No. 85. January 2024 recap + don't look back

Life lately, updates on my January goals, and why I need to stop looking back

Hi, friend! If you're new here, APL is a newsletter for the aspiring modern Proverbs 31 woman, where we talk about building, growing & managing a portfolio of roles, responsibilities & dreams for maximum return on our investment. For more on the topic of women & work, check out my Elevate Blueprint!

Life lately

January truly felt like it was a year long. We had a few really cold weeks (like below freezing) that gave us all cabin fever + our family is going through some changes and it makes everything feels so uncertain. Here are a few other highlights from January:

• The ladies at our church threw us a lovely brunch celebration for baby #2

• We spent a lot of time in coffee shops, at Lowes / Home Depot, Cabela’s, Goodwill, and indoor playgrounds to get out of the house during the cold spell

• Snow outside and using our wood burning fire place made our home so cozy this winter

• Levi loves to help in the kitchen and nesting has started for me, so we spent a lot of time cooking and baking together

• Daniel traveled three of the four weeks last month, so there was lots of Levi and mama time

• Heading into 36 weeks with baby #2!

January goals update

Each month, I am setting smaller goals to make progress on my 2024 goals. Here are updates on my January goals:

• I downloaded and set up a budgeting template that I am loving and we kept track of our spending all month / checked in weekly. This is so eye opening to do and see where our money is going! On that note, I wanted to do the contentment challenge to limit our extra spending, and that did not happen.

TIP: If you are going to start tracking your spending, I’ve learned that it helps to treat the first few months as purely information gathering so you can figure out what a realistic budget is for you and your family and where your money actually goes.

• My January goals also included figuring out morning, evening, weekend and family finance routines. I also wanted to find a Bible reading plan to read through the Bible (no set time goal on this!) and to finish a Bible study on James. I found a Bible study plan and made progress on the James study!

  • I’ve settled into a morning routine that I am loving, which includes this daily devotional, reading a chapter or two of the gospels, and /or working through this study on James (they sell a men’s and women’s version of the study if you wanted to work through this with your significant other!), and prayer. It definitely sets the tone for my day, especially if I get up before Levi and it is truly quiet time (but also, some mornings, it’s not so quiet - Levi will watch TV and/or play, and I’ll read, and that’s okay too!).

  • Still working on the family finances routine, but so far it looks like updating our spending on Sunday evenings + the budget template I use has a calendar feature so I can plan ahead what is going where out of each paycheck for the month ahead.

  • Evening and weekend routines have been in flux - I am still nauseous most evenings and weekends in January took us out of the house a lot.

• I’ve been trying to be more intentional about walking at least 5,000 steps a day and getting outside, but this baby has dropped, my hips ache and I definitely have a waddle. Nonetheless, I have been pretty good at keeping up with this, even when it was extremely cold outside (used my desk walking pad instead!).

• I made progress on my next resource for single women: a single girl’s guide to preparing financially for the future. It will probably be the first part of a series on helping single women prepare for marriage / the future! So, so excited about this.

• We continue to discuss what we want our family legacy to be (read more about that here!). I had a goal to write out a family mission statement / our family values and display it somewhere in our home, but holding off for now because I want to pray and sit on this for awhile longer.

• I also wanted to spend less time on Instagram, but ended up only taking 2 days off Instagram last month.

• I also wanted to use this home planner for setting up better rhythms for cleaning / chores. I started out strong, but then life happened and I fell off track.

• Another goal I have is to journal weekly / preserve our family memories in each season “live.” I recently discovered the Day One app - basically a journaling app / private blog and I’ve been going in each week and writing down the highlights of each week that I want to remember (the little moments from daily life) and saving pictures and videos from that week in each entry.

February Goals

Here’s a peek at my February goals (I use Powersheets for my monthly / daily / weekly goal tracking). The theme is preparing for baby / maternity leave, nesting, savoring the last few weeks as family of three and another goal we’re working on that we’re not quite ready to share yet :). I am keeping the goals simple right now as we head into last month before baby gets here!

On my mind

One of the nights that my husband was traveling last week, I spent the evening scrolling through old photos on my phone and the thought inevitably came:

“I used to be skinny,” or, “I wish I still looked like that.”

Ironically, back then, I didn’t think I was skinny or pretty, yet hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it?

But the Bible says, “Don’t look back.”

“And as they brought them out, one said, ‘Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley…’” -Genesis 19:17

“Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up… I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” -Isaiah 43:18-19

Age, pregnancy and motherhood each change a woman’s body.

Contrary to what the culture tells us, we weren’t created to stay youthful looking forever. It’s not natural for a thirty or forty or fifty something woman to have the body or appearance of a 20-year old.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. -2 Cor. 4:16

And yet, that’s what we’re pressured as women to do.

To get back to our pre-pregnancy weight and to fit into our pre-pregnancy clothes - to bounce “back".

To not get gray hair or wrinkles.

To keep dressing trendy, even when the trends are not age-appropriate for us nor do they fit our body shape.

To cover up, to nip & tuck, to enhance, to tighten, to hide.

But as women, and especially as mothers, our bodies grow, shrink, adapt, nourish - we quite literally carry another human in our bodies during pregnancy and in our arms when they’re born, but even once they grow up, we still carry the mental load of motherhood as we disciple, discipline, teach and pray over them long into our kids becoming adults.

As I enter the last few weeks of this pregnancy, I’ve been feeling that weight of a changing body, pregnancy and motherhood - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And it feels especially heavy right now.

The temptation to look back at my pre-baby body to try to remember what that feels like is real. But it’s a dark hole to fall into, because it rarely ends up being an inspiring exercise.

It’s the same thing when I look back at my first newborn and postpartum season. Although there were no real health complications, it was mentally and physically really hard for me. I tend to fixate on the hard moments and yet again, that’s a dark space to go into.

So, I’ve been telling myself to not look back. Not if I can’t do it out of a healthy place.

This is my body now, but also that it won’t always be this way. In a couple weeks, I won’t be pregnant anymore and in time, I’ll feel like myself again.

This labor / delivery, baby, and newborn / postpartum season will be different.

But to be honest, the looking forward often also brings its own worries and anxiety.

So, I’m working on focusing on today. It seems so elementary, yet so difficult to do, especially when you’re staring down big life changes coming your way.

One of my motherhood mottos is: “This too shall pass. It won’t always be this way.”

It is a reminder that the hard moments won’t last forever, but also that the good moments are fleeting too. It’s a reminder to be present - for the hard and the good.

That’s where I am now. Trying to fully embrace this short time we have left as a family of three, while also praying for strength physically & mentally for these last few months of pregnancy. Preparing for what is to come, while trying not to worry about all the change.

How was your January? What are you focused on growing in this season?

Until next time,

YPS