it will be next year.
12. Fill the empty picture frames in my house. I don't know what is wrong with me that I feel the need to hang a picture frame that I don't have a picture in. I started doing it after we moved in and the walls were empty and it seemed to make sense. Now it's just weird and I need to get these people from the store out of my house. Either that or name them.
13. Make gifts. In part to give more thoughtful gifts and in part to be a better budgeter, I want to make gifts rather than buy them. I love being creative and using my hands to make things so hopefully this will be a good motivator for me.
14. Take a vacation. I don't care how sort it is, I don't care how close to/far away from home it is, I just want to take time with just my little family to get away from the day to day and the responsibility to enjoy each others company. This is something we have NEVER done. It's crazy to think but it shows my husbands devotion to taking care of us so I can be home and not living beyond our means. The reward has been great, but this year I want my hard-working husband to have real break.
15. Re-enter the work force. After staying home with my babes for the past 5 years it has become necessary for me to go back to work. I'm not sure what that is going to look like just yet, but it is a little intimidating after being home so long! It is going to be a big adjustment with the girls, as it is about two years sooner than we had planned.
16. Not cry every day that I take my kid to school. Speaking of adjustments....my kid starts school in the fall. I don't know how it happened that she is already five and eager to start school, but this mama is not ready for that. I have melted down on more than one occasion and I still cannot believe that kindergarten is full day. My girls have had the luxury of being home and outside playing all day everyday with very little obligations to take them way from that. This is going to be a big adjustment for her. As big as it will be for her, times that by two and that will be the adjustment little sister makes to being by herself for the first time ever. I think both will adjust, I'm just not sure I will! Giving my baby to someone else for 8 hours of her 12 hour day is going to be very hard to do.
17. Finish home projects. If I look at one more unpainted spot on the wall, one more piece of missing trim or a pile of scraps in the garage for another minute I think I will lose my mind. We are past the one year mark of being in our house and it is just time to have this all done. If we can be diligent with our money we should be able to finish up all the projects this year and hopefully in the next couple months!
18. Organize the garage. Once projects are complete we will have our garage back and it's time to get it organized. One of the trade offs of buying a split level house was there is no basement storage. We have paired down everything we don't need and not it's time to make a home for everything we do need.
19. Make a drastic change to my hair. I have been wanting to do something different with my hair for a long time, but when it comes down to it I chicken out! I have been letting my hair grow out for so long it seems sad to chop it off but it lives in a ponytail so its out of my way so I'm over it. If I can muster up the courage I'm going to chop it all off and I think it may be long enough to donate.
20. Reuse waste. We have cut down the amount of trash we have each month by recycling, composting, and being aware of the packaging we buy (skipping single serve things, etc) and our waste has become very little. My goal for this year is to try to reuse more of the things that we usually take to recycling. We save the clear plastics for plant starting and reuse some other plastic containers for food storage, but this year I want to save our paper waste and make my own firebricks.
21. Finally visit local wineries. We live so close to a handful of wineries that I somehow never visited. I blame it on my time pregnant and breastfeeding. Some adult time, maybe even with some friends I don't see often enough, seems like a good idea made better with a glass of wine in hand.
22. Learn to play piano. This one seems like a bit of a lofty idea seeing as how we do not own a piano. We want to get Amelia in lessons this year and if we decide to do that we will be getting a piano and it would be a shame if I didn't learn to play too! I have always wished for musical abilities I do not have.
23. Acquire every Ray Lamontagne album on vinyl. Because I have no musical talent I choose to listen to those who do. My love for Ray is deep, thus I need more than just God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise. The need is real.
24. Have more date nights with my husband. Though my love for Ray is real, my love for my husband is more so. I want more time away from the distractions that come from running a household to appreciate our relationship that started long before our house and children were part of the mix. We joke that our social lives are separate because it's much easier for the other to play 'babysitter' while one goes out, but this year the focus is our time together, easy or not!
25. Make more of an effort to shop local. Nothing rivals the customer service and quality of product you get when you chose to buy from a small local business. Sometimes it's easier to make a one-stop-shop place your destination, getting a few dollars back in your pocket, but when you walk into a store with great staff or store owner who are knowledgeable about their products and you know that your money is going directly to them and the community it makes it worth the slight increase in cost.
26. Take up yoga. This is another thing that has been on my to do list for some time. There is something about yoga that has always appealed to me so I figure there is no time like the present to start learning. I'm hoping that this coupled with my workout regiment will help me feel fit and healthy.
27. Work on more sewing projects. I have a stash of fabric and a goal to make more gifts and spend less money. Seems like an easy win to do some extra sewing this year, which happens to be something I really enjoy doing. I may even get brave and try to re-purpose some old clothes into something I may wear again!
28. Make more foods myself. Last year we drastically changed our diets and worked hard to cut out processed foods and eat more whole foods. This year I want to go a little further and make more of the breads, pastas, and crackers that we eat. I want to have my children participate in this as part of understanding where food comes from and hopefully encouraging a healthy relationship with food.
29. Butcher my first chicken. Along the some lines of making more food myself this will be another step in becoming more self sufficient in feeding myself and my family. When we got our first flock we did so knowing that we would be butchering a few, however we never got the chance. Between the neighbor's dog and the chicken massacre that happened last week there are none left to butcher. This years flock will have birds that we will be raising solely for the purpose of meat so I will get my chance to butcher in the fall.
30. Let go go the past. If it means writing it out, crying it out, yelling it out, whatever the means, some things I need to just let go of. I found that this past year I let things that happened in the past affect what I was doing and how I felt so this year I am determined to work through these things so I can be at peace with the past and present in the day to day and with relationships.
31. Make a five year plan. I have always been good at making plans for a year, maybe even two, but I have never made a plan that went so far into the future. I'm not really sure why that is, it's almost a little intimidating so maybe that is why. In the next five years our lives will be much different than they are now, as both girls will be in school and I will be back at work. I feel like this is a good time to sit down and work on a plan so we can make sure that the things we are doing now are leading us to where we want to be later. It is easier to accomplish goals and stick to budgets when you can see the long term that you are working towards. I'm excited to spend time with the husband to determine what our future holds!
So that is my list. My 31 one things I intend to do while I am 31. I hope that I can back at this next year proud of the accomplishments I made and ready to take on more things!
