Hi friends!

First and foremost, you may notice the new web address at the top of your browser. Blissful Moments now lives at blissfulmomentsblog.com and I couldn’t be more excited to have a URL that is easier to remember. 🙂

It has been a few weeks since I last shared any goals with you. As mentioned in my December Goals post, Jody and I had quite a busy end to 2018. While it was so fulfilling to spend the end of year spending time with so many of our favorite people, it also was exhausting. On our way home from our New Years getaway weekend to Asheville, we agreed that one word to describe our 2018 was full. Full of travel, adventure, love, blessings, friendship, and family. We were able to squeeze more into 2018 than imaginable, and that was no exception for the end of the year.

Upon returning from Asheville and welcoming 2019, I did have so many ideas for my blog this month. However, after the flu knocked me down for a couple of days, and feeling like I needed another vacation, I made the decision to step away from my blog for a few weeks. The word “rest” was the only word that would come to mind as I tried to set my 2019 goals, so I took that as a sign to invest in a little self-care and refresh my mind with little to no other “to dos” on my list other than my full-time job. I’ve struggled with letting go and stepping away in the past, but sometimes it is needed in order to grow.

Even with a month to rest and refresh my heart, I still found myself on February 1 and no new inspiration for goals other than what I set last year. I know some goals will stay the same year to year — growing my marriage, my friendships, and my faith — but I was yearning for something different to work towards this year. However, I finally have found a bit of peace with my goals (not completely, but I am trusting my heart) after listening to Lara Casey’s Cultivate Your Life Podcast. It’s okay that my goals aren’t drastically different because it takes time to grow.

I decided my word for 2019 is Trust. Together, when Jody and I discussed our hopes for 2019, we came back to trusting each other is going to play a huge in our marriage this year. As he’s finishing his last semester of grad school, our lives will shift a bit again as he begins the process of job search and studying for his licensing exam and again as he enters the working world again. I want to trust in God more than the plans we made for ourselves to grow in whatever way He calls us to be. I want to trust in the foundation of my friendships, and trust that there is always more to make. I want to trust myself to love my body — to nourish it with real foods and to strengthen it, even when I don’t think I can push myself anymore. And so, the more I thought of things that I wanted in 2019, the more the word trust laid itself on my heart.

With all that being said, below, I’ve listed my goals for 2019. They may change throughout the year, and I plan to check in with Jody and myself to gauge how these goals are coming along or if they should be placed on the back-burner for another season. A lot of them are related to goals that Jody and I set as a couple for this new year, and the others are goals that I hope to reach by the end of the year.

2019 Goals:

1. Grow my faith with God to unwaveringly put my trust in Him. Action Steps: Spend more time in the Word. Do devotionals once a month. Pray more, especially in gratitude, not need. Listen to Podcasts by encouraging Christian women. Add more worship music to my playlists.
2. Continue to tend to my marriage with grace and celebration. Action Steps: Pray for Jody. Check in on our progress for our couple’s goals throughout the year. Communicate more. Have more date nights. Celebrate everything. Love him with his love language more than mine.
3. Cut down on screen time in favor of rejuvenating my hobbies, quality time, reading and blogging. Action Steps: Leave books in an easy to reach place.  Designate specific time to work on my blog. Curate a list of 12 months to read this year. Find activities to do outdoors.
4. Cultivate a restful and joyful home that helps us refresh and love all who enter it. Action Steps: Ruthlessly declutter throughout the year. Purge our storage shed. Blog a tour of our Newlywed home. Stick to a regular cleaning schedule. Be intentional about decor. Always have some sort of dessert in the fridge. Make our space work for our lives and our style.
5. Take charge of our finances to make upcoming planned (and unplanned) purchases a joyful experience. Action Steps: Utilize a spending tracker to see where our money is going. Make intentional purchases. Create a saving plan for each big purchase. Celebrate reaching savings goals!
6. Fuel my body with good food and strengthen myself, physically and mentally. Action Steps: Fill pantry and fridge with healthy snacks. Continue to meal plan for the week. Drink more water. Create easy and healthy lunches that are easy to grab and go. Lift more to get stronger. Participate in workout classes outside of my comfort zone.
7. Record memories so that we can reflect on these sweet years in the years to come. Action Steps: Buy an external hard drive. Learn more about how to use DSLR cameras. Set aside specific time to work on scrapbooks and dates to complete albums by. Take more photos.

February Goals:

1. Complete goal setting devotional and actively pray more regularly.
2. Celebrate our relationship with a Valentine’s date night.
3. Finish reading “Uninvited” and start “5 Love Languages” (appropriate for Valentine’s Day, I might add!).
4. Spend five minutes a day picking up any clutter around the house or clean anything that needs it.
5. Continue utilizing a spending tracker and create a plan to save for the next expense.
6. Complete two Tone It Up workouts a week or complete two cardio workouts.
7. Set a date to complete our honeymoon album by and actively work towards it.