We didn’t get home until later last night than I expected and I had some unexpected things I had to take care of when I got home, so I opted to choose sleep over getting this post up last night as I’d hoped to. 
Here’s a play-by-play of how my day went yesterday:
6:30 a.m. My alarm went off. I had had a very full weekend and was tired, so it took me about 20 minutes to wake up enough to get out of bed. I don’t always have the luxury of being able to sleep in a little longer, but this morning I did, so I took advantage of it.
I headed downstairs to make coffee, light a candle, and read my Bible/go through the She Reads Truth Lent study for the day, and write in my Gratitude Journal.
I then started in on my morning computer and blogging work. Silas and Kathrynne woke up around 7:30 a.m. and I printed out their Daily Lists and got them started on those while I finished up my computer work.
All on her own, Kathrynne has been working with Silas recently in an effort to help him improve on his reading skills, so she worked with him on reading and sight words. (See a video of a little part of their time together yesterday — so sweet!) While they were working on that, Kaitlynn woke up, too.
I was finished with my morning computer work so I worked with Silas on his Kindergarten lesson for the day while Kathrynne made oatmeal for breakfast for the kids, and then we all sat down and ate breakfast and had our Morning Time together.
Once breakfast and Morning Time were finished, the kids got busy on Morning Chores and their Daily Lists while I worked on cleaning up the kitchen, getting the laundry started, and doing a thorough pick-up of the whole house — including closets and under beds. (Since we’ll have a film crew at our house for the next few days, I wanted to make sure things were pretty thoroughly cleaned.)
Kathrynne got finished with a lot of her school work and chores early, so she asked me if she could do some Paid Chores. I “hired” her to help with the laundry.
Once Silas was finished with his Daily List, he asked if he could be “hired” to work on the laundry, too. So while I was finishing up all the house-cleaning and pick-up, they folded and put away 4 loads of laundry!!
It was such a blessing to me as I had a lot going on yesterday and having them take care of the laundry for me was such a huge help. And it also reminded me that all those years of investing and teaching and training them when they were younger are truly starting to pay off in big ways.
This girl. There are no words for her. She walked into the room all decked out like this for her outfit-of-the-day… I’m not quite sure what look she was going for, but it sure cracked us up!
Our poor kids. They just have zero personality.
Once I was finished with getting the house all cleaned and the kids were done with the laundry, Jesse got home and he took over with the kids while I finally got in my run and shower.
Ashley (my assistant) showed up around then — she’d been working at the office space in the morning and then running some errands for me — to meet some people at our house to set some things up for the filming. I met with her to go over some details and projects for the rest of the day while Jesse got the kids ready to head out to Kathrynne’s swim team practice and Kaitlynn’s ice-skating practice.
Multiple folks showed up at our house around then to prep our house for the filming/hang curtains, etc. Ashley stayed at the house to oversee things and finish a few projects and I left to go to the coffee shop for a few hours. I soaked up some quiet, reviewed the script for this week’s filming, finished up my afternoon blogging projects, and wrote notes to the kids and Jesse.
And then I met up with Jesse and the kids, we grabbed some Chick-fil-A for dinner, and then we all headed to our friend, Taylor’s, basketball game.
{photo from Tam — because I totally forgot to take any pictures!}
Taylor’s team pretty well whipped the other team, so that was fun. And then we headed out to get frozen yogurt at Sweet Cece’s with Taylor’s family and our friends, Brent and Tam. These two families are some of our very dearest friends here and we feel so incredibly blessed that God connected us a few days after we moved here.
Like usual, we laughed until we cried tears — this week sharing all of our crazy airline and flying experiences. And we ended up closing down Sweet Cece’s.
It was a full day, but it was such a good day. We continue to be so grateful for our life here in TN. It’s much different than we would have ever imagined our life would be and I know that our lifestyle wouldn’t work for many families, but our family, our marriage, and our kids are thriving so much… and that’s such a gift!
Compared to January, February was a harder month, but it was still a good month.
There were a number of discouraging things that happened and multiple dear friends are going through very painful circumstances/carrying heavy burdens and my heart hurts so much for them, so those two things coupled with a fairly heavy work load and being snowed in for a week, contributed to me feeling stressed, burdened, and discouraged for a lot of the month. You may have felt that some in my writing here.
In the middle of my discouragement, though, I felt so much blessing because some of my dearest friends rallied around me and spent a lot of time talking, listening, praying, and just encouraging me. And by the grace of God, I felt much more peace, calmness, and joy by the end of the month.
I’m also grateful that the sunshine has been out some this week. It’s amazing what a difference that makes!
Here’s an update on how I did on my goals for 2015 in February:
My 12 Goals for 2015
Marriage
- Read 1 book per month on marriage.
- Write at least 1 love note to Jesse each week.
- Done in January
- Done in February
Motherhood
- Read at least 1 book aloud to the kids per month.
- Write 1 love note to each child every month.
- Done in January.
- Done in February.
Myself
MoneySavingMom.com
Hire a local personal assistant. - Done! And I’m so grateful! My new assistant, Ashley, started last week and she’s already been a huge blessing to my life!
- Launch 2 courses (we’re planning one for spring and one for fall — stay tuned!)
- We spent hours and hours of time working on the first course, Makeover Your Mornings. We’re beginning production/filming of it this week and we’re quite stoked. I think you’re going to LOVE it!
- Launch our new product line (slated to soft launch in the summer).
- Release my third book (slated to come out November 2015).
- We’re now in the midst of copy-edits. Yay!
Money
Increase last year’s overall giving totals by 10% in 2015. - Part of my going to South Africa was to investigate the possibility of our family personally supporting the work of Take Action. After coming home, we both felt this was the direction we were supposed to take and our partnership with them will allow us to meet this goal. We’re so thrilled with what God is doing there in South Africa and, for those who have joined us in this through the #TenDollarTribe.
- Finish funding our Rental House #3 Savings Account (we’re beginning the year at 35% funded).
- This goal is currently on hold while we’re in the process of saving up enough to fully fund both of our IRA’s for this year.
How are you doing on YOUR goals for 2015?
If you set goals for this year, I’d love to hear how you are doing on them! Leave a comment telling us about your progress on them or leave the link over to your blog post about them. Here’s to a year of living with purpose, intentional, impact, and meaning!
