September Goals

Welcome to my wildly unrealistic (this will surprise absolutely no-one) September Goals!

I’m not sure why I have started with the gardening goals first. I mean these are the ones I am least likely to achieve and are also the least important to me. I guess I was writing down my goals as they came to mind and gardening obviously came first!

I have also written down more goals than can humanly be achieved in one month. I’m thinking of the saying about aiming for the moon and falling between the stars or something like that. I think it means that one should aim big because even if you don’t achieve everything you’ll achieve more than you could imagine… Just so long as I don’t aim for the moon and then fall flat on my face because y’know with me that is certainly a possibility!

Clueless with Claire

• Yes, I am returning to the garden! Having gained confidence by keeping two house plants alive for the last seven weeks, I feel buoyed on to even greater things outside.
• My main goal is to clear the area beside my art studio/office. Right now my studio/office looks out on the messiest part of the garden and I really like the idea of creating a little haven which will be a sort of extension of my studio/office.
• After clearing it, I’d like to consult with the real gardener of the house (aka Gaz) and put together a plan of action to create much beauty and nature on this little plot of land. As an aside, I have very low expectations of my ability with all-things-green so won’t be expecting too much…

Home Business

• Add one product a week to my shop
• Create a second set of notebooks with Amazon
• Have my sticker sheets printed and ready to sell
• Look into setting up a shop on my blog
• Publicising my Etsy Shop once all my cards are up

Seasons of Joy

• Clear studio/office
• Paint studio/office
• Ask Gary to put up shelves to give me storage space for my small business as well as homeschool and resources for my master’s degree
• Organise studio/office so that it is functional and beautiful

Health Goals

• Re-establish a good, productive morning routine
• Re-establish a good lunch time routine
• Continue with my night-time routine
• Continue taking Harvey for a walk five times a week
• Only eat vegetarian food on three days per week
• Lose another four pounds
• At the end of the month take my cholesterol reading
• Take vitamin D supplements, as well as a multi vitamin/mineral and a bacteria for my tummy (y’know, sure to be sure, as they say in Northern Ireland)
• Have the dreaded cervical smear done

Precious Moments

• Eat dinner together at least five times a week
• Hold two murder mystery dinners
• Have one family night when everyone is available (try out new game)
• Celebrate Abigail’s birthday
• Have special back to school breakfast with stationary gifts
• Go out for at least one Girls’ Club when all the girls are around
• Have at least one date night with Gary
• Go to the garden centre with mum
• Go to get a tattoo with Lillie for her 21st (we’re getting matching tattoos of a line drawing she has done of a Lily and a bee. Do I like tattoos? No, not really, but I knew it would be the single most special thing I could do for Lillie’s 21st! And I was right! She almost burst into tears and is SO excited for the 11th to come! Her twin doesn’t believe I’ll go through with it…I guess, watch this space!)

Reading/Books

• My main goal here is to reach 75 books read so far this year. This is so I can keep on top of my goal to read 100 books in 2023. This means I will need to read more than 11 books.
• I would like my book range to cover all sorts of genres. I naturally go for non fiction books but just recently have been branching out into more fiction, which I am thoroughly enjoying. In September, I’d like to read some autumnal themed books, just for fun, as well as some classics thrown in for good measure. Thanks to all of your recommendations, which I put straight onto my wish list, said wish list is becoming ridiculously and satisfyingly long. I think this month will be an amazing reading month!

Homeschool

• I’ve already mentioned that I want to have a special ‘first day of school’ breakfast for the girls and I. We will spend this day going through everything they will be studying this year and my expectations and goals for them.
• As we have many birthdays and other celebrations the first two weeks of September, I’ve decided we’ll just do bits and pieces and have a gentle start before going full hog on the 18th. We still have a little catch up to do from last term so these two weeks seem the perfect time to do it.
• The last two weeks will be spent settling in to all the different courses the girls are doing this year. I’m not going to set any specific goals this month because I think we all need time to just look over the courses and familiarise ourselves with how they are run and the expectations for each course.

Master’s Degree

• I want to have completed the reading of my text book before I start back in October
• The reason I am doing this master’s in Childhood and Youth is to help me become more prepared for the fostering (and possible adoption) Gary and I would like to do in the future. To this end, I would like to include some general books about fostering and adoption in my reading this month.
• I subscribe to the Adoption and Fostering Journal and would like to flick through the past 12 months of articles to familiarise myself with what is newly available for my assignments (We have quite a lot of scope within our assignments to focus on the areas of childhood and youth that we are interested in. I always do mine on looked-after children so that I can learn as much as possible).
• Another thing I would like to do is set up a Notions page for all my study. I tried to do this last year when I was studying but I couldn’t work it out. This year, I am going to give it another go!

Blog/Website

• As previously mentioned, I want to figure out how to add a shop to my website so I can sell stuff online here rather than pay Etsy to do it for me!
• I am still working my way through the 2000 plus posts I have written and updating the ones I think need to be updated. I would like to update ten this month which may not sound like many, but it does take me quite a lot of time to do each post and I don’t want to be over ambitious!
• I would love to get to the end of this month and say that I have posted everyday bar Sundays. I know myself well, though, and suspect that when I get back to schooling and studying I’ll probably struggle to find the time to do this. I’d really like to surprise myself though!
• 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 September. Making this a little more specific, I would like to have rewritten the home page to reflect these changes.

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). The videos and posts together take me a lot of time (think hours) but I want to be chipping away at this project throughout the next year and I think two videos is doable.
• This point links back to another one further up and that is I want to write in my blog each day.
• 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 finish Into the Woods by John Yorke and make my way through 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.
• I’d love to have the courage to publish my novella, but this has been my goal for months now and I just don’t seem to be able to do it…

Art

• I don’t ever really push myself with my art. I tend to finish around one piece per month so I guess that seems to be a good goal for September.
• Another relaxed goal I have is to do a few smaller art pieces whilst I’m watching television in the evening. I’ve mentioned before that my sticker sheets need bulking out sometimes so doing the odd small painting means I have smorgusbord of drawings to use.
• In the past I have done lots of art journalling and this still appeals to me. However, looking at my list of goals above I’m thinking it might not be sensible to add to the list and fail before I’ve even started. But I have never claimed to be sensible, so I’m adding in an art journal page just for fun!
• Last but not least is to make a memory book for Charlotte.

I think that’s it! I shall come back to this post periodically and cross out things as and when I get them done. Tomorrow I will be sharing my daily routine which will help me to achieve everything I want to achieve. What are your goals for the coming month?