First quarter was so full and rewarding! If you’re interested in what went down in January, February, and March you can read this post. And if you’re interested in how I approached setting goals for 2020, that post is over here. Those are going to be helpful to give context to the focus areas I’m planning on for second quarter. Which brings me to what I plan to tackle in April, May, and June! Here we go:

ONE. Become a Family Who Loves Nature & Adventure

One of our favorite things about our annual Seaside, Florida trip is how for seven days we only move around by foot or bike. When we travel by bike we put the boys in a trailer together and off we go on our family adventures! The trailer beats a stroller any day and coasting through one charming street after another, squeals of delight coming from the trailer behind me, is one of the most joyful experiences of our trip away. How we didn’t think to get a trailer until we were three weeks into a state-wide lockdown is beyond me but we are not the proud recipients of one! And our kids are DELIGHTED.

Some second quarter focus areas: research and try out bike-friendly trails close to our home, learn how to collapse and load up the trailer so I can take the boys on trips by myself, finish How to Raise a Wild Child (a slow read for me especially after soap launch 2.0!) and discover new ways to explore the forest beyond our current fort-building-fun, schedule our last garage purge and make the space work well for us as spring unfolds, plot out our garden and make a list of what we will need to purchase (butterfly garden or veggie garden?! Or both? I am SO eager for everything to bloom finally, like the fluffy pink tree below, from a few springs ago!).

TWO: Fill Our Home With Delight

One of the perks of the covid crisis for my quality-time-love-language-self is having our entire family home full-time, making the ebb and flow of the day feel extra indulgent; almost like how it feels to stay home from work sick only to rest on the couch and delight in a new movie? So while I’ve been working hard to create tangible delight in our home, the kind of delight that can only be felt has naturally increased in wonderful ways as of late.

Some tangible second quarter focus areas: hang art work in the powder room once it’s back from Framebridge, select tile samples for the backsplash redo and schedule the work once social distancing is over, clean out the SUV, clean out under the bed, walk our yard then have a conversation about our landscape and determine what investments we want to make into it this year, purchase our new wall calendar in lieu of any birthday gifts for each other and finally get our schedule mapped out.

Some non-tangible second quarter focus areas: commit to Friday night family pizza dinners and no-phone-movie dates with Andrew (complete with a calendar invite to join the event!), test drive morning walks around the neighborhood to see how this works with our schedule, continue trying out our Sabbath weekends with no phones, social media, excessive to-do lists or hustle about our day, continue to model to our kids the kinds of behaviors we want them to emulate (e.g. hugging and kissing often, reading books over scrolling our phone, laughing through problems instead of expressing unnecessary frustration, etc).

THREE. Redesign My Schedule, and With It, How I Spend My Time

This could probably be it’s own blog post or perhaps but the biggest decision that needs to be made during the lockdown mandate is whether our kids will return to their part-time school (preschool for L and daycare for Ev). Having the kids home over the last four weeks has affirmed a few things for me and if we pull their enrolment sooner, this means a lot of different things mostly for my schedule.

Some tangible second quarter focus areas: create a poster board size pros and cons list about childcare that we collectively work on through April, call our follow up school choice to see where we are on the waiting list (another long story but this school has an enrolment option we love and we’ve been on the wait list for over a year), revert back to preparing my daily to do list the night before each day so that my two daily target areas are clearly highlighted, try a full week of 6:30 am wake ups and make note of how this goes for me personally and for the entire family (e.g. am I productive, am I exhausted by dinner, does this give me sacred alone time, am I able to get ready for the day easier, etc).

FOUR: Become a Fiercer Version of Myself

This is an area where I can really get creative given that many other facets of my life are restricted right now, and I am left with more margin and time (often at odd times but I’ll take it). I have so many ideas on how I can become more fierce so I need to make sure I save some fierce-inspiring focus areas for third quarter when hopefully the state of our global health is better, and the thick of summer is at last upon us!

Some tangible second quarter focus areas: hit 12-15k steps a day, commit to stretching and doing a small ab workout before bed every night, continue building our tried-and-true recipe index of gluten-and-dairy-free meals we all love (another perk of the lockdown mandate is extra time to cook at home), give a nose ring a run for a few days and see how I like it in lieu of a stud, break out my camera and commit to learning to use it for blog content, inquire with a friend about virtual photo classes, offer an apology to someone who deserves it.

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As always, I would LOVE to hear from you below! What’s a target goal or facet of your life that you’re focusing on in second quarter? Feel free to link to your blog if you have one! I’m so grateful you’re here and part of the fun. Xo