My (held loosely) 2025 goals

As I said in my previous post, this year will have some twists and turns as we care for my mother-in-law as she heads home to be with her Savior. We don’t have a estimated timeline, it could be a ways out there still, and that is why I am holding these goals loosely. If care for her picks up, then my goals will have to wait.

But, I still wanted to make some goals, so I’m not just waiting around, doing nothing. I am motivated by goals and want to use my time wisely and thoughtfully. So with all that in mind, below are my goals that I hope, Lord willing, to pursue this year.

Side note: This year I made January my “practice month.” I planned out my goals, and started fitting them into my day and schedule. This is super helpful for me because it takes a lofty idea and puts it into the day-to-day activities and makes it pretty easy to see if it will work or not. Having a practice month, also helps me avoid that Febuary Fail feeling. I am just practicing and trying the habits and goals on to see if they fit. It has been working so well, that I’m going to keep January as Just Practice January here on out. It’s a great way to ease into goals!

I have quite a few goals in each area, but I won’t share them all. I wrote them out, so I won’t forget that I want to do them, but I picked only two in each category that I probably wouldn’t do if I didn’t have them here and have you cheering me on and keeping me accountable.

Spiritual

Study 1 Peter

For this study, I’m using a great study by Lisa Hughes of Scripture Paths. It’s an intense study, 22 weeks, but it is a great way to dive deep into Scripture. I’ll share thoughts as I work through it. I’m still on week one (in week three of the year), so I imagine it will take all year to get through. I’m good with that though! PLUS, all her studies are FREE! So if you’re looking for a deep Bible study this year, and money is tight, check out her site!

Breakfast with the Doctor

Every weekday morning I want to eat my breakfast with Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones. I have developed a bad habit of using my breakfast time as a time to check email, catch up on the news, or watch random YouTube videos. But, since I’m working to redeem the time, I’m making my breakfast, propping up my massive book of Great Doctrines of the Bible, and reading it during breakfast. I will not get through this book in a year, but I’ll let you know how it’s going!

Meditate Saturdays

On the weekends, I like to change my morning routine. On Saturdays I will be working through the next I Will Meditate Journal in the series. I’m on Volume 5 and love reading and meditating through the Bible with these (I actually created them for my own personal use. And a friend took all the cover pictures on each book in the series!) These will get you through the entire Bible alternating Old Testament books with New.

Marriage and Family

Walk through all 13 parks along the lower Tualatin River

I thought it would be fun to do a sort of staycation activity once a month or so with just Corey and I, and why not go to each of the 13 parks along a river that runs through our valley? We’ll pack a lunch and see what each park is like, and see different parts of the river. Not the most exciting or glamorous, but we’ll have a quest to try to complete and maybe I’ll get a chance to sketch out and about.

Supper and Skills with Ryan

Are food trucks a thing where you live? They are all over here in our area. It started with a food cart pod in Portland, right in the center of downtown that we went to years ago (before Portland got scary–there was a time when it was so much fun to go downtown believe it or not), but now food cart pods are everywhere in the suburbs! We have so many to choose from and I love the varieties. I’d much rather spend our eating out budget at food trucks instead of chain restaurants.
We’re going to link this fun dinner with a safety skills training night with my youngest son. He has had excellent training on all sorts of first aid, navigation, emergency preparedness and self defense. We’ve always meant to do this, but we just haven’t. I’m hoping we will do it once a month if we tie it to being able to try a new food cart. The plan is to get our food, bring it home, then practice whatever skill he has for us that month.

Education and Personal

Read books I already have

Every year I want to do this, and every year I don’t do well with it. This year will hopefully show some progress as I’m using the 5×5 Reading Challenge and made 5 categories of books I already have on my shelves. My categories are:
5 books on Christianity
5 books for my daughter in law (I read through the book, underline and leave notes for her)
5 biographies or memoirs
5 Non-fiction books
5 books on Biblical Meditation.
I haven’t picked out all the titles yet, but I definitely have 5 in each category sitting on my shelves! I can’t mark them off until I’ve read them through and then entered them in my Reading Notebook or Commonplace book.

Learn more about the 5×5 Reading Challenge!

Personal

sketch and paint

I really miss sketching and watercolor a LOT. I absolutely loved going out and nature journaling with my boys (who didn’t love it as much as I did, but it was a Homeschool Subject, so they had no choice), and I want to be sure to plan some of that this year. I figure I can sketch when we go to the parks, when we go to my mother in law’s house (she has such interesting antiques in every room of her house that are displayed so well), and out in the garden.

review my time

I have realized that when I’m not intentional with reflecting and reviewing and planning, that everything falls to pieces in my days and weeks. I get sidetracked, I do a right thing but at the wrong time, I procrastinate, and get lazy and disorganized. I’m going to be practicing doing daily reviews (this is just a brief summary at the bottom of my planner page of what happened that day), weekly reviews (a little more extensive, but good and important) monthly reviews, and quarterly reviews. I’ll share more as I do them, but I’m hoping to stay on top of this and keep things running as smooth as possible.

Around the House

Update as we can afford

We live in an old 1970’s ranch house (that I love) but it is in need of some major updates (that we can’t afford) so I decided to settle this year for updates that we can afford like new paint, replacing a water guzzling toilet, decluttering, and re-staining kitchen cabinets. While they won’t be big projects, they’ll make a difference. In the first quarter of the year I hope to declutter each room and help Corey make cupboard doors for an old canning shelf we are using for home canned goods. I’ll update with pictures as we get going on that.

Farmstand

The Farmstand is how I will be making the money to do the updates above. I have a few projects that need to be done to the stand itself before we reopen in February. I also have a goal to keep careful track of what I grow and sell at the stand so I can have a better idea of what sells well and what I can skip next year.

the blog

And finally, I hope to blog here once a week! I really want to as there’s so much I’d love to share. You can pray I’m organized with my time and work consistently on it even when I don’t feel like it. Some of the things I want to do is:
Finish the Spiritual Depression Series
Make Susan Allibone themed prayer binder sticky notes and other items
Create a lot of new biblical meditation resources
Keep you up to date on goals
And work on some other projects that have been bubbling in the back of my brain for a while.

That’s it for me, do you guys have goals or make any? I’d love to hear about a couple main ones you’re working on this year!