November’s Goals {and a Look Back at October’s}

Sooo…last month I wrote down my goals. In this post I will be going through those and also writing my new goals for November.

Goals for October

Small Business Goals

• Add one product a week to my Etsy shop
• Publicise my shop (I am definitely back-pedalling on this)
• Go through my notebooks and make sure each set are exactly the same colour
• Create a third set of notebooks
• Buy in ten of each of the sealife notebooks

I did fairly well with my small business goals. I didn’t buy ten of each Sealife Journal because when I double checked the colours, one of the books printed differently, colour wise. I got in contact with KDP who said it was normal for there to be some differences. I only heard back from them over the weekend.

Seasons of Joy

• Clear the downstairs hallways/Abigail’s desk area
• Repaint
• Create an area under the stairs for Gary’s music stuff
• Neaten up around the door frame
• Neaten up all the leads from my office to Abigail’s office
• Clean the stairs carpet

I’m not sure why I didn’t do so well in this area. I was on half-term last week and so could easily have got some work done in this area. It’s the reason I haven’t written a Season’s of Joy post this week. I really had absolutely nothing to say.

Health Goals

• Morning Routine
• Evening Routine
• Lose four pounds
• Eat between 10am and 6pm and stop snacking at nighttime
• Walk over 10000 steps each day, every day
• Get out in sunlight for at least one hour per day
• Take supplements

I’ve not crossed any of these off, but all is not as bad as it looks…I did pretty well on all of these apart from last week, during half term. I don’t know why, but I feel like when I am out of routine I do really badly at everything. So whilst I could have ticked off everything the week before half term, half term absolutely set me back. I shall try again this coming month.

Precious Moments

• Birthday dinner for girls’ 21st birthday
• Go to garden centre with mum
• Girls’ club at least once
• Have at least one date night with Gary
• Have one family night when everyone is available and play the murder mystery I bought last month.
• Eat dinner together at least five times per week

I did fairly well here, although I did not get many photos. That said, I got enough that I will be writing my precious moments post tomorrow 😊

Reading Books

• Read at least ten books
• Try to include classics as well as some academic texts and adoption/fostering books
• Read The Golden Bull by Marjorie Cowley to review

I did well here, although I don’t feel that these goals were particularly stretching. I read Room with a View as my classic book, Neuroparenting as my academic text and The Complete Guide to Therapeutic Parenting as my fostering/adoption book choice. I also read and reviewed The Golden Bull.

Homeschool

• Rebecca to have completed one booklet each for Mixed Media, Photography and Textiles and for me to have sent them off for marking.
• Abs to complete two lessons each of Sociology, Psychology, Chemistry, Biology and Physics

Becs was so close to finishing her Textiles book but didn’t quite and ditto with her Mixed Media. We were going to work on them over half-term but we forgot. See, I’m useless when I’m out of routine!

Master’s Degree

• Completed this term’s work by the end of October, which is doable if I work really really hard.
• Read the two academic books on Neuroparenting and governmental intervention I’ve bought
• Continue critically analysing the article on Neuroparenting for my assignment
• Begin building an annotated biography of all the articles I’ve read.

Completing this term’s work was always going to be a stretch! I have done all the modules up until the 25th of November, and have two more modules to complete this year. So, I’m fairly happy with my achievements in this area.

Blog

• I would like to update four old posts this month (aim for one per week)
• I would love to get to the end of this month and say that I have posted everyday bar Sundays. 
• As my blog is changing from being primarily a homeschool blog to being more about my life as a homeschool mum, I’d like to change the geography of my blog and make things a bit easier to find. This will be a long term goal though, so I’d like to have at least started it and made some progress towards this goal in October

I have not updated any posts this month 😢 I have, however, done a lot of work reorganising my blog. I have also done really well posting everyday, although I can’t actually cross that one off because I missed this Saturday. I usually post about my reading, watching and listening for the week. But it was half term and I didn’t do enough to have anything to post. Darn that half term!!

Writing

• I am still plugging away at my Mesopotamia Unit Study and this month I just want to carry on. Specifically, I’d like to make two videos, demonstrating an activity which goes along with the curriculum. I’d also like to write a corresponding post to go along with each video or videos (sometimes I do a couple of videos around the same topic). 
• Each month I try to read about writing from one of the greats (I’ve done C. S. Lewis and Stephen King). This month I want to read Phillip Pullman’s Daemon Voices. I will also listen to as many of The Best Seller Experience podcasts as I can. These are podcasts about writing a best seller and they all contain an interview with someone who has done just that.
• Organise my curriculum into folders and write a list of things left to do

I couldn’t afford to buy Daemon Voices this month because I used my Audible credit to buy Essentialism (a book someone recommended which was brilliant!). So I shall have to carry that over to next month I think!

Art

• Create one art journal page
• Create an ocean themed pattern which I can use to make washi tape and wrapping paper – products I am considering making for my Etsy shop.
• Make designs for book marks and ‘This Book Belongs to…’ stickers

I easily met all my art goals this month. In fact, this is what I spent most of the half-term doing. I got completely sucked into my art and merrily worked away on it from dusk to dawn each day. Some might say I’m a little obsessed!

Goals for November

Small Business Goals

• Film and post four videos to my art channel
• Add one item to my Etsy shop each week
• Install my new printer
• Design a very small Christmas range
• Buy five each of the Sea-Life Notebook Range

Seasons of Joy

• Go through the book case in the hallway so I can use it as an extension to my office
• Paint the hallway
• Organise the leads around Abs’ office
• Neaten around the door frame

Health Goals

• Morning Routine
• Evening Routine
• Lose four pounds
• Eat between 10am and 6pm and stop snacking at nighttime
• Walk over 10000 steps each day, every day
• Get out in sunlight for at least one hour per day
• Take supplements

Precious Moments

• At least one Date Night with Gary
• At least one Girl Club with my girlies!
• Eat together as a family at least five times a week
• Organise at least one family night
• Go to a garden centre with mum

Reading Books

• Read at least ten books
• Read at least one classic, one academic and one about fostering/adoption
• Reread The Complete Guide to Therapeutic Parenting and write a review (Christianity magazine has asked me to review it (And they’re paying me to do it!!))
• I have a large TBR list which I really want to focus on getting through. I did not feel like October was a particularly strong month for getting through books. I met my goals but I had not set myself a very difficult goal list to meet. I want to push myself a bit harder this month and make some real head way through the TBR list.

Homeschool

• Rebecca to have completed the booklet for Mixed Media and Textiles and for me to have sent them off for marking and made head way on the next Photography booklet and the next Textiles booklet.
• Have Becs signed up to complete her courses within the next year.
• Abs to complete two lessons each of Sociology, Psychology, Chemistry, Biology and Physics
• I’d like to have helped Abs make some revision cards and to have photocopied some past papers.

Master’s Degree

• Finish this term’s work
• Continue with Assignment one and try to have the first draft written by the end of November
• Read Beyond Listening and start to make notes for assignment two

Blog

• I would like to update four old posts this month (aim for one per week) – obviously, this is something I am struggling with so I am going to schedule for me to do this whilst watching TV in the evenings when Gary is not around. It doesn’t require much thought or concentration so I am hoping having a specific time to do this will help.
• Repost one updated post per week
• I would love to get to the end of this month and say that I have posted everyday bar Sundays. 
• Focus on my living maths page and create a more cohesive selection of posts to help homeschoolers who are wanting to go down this route.
• Record a video about morning meeting/basket time and write an accompanying post about it

Writing

• I am still plugging away at my Mesopotamia Unit Study and this month I just want to carry on. Specifically, I’d like to record a video about cylinder seals of Urek and write an accompanying blog post
• I’d like to publish my ‘Six Week Unit Study Planning’ booklet on Amazon
• Each month I try to read about writing from one of the greats (I’ve done C. S. Lewis and Stephen King). This month I want to read Phillip Pullman’s Daemon Voices. This has been the goal now for the last two months and I haven’t got round to it. I intend to use this month’s credit to buy this book as I really do want to actually read it and not just write about reading it!
• I’d like to start to collate all of the printables I have made for my Mesopotamian curriculum and some how amalgamate them into one place so they are not just scattered around my blog. This will take a lot of time so I just want to make a start on it in November.

Art

• My mum has asked me to design her Christmas cards this year. I wasn’t necessarily going to create a Christmas range for my small business but I think this has given me the impetus to do just that. So this month I’d like to complete two Christmas designs.
• My new printer prints A3 size so I’d like to use my designs to perhaps make a Christmas wrapping paper to go along with the card. I don’t find pattern making that easy so I don’t know that I have the skill to do this, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Home-Making

I’m adding a new category here because my home-making skills are woeful and there are small things I’d like to do each month to automate things so I can become a bit more of a reliable housekeeper…

• I want to do one thing this month and that is to have milk delivered to the house each morning so we never run out of milk. Ahem. So I want to research milk delivery options in our area and organise a daily delivery.

Lots of nice goals to keep me pleasantly occupied over the next four weeks. What are your goals this month?