Happy New Month!

I’m excited about this month. I have several trips and events planned, a full calendar for work already booked, interesting projects to undertake, and wonderful milestones ahead.

That being said, I do have a particular focus: kids other than my own. Many of my friends and family are raising amazing kids of their own, and a whole crop of them are now reaching the age where it’s cool to do things with people other than your own parents. I pride myself on “awesome uncle” status as well as my joy in being a father, so this month my plan is to spread the love around some more.

My father, in addition to spending tons of time with me, made it a point to be a presence in the lives of his many nieces, nephews, godchildren, and all of their friends. He didn’t just take me camping – he led camping trips of ten kids where I and my cousins brought friends as well. I didn’t always know the parents of my friends intimately, but all of my friends knew my dad very well. They’d even come to him for advice and help independently of me, and he was always willing to give it.

That’s the type of man I aspire to be, and this month I intend to make it my primary focus. Cheer me on, and may you also be a joy in the lives of those you treasure.

Happy New Month!

This month, I want to take a deeper look at the “casual” information I absorb. I tend to read a lot of blogs and books, and from those, I also tend to allow a lot of connected voices into my feed. Not all of them have aged well, and others are fantastic and yet I don’t pay enough attention. Still others are great for what they are, but no longer as relevant to me. The point is that I want to just clean up my information stream a little.

We too often let things like that just pile up and never take the time to “clean house.” Take a look at yours, and make sure you’re still getting what you want out of the time you give to information acquisition!

Happy New Month!

In a few days my children will be returning to school and I’ll be returning to work, both after a lovely and much-appreciated break. My goal this month is to improve our schedules a bit in order to increase together-time and do a better job of not “losing” minutes, especially in the morning. From small minutes I shall grow a year, for this is the way of things.

May your resolutions be small seeds, my friends. Remember that you can’t plant a full-grown tree all at once.

Happy New Month!

This is the last new month before the new year, and as is always the case, a large part of it is already dedicated to my family and the time I’ll spend with them. Between that and work, there doesn’t seem like a lot of time left over for projects and resolutions.

Which is why they’re so important. When you’re busiest, that’s when you most need a guiding principle. Something to anchor to. Time steals itself from you; to make your passing of the hours anything more than waiting for the end, you must mark them as your own in some way.

I’m going to go to the woods this month.

Happy New Month!

This is it. This is the month. I’m tackling my sleep problems.

There are several essential components to a healthy lifestyle, in both the physical and mental sense: good diet, good exercise, lots of hydration, sunlight, sleep.

I’ve got a really great handle on all of those but one. My relationship with sleep is so horrible, in fact, that I’m not actually planning to fix it in one month. I don’t think that’s realistic. Instead, my goal in this next month is to try enough different things that I can determine if I think the problem is actually medical and thus requires medical intervention, or if there are lifestyle changes I haven’t tried yet. There are a few things that don’t really work for me – while sleeping pills are a possibility, the fact that I have young children means I don’t ever want to be “unresponsive” at night, so whatever solution I find has to involve not drugging myself into unconsciousness each night. I need healthy sleep.

So, wish me luck on my journey. This is a hard one.

Happy New Month!

In classic tradition, this post is going out on the 2nd. The first has started to become something ceremonial, a trial run of the month.

Embrace it! This month, my resolution is simple. Do an hour less of each thing I don’t like, and an hour more of the things I do. And give each new thing an hour where I haven’t decided yet. A trial run.

There is always another hour to follow.

Happy New Month!

I’ve had such a wonderful time this last month, enjoying the last days of summer with my family. My children have been absolutely obsessed with their new baby cousin, who we’ve spent nearly every evening with. We managed to cram a lot of summer into the last month, with trips to the water park and swim clubs, parties with friends and family and more than one barbecue. It was a fine month, by any standard.

Now for this month’s focus: a major life shift. Both of my youngest children start (pre-)school tomorrow! They’re very excited, but it also represents a new chapter with new challenges. I want to be 100% focused on managing that change, both in terms of supporting my kids and in terms of keeping myself sane and productive as schedules change and new demands present themselves.

I’m probably not alone in having this focus for September, so good luck to all!

Happy New Month!

This month, I have a clear goal in mind: family. While family is pretty much always my number 1 priority, this month brings a few new things to the forefront.

First – my little (and only!) sister will be delivering her first child within a few short days. I am going to absolutely bury this kid in love. My sister has had a long road to get here and fought hard for her own family, and I couldn’t be more excited. I want to make sure I really intentionally set aside a lot of time to be there for her and my new niece.

Second – all of my children will be returning to school in September. All of them. This is the last month where they’re just here, present, self-directed and available. I don’t want to miss any of that.

So today I spent the whole day with my kids doing art projects, building things, and going out to dinner. I’ve got a beach trip planned for later in the month, and several day outings. I’ve got some days I’m setting aside from my normal work schedule to be with my sister.

Family always comes first – but this month especially, it’s coming extra-first.

Happy New Month!

We’re halfway through a year that feels like it both started yesterday and simultaneously has endured for decades. But my own warped sense of time aside, there are things to do!

Last month, I vowed to have a list of goals and projects for myself and my family to complete by the year’s end. I do! I won’t share boring and context-less details with you, but I have several trips with the kids planned, a few projects around the house, and several large professional goals that are all aligned and within sight.

So now to execute! For July, I want to get done a major writing project that I have in front of me. It’s certain to be a career-booster if I execute on it well, so I’m excited about it. When details are relevant, I’m sure I’ll share them here.

Tomorrow is December 31st! Or at least, that’s what it will seem like on December 31st, when you’re saying, “wow, it seems like only yesterday it was July.” Fill in those gaps, and don’t roll through the years without noticing!

Happy New Month!

Look at that, I actually put this one out on the 1st instead of getting distracted by another topic and writing it on the 2nd. And speaking of little victories, I accomplished my May resolution!

My goal had been to view May as an entity, to be able to look back on the month and describe it as something other than the days that comprised it. I can do that.

I own a house now.

I didn’t before! I rented. Now I own a place. (Well, as the classic joke goes, the bank owns it.) I expect this topic of adventure will find it’s way into the blog here and there, as homeownership is altogether new to me. But the point remains that I can say something distinct about the month of May 2021 – that’s the month where I bought my first house.

On to June!

I’m going to go a little farther here. At the end of this month, the year will be halfway over. So by the end of this month, I want to have a real roadmap for what I want the rest of the year to look like. Trips, hobbies, career advancement, kid milestones, home improvements. I want to have a solid 5-10 item list to knock out by the end of the year, so that’s my resolution.

As always, wish me luck – I do the same for you.