Goals - November 2015
Hello, November. I love you.
The mornings and evenings are cool or even chilly and we are making use of our screen doors everyday. Weekly soup is back in rotation and Dash helped me make cornbread last week and eagerly asked for seconds (Dashiell didn't care for the soup but Cedric slurped it up). The boys still wear shorts and short sleeves most days but occasionally pants and recently I bought Dashiell his very first pair of jeans. Cedric is wearing all of Dashiell's old clothes (12m and 18m size) and I'm having deja vu seeing the familiar outfits on a chunky baby-nearly-toddler(!) again.
The boys spent Halloween evening in the care of a wonderful babysitter and Chris and I had a much overdue evening among many friends and none of their children. We all met for drinks and dinner and then went to see Book of Mormon. It was hilarious and inappropriate and so much fun. Thanks to hugely discounted tickets through staff night pricing we enjoyed the show from the center of row 9 and I've never had better seats for a performance.
We're riding bikes everyday and at the park every weekend day and sometimes even on weekdays when we get home early enough. I love the shorter daylight hours and cooking dinner with a candle flickering as I watch the light grow dusky blue. The other morning Dashiell wanted to go into the backyard and then came inside to report, "Is chilly. Be-cause it is fall." I've taught him well.
Big things happening in November:
+ Thanksgiving! We are hosting Chris's parents for a small, casual meal. I'm taking off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, as has become my habit, and I'll have Thursday and Friday off as well; so looking forward to a relaxing long weekend of glorious weather.
+ Deadlines at work. I don't normally share much about work projects here but I've been so busy at work and my calendar has been full of meetings related to two big projects. I like keeping busy at work but it's been more than an enjoyable level and I'm eager for things to settle down. This month I should finish those projects and I am looking forward to having some time to regroup and perhaps tidy up my desk space.
November goals:
+ Plan Thanksgiving.
+ Start and finish Christmas shopping. Chris and I sat down during a coffee date last week and made a list of the Christmas gifts we plan to get and made a budget. I really, really hope to finish everything this month.
+ Order Christmas cards. For the past couple of years I've designed our cards myself and I had them printed through Overnight Prints and plan to do the same again this year. I shared a little bit about how I designed and order the cards when I posted about our 2013 Christmas cards.
Recurring monthly goals:
+ Exercise at least two times per week. I didn't use up all of my 8 Orange Theory classes last month, meaning that I didn't go twice a week per my goal. Excited to recommit this month and maybe pick up a run here or there now that the weather is so great.
+ Publish to my blog on Mondays and Wednesdays. The more I plan and work ahead and use my editorial calendar the easier this is to accomplish.
+ Maintain podcast recording/production schedule necessary to air a new Girl Next Door Podcast episode every other week. Even though the podcast is really fun it still takes work to coordinate a time Erica and I can get together and then to edit and publish the episode.
+ Download photos off of phone and sort them into folders for Cedric's baby photo book and our 2015 Team Wharton family album. Recently I started using Google Photos to back up and synch photos from my phone. There is a great tutorial about it here.
+ Maintain podcast recording/production schedule needed to air Matrimoney every other Monday.
Happy November!