Living with Intention {April}

For me, 2016 will be all about living with intention.

This year, I hope to be more intentional about the choices I make – how I choose to spend my time and making the choice to be more present in the moments I share with my family & friends.

Living a more intentional and purposeful life is a pretty broad statement, so I’ve decided to break things down into smaller goals for each month and, to keep myself on track, I’ve also decided to share my journey here on the blog (because let’s face it, it’s often so much easier to talk yourself out of doing something, than into doing something).
 

 
 

So, if I’m being entirely honest here, I felt like I lost my way a bit this month. My head was spinning with everything I had to do and I just couldn’t seem to take control of things or get myself ahead. Don’t get me wrong, I shared SO many wonderful moments with my family and friends this month and did manage to find at least a few hours to focus on myself too, but it the rest of it seemed to be a bit of scattered, jumbled mess, no matter how hard I tried to reel it all in.

Here’s a quick recap of my goals for March and how I did following through…

{family}: Enjoy a family movie night all snuggled up with some popcorn together once a week.

I’m sorry to say that we didn’t make the time to see this one through, not even once. Hubs and I were tackling all sorts of projects this month and taking an evening off seemed an impossible task. Looking back though, I can’t believe we felt we couldn’t find 2 hours in an entire week to devote to this.

Seriously, shame on us.
 
 

{home}: Finish that upstairs hallway. Start and finish top-secret organizing project.

We may have missed the mark on family movie night, but at least we were making use of that time finishing up our hallway (see the final reveal here). We also made it through most of our top secret organizing project, with just a few little details to finish up – can’t wait to spill those beans soon!
 
 

{blog}: Work through projects and posts at least two weeks in advance, i.e. finish the month with posts scheduled through the first two weeks of April.

Again, at the expense of more important things (like family time), I was able to get myself two whole weeks ahead with my posts now scheduled to mid-April! Yippee!!! Though with that ORC coming our way again this month, that’s all about to go right out the window again (though it’ll be worth it).
 
 

{myself}: Reconnect and make time to spend with friends.

I’m happy to report that as a top priority, friend time was in abundance this month! Carson and I both found many chances to connect with our friends in some really fun ways. I also had some lovely chats with friends near and far that have been on my mind and in my heart constantly, but that I hadn’t made the effort to actually talk to in a while. Honestly, I feel happier just thinking about it! You can bet we’ll be keeping this one up!
 
 

For the month of April, here’s what I will be choosing to focus on to help me live with intention:

 

{Family}: In addition to the family movie night that we totally neglected last month, I’d like to ensure we’re carving out more time to spend together, just the three of us. We’re gearing up for a pretty busy month around here with this ORC, but I don’t want it to come at the total expense of our time together.
 

Let’s get specific: Enjoy a family movie night all snuggled up with some popcorn together at least twice this month. Go for a family walk, bike ride, swimming, or other activity at least once a week (that one made me sad just writing it – how have we lost this?).

 
 

{home}: We’ve officially signed on to take part in the One Room Challenge again this spring (find our last rooms here and here). This means that we’ll be making over one room in our home, completely transforming it in just six weeks! The goal this month will be to push through the chaos and overwhelming to-do lists, staying on track for our final reveal on May 11th.
 

Let’s get specific: Stay on track with our ORC project!

 
 

{Blog}: March saw a ton of changes on the back end of things (ahem, gorgeous new logo and pretty new look!), and somehow I still managed to get my content calendar two whole weeks ahead.

This month will be all about staying afloat through this ORC. You see the ORC has a way of completely taking over the lives of it’s participants (for obvious reasons), so I’d really love to make the time to share not just an update each week with y’all, but hopefully a fun DIY project as well.
 

Let’s get specific: Share at least one DIY post each week along with my usual ORC weekly updates.

 
 

{Myself}: I mentioned that the ORC has a way of taking over lives, this includes our personal lives as well. Through the zillions of things we’ll need to do, it’s really important to me that Brady and I both make some time to recharge our batteries too. After all, when we look after ourselves, we’re better partners to each other and better parents to our little man.
 

Let’s get specific: Devote an hour each day to something just for me. Also, make sure Brady does the same.

 
 

Part of me feels so disappointed with myself that I even have to sit here to write this all out, that it doesn’t just happen naturally in our lives. But, the truth is (as sad as it may be), it doesn’t all just happen. The only thing that just happens when I’m not intentional with my choices are hours that feel lost and days that seem to just fly by.

So here I am, sitting down, thinking about what’s most important to me and writing out intentional goals to focus my attention on. Here’s hoping that someday I’ll be able to live this way without having to work so hard at it.
 

Did you set any goals for this year? I’d love to hear how things are going!

Wishing you SUCH a lovely day!
 
 
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