January was a good start to my year. I hope you are having a good one too! If it hasn't felt like the energetic and fresh start you wanted I am also an advocate of February being the new January. Some years you need some time after the holidays to collect your thoughts and feel ready to dive into a new year.

I am loving my daily health habit challenge. In January I did 10 pushups every day. This month I'm not eating food with added sugar (with one exception: dessert on Valentine's Day when Chris made dinner reservations for us at a favorite restaurant with a special set-menu meal).  I love focusing on good health and find it to be self-reinforcing. The more I invest in my health the better I feel and the healthier I want to be. For example, even though I was doing pushups in January I felt like I ate healthier and went to bed earlier. Tracking a habit daily is an interesting way to reflect on how long the year is but to also see slow progress. Each day I color in a circle on my daily habit tracker. At this point there are so many little circles left to fill in for the year. At the same time over a month I filled in 1/12 of them and see time passing. Time is weird. I think this is helping me to think about all my year-long goals.

Now that I have so much autonomy over how I spend my time I'm finding that keeping my goals in mind is key. My goals won't be accomplished in December as a new year looms. I have to work on them every month of the year and that's a long time to stay motivated. As for my creative goals like finishing a book proposal, my creative work time on childcare days goes by so fast! What is helping is having some Sunday administrative time to take care of little tasks and schedule my time for when I have childcare that week. I'm also finding that I'm motivated to stay on top of little (less important) things like scheduling an oil change of dropping off Goodwill donations. The shorter my to-do list is the more mental space I have to create and to enjoy time with my family. 

Update on January goals:

+ Hang up art, calendar, and bulletin boards in my office. Yes!

+ Schedule my annual doctor's appointments. Scheduled and completed with a great bill of health.

+ Prioritize writing on my book proposal every week. I had one week where I didn't get a big chunk done on my proposal. On that week I worked on prepping blog posts instead.

+ Make progress on my first sewing project of the year. Yes! Got the pieces cut.

+ Research materials needed for my card catalog entry table project. I found some table legs and countertop material that looks good. Now I need a field trip to Home Depot to check it out.

+ Drink water! Did pretty well.

Other January wins:

+Front yard is complete!! It brings me joy on a daily basis.

+ Organized the garage. We hung up the bike trailer and one of Chris's bikes that he doesn't use as much. Plus we went through the remaining three unorganized spots in the garage: two storage bins and the tool chest. We simplified down to two smaller storage bins and got rid of lots of duplicate/unneeded tools.

+ Did 10 pushups/day as part of my 2019 health habits challenge.

+ Going to bed earlier. I've turned off my light before 9 p.m. several times recently, sometimes as early as 8:25 p.m.! I'm also now rarely listening to podcasts/audiobooks (only if I have a really hard time falling back asleep at night).

+ Prepped our taxes so they are ready to submit. We (well, Chris) do them ourselves using Turbo Tax.

+ Replaced remaining plastic hangers in the house with wooden ones. I am surprised at how much more beautiful the closet looks. Hangers purchased at Ikea where they also have these handy shoulder shapers for sweaters that fit on top of the hanger.

+ Participated in the Uber Frugal Month challenge. I enjoyed reading the daily emails and was encouraged to see that we are already doing much of what was recommended (although we could always be doing more!). Even though we are thoughtful about spending, reading about frugality and its many benefits makes me feel motivated to spend less and recommitted to a frugal lifestyle.

Big things happening in February:

There's nothing particularly big happening in February but it's a full month already. Chris and I have five(!) events/plans with friends when we'll have babysitting. In addition, I have three evening outings planned. Before the month even started I told Chris we couldn't plan anything else.

February goals:

+ Send birthday cards. I am trying to be better about this!

+ Consistent progress on my book proposal. Maybe even having solid early drafts of two sample chapters by the end of the month.

+ Field trip to look at materials for my card catalog entry table. We have some of our tax return earmarked for home projects so depending on when we get that I'll purchase materials.

+ Complete our 2018 family photo book. Here's how I manage our family photos and create a book for each year.

+ Sew my tunic.

+ No added sugar! For my daily health challenge.

+ Migrate content for Matrimoney website to Wordpress. I'd like to try moving this site first because it has the least content. If it goes well then I want to do this blog and  The Girl Next Door Podcast site.

Happy February!