2026 Goals

Happy 2026!

At the beginning of last year, I wrote down one goal for 2025: Plan and Structure My Days/Week.

I didn't have a way to measure this, but mostly I was unsuccessful. My intent was for my work days to look the same - to develop a consistent routine - but this has proven to be very difficult. Doctor's appointments, vet visits, school trips, volunteering, meetings. It feels like there is always something disrupting the schedule!! Thankfully I do feel good about my habits. I walk the dogs daily, walk Cam to school, go to the gym, cook dinner most nights, read with Cam before bed. The timing is just all over the place. I'm not sure I see this improving, but I will continue to try!

Here are my goals for 2026:

1. Do one pull-up

Cam and I have this as a shared goal, although he has upped his goal to a total of 3 pull-ups by year end. I will be extremely happy if I can just do one. I am currently so far from being able to do a pull-up that one year does not seem like enough time for me to accomplish this. We have a pull-up bar at our house, so that's a start. We sat down together and watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to train for your first pull-up. I took "Before" videos of us both on January 1st. Cam could get half way up. I just hung there and could not lift myself a single inch. I am embarrassingly far from this goal, so we have a lot of work to do!

Day 1 of pull-up training. I just hung there.

2. Potty Train Brooke

I don't have a plan for this yet. Brooke first used the potty successfully (without ever being "potty trained") last October when she was 23 months old. Since then, she has gone several times on the potty, but the day care does not seem as supportive in ditching the diapers and helping potty train right now. Since she is in full time day care, this is problematic. They told me the teachers will help with this when she moves up to the next classroom at age 2.5, so I have a few more months. It just feels very different than how I potty trained Cam with a 3-day "bootcamp" when he turned 2, and I don't remember his day care being an issue, so this has thrown me for a loop. I'm confident we will figure it out!

3. Set Up Brooke's Bedroom

Brooke is still sleeping in the closet. Originally I figured I would set up her bedroom early this year and transition her out of the crib, but I've decided I'm in no rush and will probably do it later this fall. Having the crib in the closet is still working perfectly fine. Why fix something that's not broken? Cam and his friends like to play in that room and she has not tried climbing out of the crib like Cam did at her age, so I think we're good for now. Ideally, sometime later this year, I want to put a queen bed in her room, re-paint the walls, and get curtains. It will be nice to have the bedroom setup so that we can use it as a guest bedroom if needed (and Brooke can just temporarily sleep in the bunk beds if we have company).

4. Try One New Dinner Recipe Each Month

Hopefully I can try more than one per month, but I think one is a very doable goal. I have a pretty lengthy list of family dinners we eat on rotation (I plan to blog about this sometime soon!), but it's good to branch out and try new things. 

5. No Amazon Purchases* 

*with some necessary exceptions.

Other than the single pull-up, this will by far be my most challenging goal. I want to steer away from spending so much on Amazon. I'd rather support brick-and-mortar stores versus buying things out of convenience. Brian and I talked about this and his point of view is that Amazon is useful and usually less expensive, so overall it saves time and money. While that may be true, my goal mainly stems from me wanting to make more mindful purchases. For me, the physical act of having to go out and buy something will likely make me re-think how much I really want it. I want to support small businesses, do things that are better for the environment, and have a quality over quantity mindset. 

For complete transparency, we spent $9,800 last year on Amazon. Part of me feels appalled and embarrassed by that number, but we buy most things (except groceries) on Amazon, using our Prime membership, with November and December coming in with high totals due to gift purchases. Diapers, wipes, paper towels, dog bones, toilet paper, etc. It's not like we're just blowing money on stuff, but I'm sure there is a lot we have "added to cart" over the years that we could have done without. 

Would we have spent that money if we had to drive to a store and buy it? Would we have spent more? Spent less? I don't know the answer to these questions, but we'll see how this unfolds for me in 2026.

6. Get Rid of a Lot of Stuff

We have furniture/framed art/linens/etc stored in our house that have accumulated over the years that need to go. At one point, I wanted to hold on to a lot of it thinking we would have a lake house that we'd need to furnish and decorate, but I've put that lake house dream on the backburner for now. A second house doesn't make sense for our life right now, and if that time comes, I'm sure we can just buy what we want (plus, we'll only be inheriting more stuff over the next few decades). I'm just ready to call TROSA and donate it if they can come get a lot of this stuff. I really want our house to be filled with meaningful things or items that we actually use and not have so many spaces becoming areas of storage. This will probably be a phased approach, which is why I am making it an annual goal versus doing it in a single month.

I'll be back (hopefully) blogging later this week with my January-specific goals. :)