Five on Friday - May Goals

April was so much better than March!  Things got back to normal around here, we had lots of fun, and most importantly, everyone was healthy!  Let’s see what I accomplished…

And as always, I’m using a Y for YES and N for NO to indicate whether or not I accomplished my goals.

April Goals – How I Did

Personal

Y  Positivity, worry less, complain less, be kind, patience, relationships. – I’m going to go ahead and give this one a thumb’s up.  I did way better this month with this, but let’s be real, I’m comparing it to our crappy month last month so it’s always easier to be positive and worry less when life is easier!

Y  Celebrate my birthday with my family.  It was another great year of birthday celebrations and I’m so thankful for 37!

Y  Celebrate my birthday with my girlfriends.  I had a joint birthday celebration with my friend Jeannine and we had the best time!

Y  Make the rest of my essential oils rollers and label them.  I’m SOOOO excited about this one!!  I used my oils in the diffuser or straight from the bottle for the first few weeks that I had them, but I’m so excited to have finally made some rollers to use.  Some of my blends so far are – Immunity, Glow (for beautiful skin), Breathe (for allergy and asthma issues), Tummy (for reflux, upset stomach), Relief (for headache and tension), Energy, and Unicorn (for aaaallll the emotions – anxiety, stress, etc.).  If you want to learn more, you can see this post from Wednesday.

Y  Set up new essential oils Instagram account.  You can follow along here!  I’m posting all kinds of tips and tricks and ways that I’m using my oils on a day-to-day basis.  Plus my feed is pretty darn nice if I do say so myself.  ;o)

Health

Y  Drink 4 thermoses of water most days.

Y  Eat an apple most days.

Y  Go to the gym or work out at home at least 2 times per week once cleared by the doc.  More on getting cleared from the doc below!

Y  Eat less sugar overall.

Y  Moisturize my neck and chest every day.

Y  Follow up with my ENT doctor about my ear ringing and congestion.  He told me at the follow-up visit that my ears actually look and are functioning better than they were at my last visit since the congestion has cleared somewhat.  The ringing is still present, though, and as the doc started mashing around, he realized that I have TMJ issues (which I already knew).  He said that could be causing the ringing, so he referred me to a dentist in town who specializes in TMJ issues.  SO convenient since I was already going to do that this month anyway!

Y  See a specialist about my TMJ.  YES!!!!  I’m so so excited about things to come with this new dentist.  I’ve already seen him twice – first, for a consult, and second, to have a custom bite guard made.  He diagnosed me with a “floating bite” which means that my mouth basically doesn’t know how to go into rest mode.  Since it doesn’t know how to rest, that’s causing extra tension during the day and then I’m clenching a ton at night, too.  He said that I will have to wear a custom bite guard (on my bottom teeth only) 24/7 for several weeks or months, and then we should be able to move to nightly only.  He is also putting me on medication to relieve the inflammation in my jaw since there’s so much inflammation resent.  I never had braces so my teeth are all crooked and my bite is jacked up, and this could be part of the cause.  Hopefully once everything has eased up, the ringing in my ears will go away.

Y  Take a stress test at the cardiologist for my heart and get a clean bill of health.  I had a three-hour stress test complete with an IV, heart scans, and a treadmill portion, and after all of that, the cardiologist told me that I have a perfectly healthy heart!!!!  No blockages, no irregular beats, no arrhythmias, no dysfunction.  Therefore, we now know for sure that my episode back in March was an esophageal spasm, NOT a heart attack.  PRAISE BE!!!!  (I’ve obviously been watching too much of The Handmaid’s Tale.  Haha.)

Family

Y  Continue working on kindness and good manners with the kids.  Still going pretty well, although, I feel like Olivia is regressing the older she gets.  Gonna have to keep on being consistent with it!

Y  Create habits of asking to be excused and taking plates to the sink for the kids.  Yes!  Both of them almost always remember to take theirs after dinner, but breakfast is another story.

Y  Finish preparing for Easter.  Sure did!  Baskets were completed, eggs were stuffed, and everything was ready right on time!

Y  Celebrate Easter.  Sure did!  And it was one of my favorites yet!  Recap here.

Y  Book summer camp and swimming lessons, and look into VBS.  One week of summer camp has been booked for both kids, swimming lessons are booked as well, and we now have the dates for VBS and we are just awaiting the sign-ups from the church.

Y  Continue getting outside to let the kids ride bikes.  Yes!  We didn’t ride bikes quite as much this month because the kids were more interested in playing soccer in the back yard, but we did get out a couple of times at the beginning of the month.

Home

N  Upload more clothes to sell on Poshmark.  Just never got around to it!

Y  Put together my new desk for my office.

Y  Sell my old desk.

N  Sell a few other old items (to make enough for new DVD cabinet that I want).  I sold a few items this month, but I haven’t saved quite enough for the cabinet that I want.  Not too much more to go!

N  Set up new DVD cabinet and hang artwork in living room to complete the room.  Can’t set it up if I don’t have it!

Y  Complete Olivia’s bedroom makeover.  It’s finally done and I’m hoping to share it on the blog this month!

Y  Clean out my dresser.

Y  Clean out my nightstand.

Y  Clean out wedding keepsakes and move to storage box in office closet.

Y  Clean off outdoor areas to get ready for spring, take two.

Y  Clean out kids’ closets, switch out seasonal clothes, see what they need for summer.

Y  Clean out kids’ candy buckets.

Y  Buy ferns for the front porch.

Y  Develop new pictures for all frames in our house.

Y  Do 20 things on Master To-Do list.  I didn’t just do 20, I did 31!!  However, as with prior months, I also added 7 new things, so for the sake of cutting down the list for the year, it’s like I did 24 things.  Still exceeded my goal, though!  A few things that I did this month from the list were painting an old piece of furniture that I used to have in my bedroom as a little girl, framing the old pictures of our grand and great-grandparents, planting herbs (because my MIL did it for me!), painting a couple of frames, creating a permanent home for the iPad in our kitchen since Jacob has to use it for homework, moving some things around on our kitchen counters for better functionality, creating a space for my essential oils diffuser in the kitchen, styling our nightstands, adding a blush quilt to the foot of our bed, organizing our medicines in new clear bins for better visibility, changing out the pictures on the ledges in Olivia’s bedroom, adding a blackout curtain to her room, styling my new desk in my office, adding a live plant to my office, and so much more!

Blog

Y  Loosely plan blog content for June and July.

Y  Work ahead on blog posts so I’m not writing a post every single day.

Y  Complete two blog posts for the summer.

Y  Take 5-6 pictures for Instagram.

Y  Pitch to three companies.

N  Research Tailwind and decide whether or not to join.

Y  Continue sharing all of my cleaning out and decluttering on Instagram Stories.

Summary

37 items accomplished

4 items not accomplished

This might be my best month yet!  Now for some pictures of my April successes! 

Got the back porch all cleaned off and ready for spring and summer!

Celebrated my birthday with family.

Celebrated my birthday with friends.

Made essential oils rollers.

Created my new Instagram oils account.  Follow along here!

Celebrated Easter!

Alright, time for some May goals… and as a reminder, some of them will be the same from month-to-month as I try to create habits for myself for the year!  And May is going to be crazy at the kids’ school, so who knows how much of this I’ll even be able to get done?!

May Goals

Personal

Positivity, worry less, complain less, be kind, patience, relationships.

Go on one date night with B to the school fundraiser.

Go on one overnight date night with B to see Dave Matthews Band.

Attend the Volunteer Dinner at the school.

Have lunch with an old coworker x 2.

Have a girls’ night dinner with old coworkers.

Health

Drink 4 thermoses of water most days.

Eat an apple most days.

Go to the gym or work out at home at least 2 times per week.

Eat less sugar overall.

Moisturize my neck and chest every day.

Start wearing new bite guard from new dentist for TMJ issues.

Family

Continue working on kindness and good manners with the kids. 

Create habits of asking to be excused and taking plates to the sink for the kids.

Continue getting outside to let the kids ride bikes.

Book VBS.

Watch Olivia perform in her first ever dance recital!  EEK!

Wrap up all school events (Fundraiser, Mother’s Day, Teacher Appreciation, Luau, Class Party)

Try a new restaurant in our city.

Celebrate Mother’s Day.

Prepare packing lists and start packing for our beach trip in June.

Home

Upload more clothes to sell on Poshmark.

Sell a few other old items (to make enough for new DVD cabinet that I want)

Set up new DVD cabinet and hang artwork in living room to complete the room.

Finish up everything I need to have done before kids get out of school.

Change mudroom bulletin board from school stuff to summer stuff.

Photograph kids’ artwork and file once they’re out of school.

Start cleaning out Brian’s office and office closets.  This is going to be a huge one!

Get all junk out of front sitting room and put away.

Make a summer car kit (changes of clothes, sunscreen, Band-aids, etc.)

Shop thrift markets for a side table for my office and an oil storage wall hanger.

Do 20 things on Master To-Do list.

Blog

Work ahead on blog posts so I’m not writing a post every single day.

Complete four blog posts for the summer.

Take 10 pictures for both Instagram accounts.

Research Tailwind and decide whether or not to join.

Continue sharing on Instagram stories.

*Linking up with A Liz Adventures and Carolina Charm for Five on Friday, A Little Bit of Everything for Friday Favorites, Meet @ the Barre for Friday Favorites, and By BMG for High Five for Friday.