January In Review

Hi there, friends! The first month of 2017 is almost over already. I can’t believe how time is quickly going by. January has been full of lots of fun moments and I wanted to share a monthly review post each month this year!

This month:

• I listened to 2 audiobooks! As an English Major, I am a little ashamed to admit that I had never read Pride and Prejudice all the way through. I knew the storyline and characters, had seen the movie and read pieces of it..but never the whole thing. This was my first ever audiobook. I actually started it at the end of last year, but did a bunch of listening in January and completed it. I loved it! I laughed, cringed and thoroughly enjoyed the characters and thought Rosamund Pike was a brilliant narrator. I then moved on to my second audiobook, Talking as Fast as I can, by Lauren Graham. It’s super fun to hear her reading her own memoir. I feel like we’re gal pals just chatting away about life. Let me live in this adorable fantasy world just a bit longer. It’s a super fun read and fun to hear about a fellow English Major who loves theatre! And…much shorter than P&P for sure! 

• I did 18 Bible Journaling entries and journaled 16 out of 31 days. One of my 2017 goals is to Bible Journal 3-5 times a week, and I think this accomplishes that for this month!

• I completed the January Illustrated Faith devotional kit, Goals with Grace. 14 of my entries were from this kit. I loved starting the year off with this kit. It was a great way to organize my thoughts and goals and make sure they lined up with what God has planned for me this year. 

• I survived, lived through, adminned and helped manage 2 back to back youth retreats. Retreat season is always stressful, but super rewarding. This year was the same. We do our high school retreat, followed by our junior high retreat. This year, they were thankfully the same theme and at the same location each weekend, which saved me some brain power. It was a lot of work and not a lot of sleep, but I can’t put into the words how awesome it is to witness hundreds of students and leaders worshipping in a room together. The Holy Spirit moves and it takes my breath away.

• I helped cast 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, the Hononegah High School Spring Musical. I love musical season at HHS and am so blessed to be a part of the process from the get go. This year, I sat with my mother in law (the director) and our friend Kristy (the choreographer, and we watched countless auditions over 3 nights. There were chills and tears and smiles. After a fourth night of callbacks and dance auditions and we cast 7 beautiful brides and 7 awesome brothers, along with a talented bunch of suitors and townspeople. I’m so excited to watch this cast grow together and can’t wait to start pulling some costumes for them!

• I watched a lot of great TV this month.  This month was full of fun shows to watch with our family, and on my own. I watched old seasons of Grey’s Anatomy (season 2–the absolute best), and a lot of my normal shows came back after winter break. The new season of the Bachelor started (time to draft pick!) Best highlights though were the newest season of Sherlock, which blew me and Dan away and was really quite touching, and the Netflix Original “Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events.” We watched this with the kids, which was fun even though a lot of it went over their heads. Can’t wait to read them the books!

This month went by quickly but it was full of awesome memories and fun times. Can’t believe we’re heading into February–Valentine’s Day and Dan’s birthday and my Illustrating Your Faith Workshop at RVC! Gonna be  another fun month!

Oh, and I figured I will put my goals for this month here as well. I have them in my Bible and journal too, but since a lot of these monthly reviews will likely reference these, might as well fil you all in! Feel free to join me, keep me accountable, or just follow along!

My goals (with grace) for 2017!

Spiritual: 

• Start each day with Jesus–pray/devo/etc
• Bible Journal consistently–3 to 4 times a week

Marriage/Family

• Intentional date nights and time with Dan
• Make memories with kids and time as a family

Relationships

• Intentional, deep friendships with the women God has placed in my life
• Be a part of a small group
• Build relationships with social media and blog followers

Leadership

• Teach others about Bible Journaling

Health

• Get healthy–diet/eat right
• Get in shape–yoga or running

Personal

• Read more–5 books minimum
• Blog more and consistently
• Get better at hand lettering

January Goals Progress

I’ve been consistently Bible Journaling (16 out of 31 days) and working through devotionals each day, even if I don’t have the chance to get artsy every day. I am working on being intentional with starting my days with Jesus and not facebook. We haven’t had much time for date nights or family outings, but we’ve had fun watching movies and tv at home. This week, I am doing a daily yoga challenge at home. I haven’t done much with the eating right, but the yoga is fun–even if I’m not very good. I’ve listened to 2 books so far and have a couple hard copies I’m working on too! This is the start of hopefully blogging more consistently each month. So stay tuned! As far as my lettering, I got some Tombows for Christmas and I bought some of the right paper! Now time to practice! So as you can see, I’m starting on some and have some work to go! It’ll be an awesome year! As I was working through these goals and praying about them all this month, I was getting excited and really seeing how God was crafting each of these to be significant in my life this year. So, I will keep it all surrendered to Him. It’s all to bring Him glory!