2024 Goals!

Well, once again I'm posting some goals in February ha. I guess I just need extra time to marinate on them and decide! I think I did a good job on my 2023 goals, so it had me energized to try again for a new set.

First off, sometimes I do like to have a word of the year...and when I was in therapy a few weeks ago, a word came to me while I was talking to my therapist. 

PEACEFUL

I don't think peaceful is a word that typically describes me - I am loud, chaotic, explosive, disorganized...the opposite of peaceful. BUT I would like our home to be more peaceful. The mood starts at the top, and I don't exude how I want our house to be!

PERSONAL

1) Stand more. I've heard the expression 'sitting is the new smoking' multiple times. It is so bad for us to sit all day, and I have a job where I SIT ALL DAY. I want a walking desk, but Brent has vetoed that, but at the end of the year, I bought a little contraption to elevate my laptop so that I can stand and work. I'm starting with small increments - stand for this 1 call, stand for 10 minutes, and I want to build up to standing more and more every day. Do I think I'll get to where I stand all day? Probably not. But I can definitely do a lot more than I am now!

2) Play more piano. We got a piano a few years ago, and Drew has been taking lessons for a few years. I will sit down and dabble sometimes, but I want to get in the habit of playing more. I'm pretty rusty, so I'm enjoying using her lesson books, ha.

3) Book goals. I will continue to have specific book goals, but I'm going to do a separate post on that ha.

FAMILY/HOME

1) Organization. We are redecorating a lot of spaces in our house, and it's made me realize we have a lot of clutter. I'm not much of a collector, but after almost 11 years in our house...we've just accumulated a lot of 'stuff'. I also talked to my therapist about this and she gave me some great resources and ideas for tackling our home in manageable increments.

2) Time with Brent. In the evenings, I tend to want to read by myself. Well, that's not conducive to staying connected to your spouse! We started a show together, and while we don't watch together every night, we are spending more time together in the evening.

3) Family vacations. We loved our trips in 2023 {Arizona and Port Aransas with the kids and Las Vegas with friends} and are already planning for 2024. I'm excited to see what we end up doing and memories we make!

4) Incorporate the kids into more chores. This is not a new goal for me, but I haven't done a good job with it ugh. We are fortunate to have a lady who has cleaned for our family for 12+ years, and she is amazing. But that doesn't mean the kids are off the hook for doing anything. I want to work on them keeping their rooms picked up and picking up after themselves throughout the house every day as well as small chores {vacuuming, scrubbing toilets, washing dishes} to teach them some responsibility, help me out, AND make our house look great all the time!

And if you made it through this whole post, your reward is a new picture of Sawyer! 2 months old and getting so fat!

January 2024 Book Review

First book review of the year! I love the start of the year when everything is fresh. It's exciting to think about what my favorites will be from books I don't even know exist yet! 

This month I read 12 books. I was all over the place {in a good way} on genres - historical fiction, chick lit, memoirs, self-help, anti-racism...big variety here! 

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center - I pretty much like everything Katherine Center writers. They aren't NOVELS, they are light and fun and make me smile. This follows a woman who decides to do a wilderness challenge to get herself out of a funk after a divorce and her little brother's best friend is on the same course. I thought this was very cute. It was a little cheesy, but overall I had a smile on my face throughout.

The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams [audiobook] - I usually like Beatriz Williams' historical fiction books. They follow alternating timelines and over the book we unravel some mystery. This was no different...I just found it boring!

White Awake by Daniel Hill - This was on my 'oldest books to read' list for my 2023 goals. I thought it would be such an interesting book - we need more white people talking about anti-racism. But this book didn't really do it for me. Parts were good, parts were boring. Good effort and more books like this are needed though!

Raising Worry-Free Girls by Sissy Goff [audiobook] - I've had this on my TBR for a long time, but as we are navigating Drew's anxiety, I decided to give it a listen this month. I thought this had a lot of great, useful information and am so glad I read it to be able to support Drew better. However, I wasn't expecting there to be such a focus on Christianity and that turned me off a bit. As someone who dealt/deals with anxiety, I haven't personally found comfort through religion, and while others might, I didn't think it helped the book.

A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry [audiobook] - SUPER interesting! I don't know why I'm surprised every time I read books that focus on parts of American history I know nothing about, but here we are AGAIN. This covered some amazing women who did incredible things through the last 4 centuries. So, so good!

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter - Wow-ee. I thought this was historical fiction about a Jewish family in WW2. I did NOT know this was the story of the author's ACTUAL family. Her Polish grandfather was living in Paris at the start of the war, and this book follows his journey to South America as well as the stories of his siblings who were scattered over Europe. If I didn't know this was a real story, I would have thought there was no way this could all happen. It was incredible!

Wildfire by Hannah Grace - This was a cute 2nd story in a trilogy about the hockey team at a fictional college. I continue to enjoy this trilogy {this time one of the hockey players works at a summer camp and falls for a co-worker}, really enjoy the spice level, but they seem just a smidge too long.

Fire Weather by John Vaillant - We read this book for Blog Friend Book Club and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. This was 4 different BORING books in 1, and I SLOGGED through it. Part 1 was the history of the community this fire took place in [way too detailed], Part 2 was the actual fire [it finally got exciting but again was way too detailed, the entire part covered 3 days of a fire that took over a year to put out], part 3 was climate change [I actually skipped pages and pages here because it was SO repetitive], and part 4 covered other catastrophic fires and the aftermath. I just don't think this author knew how to put all this information together which is unfortunate because it could have been awesome.

Betting on You by Lynn Painter - I will read anything Lynn Painter writes. This is an adorable YA rom com - a genre Lynn excels at.

Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton [audiobook] - I am not a Paris Hilton fan per se, but I ended up listening to this and was surprised that I ended it with some respect for her! I had no idea everything she endured in life. Is she super privileged? Yes, most definitely. Did I speed the book up because her voice was kind of annoying? Yes, I did. Did I enjoy it? Also yes!

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston - I saw so many people post about this and I think everyone I follow on Goodreads who had read it gave it 4 stars. It sounded super cute - a girl realizes her apartment moves people around by 7 years, and she meets a guy...and you can guess what happened. It WAS cute, but I didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else seems to have. I didn't love the pacing - the beginning was slow, then I really got into it, then it got slow again. When it ended, I was almost relieved.

You Sound Like a White Girl by Julissa Arce [audiobook] - When I read American Dirt a few years ago, I saw a lot of stories about 'own voices' stories and it really opened my eyes to the problematic nature of publishing. A former co-worker went to high school with Julissa and recommended her books to me. This is the second book of hers that I read, and it was excellent! We are about the same age and both grew up in Texas, but we definitely had different experiences, and it was so interesting thinking about what I learned in school as a white girl and how much was missing. This was really fantastic!

My average rating for the month was 3.6 - a little low for me but Summer Wives and Fire Weather took it out of me, ha. {My average for all of 2023 was 3.7 and for 2022 was 3.9.} My favorite of the month was A Black Women's History of the United States, but I don't see that being the TOP book of the year... So we shall see!