I know I’ve stated this before, but I don’t want to have new years resolutions… but goals yes! It’s good to aim for something lofty and attempt to reach it. But it shouldn’t be too easy to obtain! A resolution means it something you are going to do and fail if you don’t do it. A goal doesn’t set you up for failure, it’s just a way of trying to improve, do better, accomplish something or work towards something.

By having goals it has helped me to visualize what I’d like to get done in a year and what is important to me. It is also a good to do list of things that need to get done as well. As you can see from below, I did accomplish some of my goals last year, but there are others still to be addressed!

I think it is so encouraging to look back and see that some of my goals from last year now seem like habit, or don’t even seem difficult. Of course we all like to see growth in our own lives and this is such a good way to quantify it or at least keep track of it and serve as an encouragement as we look back over the years!

Here were my goals from last year, and in italics is an eval of what I did…

Short Term Goals:

1. Decide if we are going to register Tonchi for homeschooling or apply for religious exemption. – We applied for religious exemption and were able to submit all of our paperwork by the deadline. Also in the last two months we received notification we were approved!
2. Decide if we are going to join Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). – We decided we were going to join, but didn’t have the funds, but miraculously they emailed us and said they had programs for assistance with yearly dues for those who were financially in need. We applied and were graciously given a 1 year membership! It’s about time to evaluate our membership for another year.
3. Make homeschooling plans for next year. – I got it done before Xanthie was born! I had all our materials purchased and lessons planned out for the school year. It gave us enough time to enjoy her arrival in August and not stress over getting lesson plans worked out as well!
4. Make it a priority to do more fun things/experiential learning. Aim at getting out of the house more to learn. – Always a priority… still working on this one… will be including it in this year as well!
5. Spend less time inside. – Another one that I think we had improvement, but I’d like to see more. I think I need to be more specific than just saying “more time outside”
6. Take advantage of how close Washington DC is and use it for more learning opportunities. – We did! And I have more planned for this year!
7. Finish repairs on our current home and get it ready to put on the market. – Somewhat… the kitchen floor still isn’t done… However, we did remove the carpeting on the main floor and put down laminate flooring, recarpet the upstairs, spruce up kitchen cabinets, put new hardware on the cabinets and get granite countertops. But of course after all this we decided not to put our house on the market quite yet! At least we get to enjoy all the improvements!
8. Have a baby at home! – Yay! We did! August 5th she made her arrival!
9. Go camping more. – We went once… would like to go more than that!
10. Continue growing the blog, get more readers. – Didn’t do so well on this one… I kept up with my posting, but not a whole lot of growth… Wanna help me with that! Spread the word!
11. Set one on one “dates” with each of the kids.– Again… need to be more specific. I did some, but definitely not enough.
12. Help the boys (ages 5 and 4) to make 2 or 3 goals for this year. – I don’t think we ever did this… at all… hmmm… something for this year!

So that’s my evaluation of the last year. All in all I’m pretty pleased… and now it’s time to make a new list for the coming year!