Money Saving Mom®

We’re heading to Virginia early, early on Wednesday morning and will be there through Sunday. I’ll be speaking five times at the Virginia Homeschool Conference and we’ll be running a booth in the vendor hall, as well.

So, needless to say, I’m keeping my goals simple this week. That way, I don’t set myself up for automatic failure. 🙂

Last week’s goals:

Family/Mothering Goals

1. Finish reading Quest for Truth:Taken (reading to everyone), Winnie the Pooh (reading to Kathrynne), and The Courage of Sarah Noble (reading to Kaitlynn).

2. Attend our local homeschool convention and buy our curriculum and other things for next school year.

3. Write a love note to Jesse.

Personal Goals

4. Finish reading Radical.

5. Run at least five times. {Only managed to run three times.}

6. Listen to 2 hours of The One-Minute Entrepreneur.

7. Sleep for at least 7.5 hours every night.

Home Management

8. Follow my Freezer Cooking plan and blog about it.

Business Goals

9. Finish writing one article for another site. {I spent all of five minutes on this. Yep, it got shoved to the back burner last week.}

10. Prepare for speaking/having a booth at the Virginia Homeschool Conference next week.

And this week’s six goals:

Family/Mothering Goals

1. Pick out new books to start reading aloud to the girls individually, as well as to everyone.

2. Write a love note to Jesse.

Personal Goals

3. Finish reading The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself and Without a Word: How a Boy’s Unspoken Love Changed Everything.

4. Sleep for at least 7.5 hours every night.

Business Goals

5. Finish tweaking workshops and powerpoints for Virginia Homeschool Conference.

6. Travel to Virginia Homeschool Conference with Jesse and Kathrynne for speaking engagement.

How did you do on last week’s goals? What are your goals for this week? I’d love to have you share your progress on last week’s goals and your goals for this coming week in the comments. Of, if you’ve blogged about it, leave your direct link below. Let’s cheer each other on to live purposeful and productive lives!

You can download a free customizable weekly goal-planning sheet here.

How are you doing on your goals for 2012? I’m excited about the progress I made in May…

Personal
Read through the Bible in a year. {I’ve been keeping up with this faithfully.}
Read through the 24 books on my 2012 booklist. {I’m almost finished with May’s books and have read quite a few other books!}
Listen to 12 audiobooks. {I just finished May’s audiobook and am starting on June’s!}
Run in at least one 5K race. {Finished the Couch to 5K program and am now working on getting my time down. Hoping to sign up for a race soon.}
Complete the Couch to 10K program.
Tackle 12 Do-It-Yourself Projects. {I made English Muffin Bread last week — I’ll blog about it next week!}
Focus on one habit per month. {We made some good headway with consistent bedtimes in May — yay! On to getting places on time — one of the areas I really struggle with!}
Learn to use my new DSLR camera (huge surprise Christmas present from Jesse!!) & improve my photography skills. {I’m excited to be seeing some improvement and progress with this! And I’m also excited that I’m beginning to feel more and more comfortable using my camera!}
Take at least one photo a day and put together a page every week for my Project Life album. {I’m behind on putting my album together, but I’ve been doing good about taking lots of pictures!}
Memorize Colossians using the plan and free download here. {I’m almost caught up with this.}

Marriage
Go on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise. {Done–read my recap here.}
Go on two Marriage Retreats (Went to Cincinnati together in April).
Have monthly date nights. {We had one date in May.}
Read four books together. {We’ve done two books so far this year.}
Read at least 3 books on marriage. {I’ve read two so far this year.}

Children/Homeschooling
Continue regular dates/outings with each of the children individually. {I went on at least one outing with each child individually in April.}
Continue Grace and Truth memory book. {The children memorized three verses plus one verse of a hymn in May.}
Ice-skating lessons for all three children. {The children finished up their second round of classes and we enrolled them in a third round since they are enjoying it so much!}
Swimming lessons for all three children. {We’re hoping to get all three signed up for this within the next two weeks.}
Finish second grade, begin third grade with Kathrynne. {Kathrynne finished second grade in May — woohoo!}
Finish kindergarten, begin first grade with Kaitlynn. {Kaitlynn finished Kindergarten in May and is excited about beginning first grade soon. I’m excited because her reading and spelling have taken off in the last month — she’s quite self-motivated which helps tremendously!}
Start preschool with Silas. {Started this in April.}
Go on at least one field trip every month. {We went on one field trip in May.}
Go on at least one family vacation. {We have one planned for July.}
Finish at least 15 read-aloud books. {We’ve finished 14 read-alouds so far this year.}

Ministry/Friendships/Extended Family
Write at least two handwritten notes every month to encourage someone. {I wrote & mailed five handwritten notes this month.}
Continue being involved in our local church, homeschool group, young couple’s group, and blogging accountability group. {Ongoing}
Continue with weekly get-togethers with both sides of our extended family. {Ongoing}

Business/Blogging
Continue to take Sundays off from blogging/business work. {Ongoing}
Continue keeping strict Office Hours for the business/blogging time each day. {Still plugging away on this!}
Switch to a paperless planning system. {This is the one goal I think I’ve officially decided to drop this year as it just wasn’t working for me. Back to the paper.}
Follow my weekly blogging plan. {I stuck with my blogging plan all but three days in May, if I’m remembering correctly — woot!}
Plan blog posts out at least a month in advance. {I made some great progress in this area in May!}
Write and schedule blog posts at least a week in advance. {Making some headway with this, though I’m far from where I want to be!}

Financial
Continue to tithe 10% of our income. {Ongoing}
Give generously to needs in our community and around the world, as God prompts us. {Ongoing}
Pay cash for a new-to-us vehicle to replace our family’s van. {We’re still looking and haven’t found anything we love in our price range yet!}
Finish saving for and purchase a rental property with cash. {We’re in the process of investigating our options in our price range right now and deciding if we want to go ahead and purchase something or continue saving.}

How Are You Doing on Your Goals for 2012?

If you’ve posted goals for 2012, I’d love for you to post an update on how things are going and share your link in the comments. If you don’t have a blog, feel free to just leave your update as a comment. Let’s encourage one another to live lives of intention and purpose!