Snowy Saturday before Christmas + goals contemplation

I’m officially on my little “Christmas break!” YAY!

It’s nothing too much, really. Well, 5 days, I guess. I’m off today through the 25th. I just work Thursday and Friday next week. The following week I have off Monday the 30th and January 1st, so I only work 3 days that week (and NYE will hopefully be a “light”/ easier day as many people are off= fewer meetings).

It would be nice to have the next 2 weeks totally off! But, we aren’t traveling, and I feel like I have “enough” days off that I can still enjoy- while not blowing through a ton of PTO.

Stuff left to do:

• finish wrapping presents
• make some cookies
• a couple errands
• address my Christmas cards! (at this point, if I can mail them Monday, most won’t arrive until after Christmas. Oh well. The design I liked just said “Happy Holidays”, anyway, so I feel like anytime between Christmas and New Years works!)
• grocery run

I think that’s about it. Feels do-able. I have until sometime on the 23rd (probably afternoon time) before everyone arrives.

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Snowstorm!

We got our first bigger snowstorm of the season on Thursday! Probably 4-5 inches total. Perfect timing to give us a white Christmas!! (The temps have plummeted- currently 3 degrees out- which is nice I guess to ensure the snow stays until after Christmas.)

Charlie likes the snow!! He zooms around and gets so excited. Only problem is his cute red and black plaid jacket broke! (The velcro no longer stays shut.) So he’s had to be out “naked” in just his natural curly coat to keep him warm. 😉

We’ve had several very festive walks this week (SHORT walks- the short loop has been plenty for both of us this week). I do love a nighttime walk + snow + Christmas lights.

The snow meant Ethan had to drive to/from school for the first time in REAL snow. He had finals this week, so his schedule was different than usual. It started snowing Thursday morning right around the time he headed out- so roads were still fine. But by 2 pm when he finished his 2nd exam of the day, it was a winter wonderland. It was really coming down.

Ivan and I debated what to do. (Do we make him wait until 5 pm for Ivan and leave his car there? Try to see if another parent could drive him home? Just let him drive….?)

Ultimately Ethan said he felt comfortable to drive but would take the city streets home (through downtown) instead of the interstate. He made it! Said it went fine. Phew. I’m glad he’s getting some more experience, I guess. The only way to learn to drive in the snow is to drive in the snow…

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Some holiday….fatigue?

I love the holidays so much, but there’s also a part of me that is starting to feel like I will be a little “relieved” when it’s all over. Oddly, I’m starting to crave “normal life” back, and I think I’m just a little tired of constantly having this long list of extra, holiday-specific stuff to do. I’ve been chipping away at these big “November and December” to-do lists for almost 2 months now!

I always look forward to the relative calm of January and February, which are typically our lowest key months of the year. It’s winter and a good time to hunker down some and be “cozy” but without the frantic list of holiday stuff to do.

We are still always busy, and Asher’s swim season will be in full swing yet. But I am excited to have some time to work on planning our spring break details, focus on some new year’s goals/intentions, and eventually get all the extra Christmas clutter put away. (And I really, really want to clean out my storage room post-holidays!!!)

2025 Goals

Speaking of goals, I have not officially set any yet. I’m mulling over what this should look like. My track record for goals completion in recent years has been…. very spotty.

I always end up with this HUGE list of areas I want to improve or things I want to do. I am definitely an “over goal setter”. 🤣But that makes it hard to actually implement them all, obviously. I feel like I should home in on FEWER goals, but really, really make them happen, then. This means though that I’d need to be extra thoughtful to make sure these “few” goals are really meaningful and important to me. Hmmm. TBD!

I DO know that I want to keep better track of my workouts, and I want to hold myself to a higher level of accountability here. I have consistently exercised this whole year, but I am not happy with my overall discipline level right now. I want it to be how it used to be in ~2015-2020, where me missing a workout was a rare exception, not the norm. Currently, I feel like it’s more the norm for me to miss like, 1/3 of my workouts at least, if not more. Eeks.

I think I want to set a completion goal for the YEAR, and then keep an eye on my percentages as the months progress.

I printed this free habit tracker:

There are tons of great, free, printable habit trackers at saturdaygift.com!

I currently just track my workouts between Apple Fitness, my time logs, or my calendar. But I’m not 100% consistent using any of those, so no method has been capturing my workouts 100%, either, and I don’t like that. I want a single “source of truth” for this. At the end of the year, I want to know exactly how many strength workouts, cardio workouts and yoga workouts (my 3 main focuses) I have done. (*Does this really matter? No, but I just want to know!)

Planning to color code this and fill it out every day!

My goals for the year are:

Strength= 196 sessions

Cardio= 147 sessions

Yoga= 49 sessions

(Basing this on average of 4x/ strength, 3x/ cardio and 1x/yoga per week, for 49 weeks of the year (factoring in 3 weeks off for vacation/days off/ skipped days)).

I have a whole other brainstormed list of goals and things I want to accomplish this year, but I’ll save some of that for another day.

Need to get going on my to-do list! 3 days til Christmas Eve!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for having the next 5 days off!