Goal Planning Monday – Week 106

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals:

1. Set up the homeschooling area. Partially done. I’ve decided that we are going to remain pretty laid back about things and spend more time exploring outside and just reading than doing actual school. I cannot see us actually using the homeschooling area. I only have a couple box left to unpack

2. Unpack 50% of what is left to organize. DONE! We are pretty close to set up.

3. Meal Plan. DONE! We did good for the week. We will certainly be running short on certain things by the time Mike comes back, though. We’ll have to do more meat and potato type meals.

4. Set up payment for the utilities here. DONE! I’ll be really happy if we never have to run two households again.

5. Convince the kids that learning is good. Well, I shouldn’t have to convince them, so there must be something doing wrong. I worried a fair bit about their education at the beginning of the week, but made note to watch them more during the week and really, when left to their own devices they learn a lot and they ENJOY it. It’s just not what school looks like to me.

6. Blog an update about our week on Fridays. DONE! I’m actually impressed with this as I never do what I say on my blog (and I actually, I think, have a blog post about that coming up!).

7. Work on my Coursera courses. DONE! I actually dropped out of two. I was quite far behind on one that I was really enjoying and I wanted to focus on it and the other two had much tighter deadlines. They were interesting, but I wanted to focus on the other one more. I’m just taking them for pure fun so it doesn’t matter so much which ones I take. I’ll choose a new one when I’ve nearly completed the class I’m done.

This week’s goals:

1. Unpack half of that is left to unpack. I’ll be able to easily get everything done before the next time Mike visits and still have plenty of time to hang out with the kids this way.

2. Limit my time on facebook a little. I’ll certainly still check in everyday (and play the silly new crime scene game I’m playing) but while I’m always connected I likely won’t “chat” on there as much. It is easy when you are carrying a gadget in your pocket all the time to check in too much.

3. Contemplate moving my blog back to self hosted. Since I will be reviewing again I am contemplating moving back to the old blog. I’m not able to track everything as well on this one. I did, however, have issues with the self hosting so I will have to see.

4. Try to keep up with my “house a little bit cleaner in the evening than it was in the morning” plan. Didn’t happen on the weekend so I have to play catch up now.

5. Do something special for the kids for Valentine’s Day. Yeah, I don’t do these holidays normally, but as there is no pressure to buy anything I figure I can make something special for a meal or make cards or something.

6. Comment on everyone’s post who joins up this week.

If you have a moment, check in and let us know about your goals for the week. Actually, I move my blog over already, so I’d love for you to follow this link.

Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 105

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals (two weeks ago):

1. Stay sane. DONE! For the most part I did. I went through a negative phase because everyone was so happy that I was moving and I wasn’t. Of course, I was thrilled to be getting a much nicer house, but I really, REALLY didn’t want to leave the town we were living. It had become home and I was terrified to start over. It mostly passed. I did have a couple moments once we arrived where I cursed the new place and isolation, but not that we have some form of internet, I’m better.

2. Move! DONE! I’m even mostly unpacked and everything.

This week’s goals:

1. Set up the homeschooling area.

2. Unpack 50% of what is left to organize. Getting the homeschooling area set up will take care of that for the most part, I think.

3. Meal Plan. I’ve been left with a freezer full of food, but I want to go about feeding us in a way that makes sense.

4. Set up payment for the utilities here. We’ve got them all set up, but I’m still have mail woes and cannot get to my bills. I can see them trying to shut me down if I don’t get the connection fees and what not paid. Ah, the joys of moving!

5. Convince the kids that learning is good. I’m having a hard time with that these days. We haven’t learned a lot this year at all (to the point that I’m glad we’ve changed provinces so I can bring my standards down when I report at the end of the year). It is depressing me, quite frankly. I think I’ll have the motivation here, without the stress of the old house, to set things up that are more interesting for them.

6. Blog an update about our week on Fridays. It would be fun for Daddy to see, maybe. I don’t think he has ever checked my blog, though.

7. Work on my Coursera courses. I’ve completed one and have 3 others on the go. One that I love, but I’m hopelessly behind in. I’d like to catch up on that one this week as the hard deadline is coming up soon.

 

If you have a moment, check in and let us know about your goals for the week.

 

Goal Planning Monday – Week 104

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals:

1. Stay sane. Done! I’m mostly sane, I’d say. Dealing with hormones that are slightly out of control and making me feel ill on top of the move has been somewhat challenging but it is better than I expected. Despite many more physical reactions to the hormones, my mood has been more stable. I did shed a few tears yesterday when we went in town on errands. I really DON’T want to move.

2. Move! NOT DONE! We’ve been delayed a day, but we are about to pick up the U-Haul and we’re about 95% packed in terms of house stuff.

This week’s goals:

1. Try to stay as calm about the move as possible. If I freak about the move it will not go over well with the kids. Liam is having an especially hard time.

2. Bring some semblance of home to the new place ASAP. I think the transition will go pretty smoothly once we actually make it out of here, but I still want to get things relatively set up at the new place.

3. Enjoy the adventure (and maybe take pictures). I’m a little ashamed to say that my man bought me a decent camera last summer and most of my pictures since then have been taken with my iPod. Opps. I should change that!

4. Figure out the internet at the new place. It is supposed to be from the dark ages. I hope that isn’t the case because I committed to reviewing for a group and I worry that I won’t be able to do a lot of the reviews.

Hopefully I’ll be back next week! I hope that you’ll join me and I’d love to see some of my new friends from Mosaic Reviews join in as well!

Goal Planning Monday – Week 103

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals:

1. Post reminders to people that are supposed to be picking things up that they replied to on freecycle. DONE! Nothing got picked up, though, so it is all going to the Salvation Army next time we go into town.

2. Get three posts up here this week, in attempt to get back to posting four or five times a week. Not done. I only posted one thing that was not Goal Planning Monday. I have more just about ready, though.

3. Continue on the organizing and decluttering. DONE! As you now know, it wasn’t just cleaning and decluttering, but MOVING. I’m getting there, though. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is beginning to look like we are actually moving.

4. Do science with the kids.  Not done. I’m not into school right now. We haven’t done more than independent ready, school on the computer, and workbooks for the last month or so. When we get organized at the new place we’ll get back into it. We’ll have an AWESOME homeschooling area.

5. Reply to everyone that posts here this week. Not done. I didn’t even look. I’m sorry. I will do better.

6. Tweet out about Goal Planning Monday a few times. DONE!

7. Work on my facebook page for this blog as I haven’t been keeping up with it at all. DONE!

8. Take week 5 quiz on my “Think Again” coursera course. DONE! They gave us 4 quizzes to do and I did two. Only the highest score counts. It was really, really hard (because a lot of the material wasn’t covered in the lectures). Each quiz took about 4 hours and the second I did with my husband because he was interested. We only did one better than when I did it alone! Pretty good scores both times but A LOT of work. I’ll likely do the other two for practice at some point. The fun thing is that Liam heard my husband and I discussing so I was able to teach him a bit about categorical and proposition logic the next day. It’s fun for him to see that even his parents do “school” and keep on learning everyday.

This week’s goals:

1. Stay sane.

2. Move!

Goal Planning Monday will likely be late/not happen next week as we will be in the thick of our move and I doubt I’ll have good access to the internet unless we end up in a hotel. I’ll do my best, though.

If you have a moment, check in and let us know about your goals for the week.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 102

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals:

1. Sort through our books. DONE! The kids and I manage to get through ours, but Mike did not do his. I’d been hoping he’d get them done this weekend. Oh well, hopefully next.

2. Continue to post things on freecycle. DONE! Things are leaving the house. That is nice.

3. Find a couple items on freecycle. DONE! It was a good freecycle week. Found stools, a stove and clothes to help the kids make it through the next year, or two.

4. Take down Christmas. DONE! No signs that Christmas happened in this house.

5. Blog twice. Not done. It is crazy busy here and I’ve gotten insanely behind in own schoolwork but I’ve started two draft posts, as well as a review (with a giveaway), and they’ll all be posted this week.

6. Make some dietary changes. Partially done. At least we’ve added more veggies.

This week’s goals:

1. Post reminders to people that are supposed to be picking things up that they replied to on freecycle. 

2. Get three posts up here this week, in attempt to get back to posting four or five times a week.

3. Continue on the organizing and decluttering.

4. Do science with the kids. The program we are using is pretty complete and when we work together on it the children get math, writing, and history as well. If we do nothing else over the coming weeks, I’d like to do two science lessons a week.

5. Reply to everyone that posts here this week.

6.  Tweet out about Goal Planning Monday a few times. 

7. Work on my facebook page for this blog as I haven’t been keeping up with it at all.

8. Take week 5 quiz on my “Think Again” coursera course. I’m done the lectures but there are 4 quizes to do. Week 7 is starting this week but I’m getting closer to catching up.

If you have a moment, check in and let us know about your goals for the week.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 101

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals:

1. Try to keep up with dishes as they are being dirtied. Partially Done. Ugh, I did pretty good, BUT there is still one pan sitting around since the day after Christmas….that is NOT good.

2. Organize some things to give away on freecycle. DONE! I LOVE freecycle. People in Cape Breton are shocked that the things are FREE so when they come to pick them up and I refuse money they act like it is Christmas. They don’t understand that they are blessing ME  by taking things I can no longer use.

3. Enjoy the holidays.  DONE! The holidays were good. Quiet, but good.

4. Hang out with the children. DONE. We’ve played a few board games, watched a few movies, and Morgaine has brushed my hair every morning.

5. Plan out some homeschooling for the new year. NOT DONE. If you don’t already know, I’ll be telling you a little about a new adventure we’ll be embarking on very soon. I think there will be some life learning involved in the next couple of months and not near as much formal school work.

6. Try desperately to catch up with my coursera courses. Partially done. I did do about 6-8 hours on Saturday and completely one whole week of my neurobiology course with an 88% but I had to use late days in order to catch up because I was that far behind. I hate doing that. I haven’t even looked at my Logic and Reasoning class and that is not great. I have another class starting on Friday and a couple more later in the month!

This week’s goals.

1. Sort through our books. This is painful. I love books. We have too many. I have to do something with them.

2. Continue to post things on freecycle.

3. Find a couple items on freecycle (okay, there’s not much I can do about this goal but I’ll keep searching).

4. Take down Christmas. I LOVE our tree and we usually keep it up FOREVER but we’ll be taking her down “early” this year.

5. Blog twice. I’m going to try to get here more often, especially since I will be reviewing for Mosaic Reviews in 2013. I need to get back in the habit.

6. Make some dietary changes. We are ever evolving in this regard and I am feeling the need to change things up again. I certainly want to start menu planning a little bit more soon, but not this week.

If you have a moment, check in and let us know about your goals for the week.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 100

WEEK ONE HUNDRED! HOW EXCITING IS THAT!?!?!? THANK YOU FOR HELPING IT HAPPEN!

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week I had the one goal of:

Living in the moment and find joy where we are right now. Well, it was a busy, crazy, exciting, scary week that I cannot really talk more about right now but things are a changing (most likely). I did have ample time to hang out with my children but not quite in the manner expected so I’m not sure that I can say we lived in the moment this week. I can say that I expect a lot more peace in 2013 so this week has been good and will help me acheive this goal long term so I’ll take this as a successful week.

This week’s goals (should be pretty laid back as it is the holidays and my husband is likely going to be home much of it).

1. Try to keep up with dishes as they are being dirtied. I don’t feel like doing a billion dishes at the end of the day. That’s just no fun.

2. Organize some things to give away on freecycle. There are things that we don’t really need anymore that are still perfectly good for someone else to use.

3. Enjoy the holidays. Yep. A goal.

4. Hang out with the children. LOTS.

5. Plan out some homeschooling for the new year. 

6. Try desperately to catch up with my coursera courses. I did not get a chance to even look at them last week.

I hope that you and your family have a lovely holiday season. Blessings for the new year.

If you have a moment, check in and let us know about your goals for the week.

Life goes on, what are your goals for the coming week? Be sure to drop in and let us know.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 99

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Here’s my update from last week:

1. Find our science book. NOT DONE. I searched. Believe me, I’ve searched. My iPod seems to have also grown legs and walked away over the weekend. I’ve looked pretty much EVERYWHERE for both of these items as they are probably my two most useful items right now. Boo. They’ll show up in the least expected place, I’m sure.

2. Organize the office area. DONE!

3. Make gingerbread with the kids. NOT DONE! Recovery took much longer than anticipated.

4. Recover. DONE! But it took the week and I still feel a little battered and weak. There’s a crazy amount to do this week so we will see how it goes.

5. Sew some felt decorations for the tree. NOT DONE!

6. Finish knitting the front of Ruadhan’s sweater. NOT DONE! It won’t be finished for the holidays but I doubt he’ll mind having less to open than his sibblings.

My goal for this week:

Live in the moment and find joy where we are right now. I’ll admit to having pretty horrible, wake in the night and feel like puking nightmares since what happen last Friday. I am far removed from the situation, so cannot even begin to imagine what those families are going through. I want to hold up in my room or more far, far away from the world (we are living in a current situation of fear and intimidation that isn’t helping with my sense of security in the world) but I cannot let that happen. There are a ton of wonderful, helpful people in the world. I’ll attempt to get over my crisis of faith and get on with the season for my little children that I can hug and love everyday. I can chose to live a life fuller with less distractions and more presence. That is my only goal for this holiday season.

Life goes on, what are your goals for the coming week? Be sure to drop in and let us know.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 98

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

I’m looking at maybe doing a giveaway or something special at the beginning of January for Goal Planning Monday’s 2 YEAR anniversary (isn’t that CRAZY!?!?!?) I’m open to suggestions. The new year will also be a great time to get some new goal setters and I’d love to play an itty bitty part in keep people motivated!

As suspected, I don’t do schedules very well! We tried to follow our plans, more or less, but it certainly wasn’t easy and we missed out on a few things. I am far too spontaneous for a schedules and life is far too REAL and UNSCRIPTED to follow one well!

Here’s my update from last week:

1. Have patience while “training” my kids to help out more around the house. Partially done. Well, I was more patient but I’ll admit that we didn’t get a lot of training in. There was a fair bit of sitting around and dealing with behaviours that I find unsatisfactory to focus on teaching them to complete their chores well.
2. Make a list with pictures for Liam for his biggest chore. Not done, but Boy George, I think he’s FINALLY gotten it without the constant supervision. When he remembers, I actually end up with a clean and set up kitchen table……when he remembers *sigh*.
3. Declutter the office work area. Not done. I did some organization of the homeschooling supplies and whatnot instead. I think this should count as organizing the office/work area.
4. Spend 30 minutes (at the VERY minimum EVERY day) focusing on my studies. DONE! One of my two courses is pretty intense (neuroscience) and it is taking a fair bit of time. I was REALLY good at all this stuff back 12 years ago in nursing school but it’s taking a fair bit of going back and relearning and the professor assumes that we are fresh out of biology/organic chemistry class, not old souls like me that haven’t been in school for 10 years. Week 2 is suppose to be the hardest by far so if I survive this week, I should be good.

5. Go to bed when I am tired. DONE! We’ve been studying for an hour or two after I get the kids to bed and then I go to bed myself. I don’t think we’ve watched anything on Netflix all week.
6. Sneak out of bed before the baby at least 3 times this week. DONE (probably)! I haven’t kept track but I know that I’ve been up a few times before him. I’ve also requested Mike take him in the morning as well so I’ve been able to get up on my own timing a bit.
7. Do at least one Christmas craft with Morgaine this week. NOT DONE. I’ve tried but we don’t end up actually doing things together. I made a chain for the tree on my own and she coloured decorations to hang.
8. Make lots of time to cuddle with the girl. NOT DONE. I certain didn’t cuddle as much as I would have liked but I did lay down in the same room with her a couple times as she was falling asleep and she has been playing in my hair quite a bit.

This week’s goals:

1. Find our science book. It seems to have sprouted legs and disappeared. I was REALLY enjoying it and so were the kids, I think.

2. Organize the office area. I did the homeschooling stuff last week. The office still needs a little work.

3. Make gingerbread with the kids. I was supposed to do that this weekend but I was not well enough to do so. It may take a couple days to get back to where I can work in the kitchen, with enough patience and energy for it to be enjoyable for everyone. We’ll see how it goes.

4. Recover. Neuralgia (and my other issues) are being a bother this week and I have no time for it. There is too much to do so for a few days I’ll be in recovery mode (gee, that seems to be a theme these days). So rest, eat healthy (or survive on chocolate, whatever happens to work best), and take some supplements. My face is still so, so sore. Comtemplating seeing my doctor to get something stronger for the pain as it isn’t near as frequent as it used to be. I don’t want to take a daily preventative as I don’t feel it is a good drug, at all, to take daily but I HATE the pain.

5. Sew some felt decorations for the tree. Simple enough to do without having to move and the older kids can help, too.

6. Finish knitting the front of Ruadhan’s sweater. I’m REALLY pushing it to get done for the holidays. It isn’t likely to happen but I’ll give it a good go.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 97

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines before you join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Well, my dear friends, it seems I took a mental health break last week and did not come back with any goals. I think it as a more of a go with the “new” flow kind of week and I needed to see how it worked out before even attempting to set goals.

What I’ve learned is that:

1. Homeschooling the way I want takes A LOT of time.
2. The house, as a result, will NOT be as clean as I want it to be.
3. I need to schedule a one room declutter/clean up each week to try and stay on top of things (it will be a goal).
4. I need to schedule time into my day (in the day time) to work on my studies. I’m currently taking two courses from coursera.org because I desperately needed to do something purely for myself. One of them is easy, the other, more challenging (I think).
5. Thinking the kids are actually going to help me get things accomplished during “chores with Mom” time is foolish.
6. I suck at schedules.
7. I’ll absolutely need to schedule GPM time even if I hate schedules
8. I will get to learn to work with schedules.

So, here are my goals for the week, with these realities in mind.

1. Have patience while “training” my kids to help out more around the house. They’ve been helping for a while but I’m still not seeing the results I would like.
2. Make a list with pictures for Liam for his biggest chore. He should not need me to hold his hand.
3. Declutter the office work area. Both my husband and I are taking classes this winter. It would be lovely to have a cozy place to work together.
4. Spend 30 minutes (at the VERY minimum EVERY day) focusing on my studies. Plan to have at least 3 actual scheduled study times a week that aren’t “when I get a moment” study breaks, as sometimes those moments don’t materialize.
5. Go to bed when I am tired. I’ve been doing pretty well with this but it isn’t second nature, yet.
6. Sneak out of bed before the baby at least 3 times this week. It is nice to get the day started and then have him come downstairs to join me.
7. Do at least one Christmas craft with Morgaine this week.
8. Make lots of time to cuddle with the girl. I don’t do that very much and she craves it. It would likely go quite a ways to heal our relationship as it has its challenges.