My 15 Goals for 2014 {August Update}

Victories

– We ended up doing an at-home date night this past month instead of going out alone.  We rented the movie 12 Years a Slave from Redbox and watched it together.  The movie was good, but wasn’t the best choice for a date night movie.  It was a hard watch, as I’m sure you can imagine, but I think it’s a movie every American should see.

– Kev and I attended a marriage conference last weekend.  Gary Thomas was the speaker and he’s written numerous books, but his talk included some of the concepts from his book titled Sacred Marriage.  He was an excellent speaker – full of wisdom and encouragement, but also really funny and engaging.  I’ll have to add the book to my reading list at some point.

– I’m so close to finishing Sheet Music.  I’m about a chapter away from it.  It’s been a great read and I’ll write a little more about my thoughts when I do my book reviews later this month.  I have another book sitting on our bookshelf about marital intimacy as well, so I’m hoping to start that one next.

– We didn’t have a formal play date with anyone this past month, but I’m marking it off anyway.  We got together with some families this month and our kids got to play together, so I’m going to count it.

– I’ve been going to bed a little later than I’d like, but I’ve still been able to manage to get 7 hours of sleep on most nights.  It’s been helpful having Kev here this summer and he’s so gracious to let me sleep in a little.  I’m going to have to be more deliberate about this now that Kev is back at work.

– I went ahead and marked off our insurance goal.  Once Kev enlisted in the National Guard, we stopped saving up for that goal because he gets a great deal on life insurance.   

Challenges

– It’s looking like #5 might not happen this year, unless I can find a local motherhood conference before the new baby comes.  I still really want to go to dot Mom, but I did read somewhere that you can watch the simulcast.  I may look into that option at this point.

– This month, I’ve been reading some books and am hoping to get caught up a bit.  Our women’s group at church finished reading The Relationship Principles of Jesus and I’m almost finished with Sheet Music.  I’ll pick back up on Life Interrupted soon since Bible study is over and I read some in 1000 Gifts the other day when I was at a doctor’s appointment.  I really don’t like having my nose in so many books at one time, but I’m hoping to get caught up before the fall gets crazy busy.

– I’m way behind in my year-long devotional book.  There are some days when getting into my Bible is difficult, so I’m giving myself some grace if I don’t read each day in a devotional book.  Getting into the Bible itself is higher on my priority list than reading an excerpt from my devotional, but it’s still something I need to work back into my morning routine.

– It’s still a challenge to get blog posts planned out.  I’m not quite to 2 weeks out, but I’ve been working on planning them out at least 1 week out.  I wish I could say the same for writing blog posts.  Once I get better with planning posts out better, then I’ll try to tackle writing them further out.  One step at a time, right?!

– I have some plans for 2 guest post submissions to other blogs, but I haven’t been able to sit down and start the writing process.  I think I may need to plan out a personal retreat day in the near future so I can get some of this stuff done!

– We are getting really close to our first emergency fund goal, but it’s taken a lot longer than we anticipated.  I don’t want to be a complainer about it, but our savings goals for this summer didn’t pan out.  We thought we’d have extra money to finish up with the emergency fund, move on to a new computer, and then finish up our 2nd floor bath by now, but life throws some curve balls sometimes, right?!!  We’ll get there eventually!

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How are you doing with your 2014 goals?  

What were your victories and what have been your challenges this month?  

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