It’s officially September, and for most moms that means the kids are all now back to school. It also means that if you stay at home, you finally have some time to yourself!
As moms, we know that there are always TONS of things that need to get done around the house, but cleaning and laundry aren’t the only things we want to be doing when the kids are gone. We want to make time to tackle things we don’t normally get around to doing, so each September we get together and come up with our “New Year’s” Bucket List.
Our Bucket List is basically a list of some things that would like to accomplish this fall or things that we would like to make sure we do when the kids are at school. Many of them are things that we can both benefit from and that we can help each other complete. It’s always more fun to do things that seem challenging with a friend! You don’t have to be a stay-at-home mom to do this! Make your own list and work on it over the weekend or in the evenings. Goal setting works for everyone!
- Organize a room in your house. For me this will be my laundry room, which always ends up as the catch all room because of the folding table in it, which is NEVER used for folding. For Mary, it will be her playroom.
- Make Crockpot frozen meals for those nights when you know life is going to get crazy. We have tried this once before, much to our own amusement. Let’s just say it didn’t go as planned, so here we are! Trying again! Fall always seems like the perfect time to get out the Crockpot, even if we live in Houston where it won’t be anywhere near cool for at least a couple more months.
- Try a new/specialty grocery store. We live in one of the most diverse cities in America. You can pretty much find any kind of food here. Time we start trying out some of the many grocery stores in the area!
- Plan a Date Night. Date Nights are important, but they are tricky. Especially if you have small kids. But we know it’s important to put your relationship with your spouse as a priority. So the goal is to have one at least once a month.
- Drink enough water challenge. We don’t drink enough water. This one should be an easy one, right?
- Try a new food. This goes with #3. New grocery stores mean new ingredients that we may try to cook with. We are leaving this one open ended, because if it gets crazy, then we will settle for finding a new place to eat lunch, haha.
- Stick to a skincare routine. We get it, you’re tired. It’s so much easier to wash your face and go to bed and not do anything else, but skin care IS important. It’s self care. So whether you quickly put on some moisturizer or follow an entire skin regimen, it’s important to just do it.
- Sort and organize kids schoolwork. This one is more individual. I am a pack rat when it comes to what the kids bring home. I have bins of all their work since preschool. Do I need it? Not really. It’s time to clean it out. Mary plans on organizing hers.
- Put together a Kid’s Info binder to have handy. I learned this from my neighbor. She has everything that anyone would need if they were taking care of her kids in her binder. School schedules, practice schedules, immunizations, etc… You can personalize it to fit your life so that you have all the necessary information at your fingertips.
- Have an accountability meeting with a couple friends to make sure we are meeting our goals. We have been doing this for over a year now. Once a month we meet for dinner and we go over our goals for the month and see what we have accomplished. It’s a no judgement space where we can just be honest about our successes and our failures and list our goals for the next month. This year we discovered Shelley over at at Let’s Live & Learn and her great sticky note goal planner sheets. They are so easy to use and make goal planning a breeze!
We hope our list inspired you to get together with a friend or two and make your own Bucket List. Let us know what things you put on your list! We are always looking for new ideas!