So I know I haven’t actually posted my goals yet, not my goals for the year, or Q1, or January. But! I do have some goals and I think I can write about what January looked like and what I hope February will be. So here is my attempt.
Connection
What went well: The husband and I started the month with a date weekend, went to dinner a couple times, and saw two SketchFest shows. The 15yo and I spent a lot of time together watching RHoSLC and having some interesting conversations. The 12yo and I spent a lot of time together driving to and from swimming, and he joined me a couple times to run errands and hang out. I took both kids to the Great Highway to ride bikes one weekend and we went to the mall yesterday, which was surprisingly fun. My friends and I went to dinner mid-month and today we went to Alameda to play pinball. I spent the day with my mom (hike + lunch) for her birthday.
What I’m still working on: Writing 2-3 blog posts a week and comment reciprocation!
Health/Wellness
What went well: I’ve been on the bike way more than 30-45 minutes a week since I hurt my knee. I started the Crushing Your Core strength program on Peloton. I am redoing the Strong Glutes program (Coach Sophia) to help correct muscle imbalance and improve my knee pain. The new prescription gel plus the new lotion seem to be working really well at managing my perioral dermatits!
What I’m still working on: Eating more fiber and drinking more water. Sleeping 6.5-7.5 hours a night.
Work
What went well: All the weeks of January have been added to my Tri2 planning doc. I’ve added story video options to my free reading program. I have been recording notes for each class every day for the past two weeks (who was absent, who was moved, etc).
What I’m still working on: I have not yet added audiobooks to my free reading program, or started a yearbook master document.
Home
What went well: I got an app and added a bunch of chores to it, assigned chores to the kids and husband, and helped them to use the app to track what they are doing. We still have a long way to go, but I’m excited to be trying something.
What I’m still working on: Being consistent in actually using the app. I also haven’t written a list of the chores I want to add to each kids’ list (I hope to add one chore each month).
Fun
What went well: We went to the Art of Manga exhibit at the deYoung as a family. We spent a lot of time together watching Stranger Things.
What I’m still working on: Feeling like I have 1-2 things to look forward to a week.
Planning/Recording
What went well: I have some annual goals written out for the year, and some Q1 goals. I plan to write out my February goals here. I’m using my planner pretty regularly, and changed the way I utilize the layout to make it more effective. I started using Google Tasks. I recorded my books/movies/TV shows for the month.
What I’m still working on: I did not do a financial review in January (and I don’t have a plan yet to do one). I don’t have a good system for actually using Google Tasks effectively yet. I am checking my planner consistently every morning.
February
And here are some things I hope to accomplish in February.
- Have fun on the snow trip weekend (even though the snow is evidently not great)
- Steam clean the downstairs (when I’m off and the kids are not, after the snow trip)
- Add a chore to each kid’s list and use the app consistently
- Write 2-3 blog posts a week, ideally on consistent days
- Respond to comments and/or comment on someone’s blog when they comment on mine
- Continue Strong Glutes program 2-3x/week
- Do shoulder rehab exercises at least 3x/week
- Slowly return to the dojo without aggravating my knee or shoulder
- Weekend check-ins (on Thursdays) and weekly check-ins (on Sunday) with husband
- Add February weeks to Tri2 planning document
- Sign the 15yo up for life guard training
- Decide on Hawaii trip for this summer
- Buy flights for Hawaii
- Figure out dates for St. Louis and possibly buy those tickets too
- Start thinking about summer camps for the 12yo
Obviously some of these are one-offs and others are consistent habits I’m hoping to solidify. Do they belong on the same list? Who knows! I’m new to this goal setting stuff and I’m doing my best.
On an unrelated note, the daily views here at the blog have gone up pretty significantly. Like a 240% increase over three days (my numbers are pretty low, so even doubling them is not a ton, but it’s definitely noticeable!). And I have no idea why. I can’t find any clues at the referrals tracker. I know most people would be thrilled if a bunch more people were reading their blog, but honestly it makes me anxious. Who are these people, how did they find me, and why are they still here? I am flummoxed! If you are one of these people (waves shyly) and wouldn’t mind letting me know in the comments, I’d appreciate it!
Sounds great. I am really impressed you found an app re chores that you think may work for your family. It also sounds like you are doing both a lot of documentation before and after activities and are becoming more organized/using more organization in you highly complex, varied needs life. Sounds like so far you are being able effectively to have more time focused on your priorities without losing spontaneity.
That is a huge achievement.
No idea how numbers are tracked re readers but am glad yours are going up. You are a good writer and always human. Helps your readers remember that Mary Poppins was fictional and many images on social media are curated images.
They are back down again! Honestly I’m relieved. Yes, I am a weirdo, but so be it.
Last fall, Infertile Phoenix had a post about the weird spike she’d had in her page views… I was curious so I checked my stats (which I don’t do very often), and sure enough, there’d been a HUGE spike in my numbers! (At the end of the year, my page views for the year were more than DOUBLE what they were for the same period last year, which is bonkers!!)
I thought maybe someone was scraping blog sites to feed AI databases? A commenter on Phoenix’s post said it was probably “‘referral spam—fake visits that try to show up in your Google Analytics so you’ll click the link or buy their “traffic” service. It’s noise, not real customers.'”
Whatever it is, it’s weird. You’re not alone. I wrote about in a post at the time, with links to Phoenix’s post (it’s the last item, near the bottom of the post):
https://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.com/2025/09/microblogmondays-odds-ends.html
Honestly I was kind of hoping it was something like that. Because any of the alternate possibilities that I can think of stress me out too much.
Thank you for sharing that can happen. Not pleasant but there are worse options.
It sounds like you are doing a lot of things really well. Good for you. Did I miss something – did you get a diagnosis on the knee? I’m glad it seems to be improving- at least that’s my guess if you’re on your bike.
I’d like to take credit for your increase in page visits – like hey, maybe it’s because I added your address to my blog feed, but womp womp . . . I can’t take credit for that kind of uptick. 😉
That chores app sounds amazing. I hope it works to get husband and kids involved.
I liked the way you recapped your January, great job achieving some goals and keep working on some others.
I don’t look at my stats. I think it would freak me out to know how many people read but never comment. I like thinking that we just have a small blogger community 🙂
I don’t really look at my stats either, but there is a little spot at the top of my screen that shows a little line for views each hour and I noticed there were big jumps so I investigated. I’m guessing my spikes were bot generated, which is fine by me! I also like thinking we just have a small blogging community.
I never look at my stats. I couldn’t care less. WordPress sends me a notification “your stats are booming” and I honestly have no clue. And by “booming” they mean three more people read such and such posts lol
I have my regular people, we all do our best to write and to stay in each other’s blog by way of comments and that is it 🙂
Re: finances. Try Monarch, it takes the need away to do a financial review, I look at it every day . At the end of the month, it gives a nice “chart”
I also don’t care about them in that I’m not trying to make my views “rise.” I was so panicked when I saw the spike! Why would so many more people be here! I could not fathom a reason that was not negative. So yeah, I feel you.