Goals for January
Thank you all for your kind words of congrats about our exciting baby news. Letting people know has been a lot of fun, especially after being so sick for most of the fall!
Even though I’m feeling MUCH better, I’m still trying to keep my goals low-key. The biggest to-dos of the next 5 months are prepping for this little guy, but life has its needs too! Here are my modest expectations for this month.
Clean out second bedroom &”closet of shame” AND donate
Part of this we started on over the New Year’s long weekend going through Little Man’s toys and books- things we want to save for the new little guy (Legos!) and things to donate. Little Man has a lot of books, and some we are holding on to, but there are a lot of early reader books that we’re obviously many years away from using, so I’d rather donate to a kid who can use it now, instead of holding on to it for the next 3ish years, especially since we know we want to move after this little guy comes.
As for my “closet of shame”, think of this image from Friends in which neat-freak Monica reveals the closet where everything gets shoved into. 
OK mine is not as bad as that, but the closet in the second bedroom is a catch all- seasonal decorations, art supplies, tools, and everything in between. When we hosted Thanksgiving this year and I wasn’t feeling great and couldn’t clean as much as I wanted, I shoved every random piece of clutter in there and never looked back. Even though the dresser in the second bedroom has a lot of drawers, I expect we’ll need the closet for storage. Also, I don’t think a saws-all should really be in the closet of an infant, but that’s just a guess.
Get a haircut
This has been on the to-do list since September. I have a love/hate relationship with my hair. It’s changed it’s texture and quality a lot over the past few years as hormones have changed. With the prenatal vitamins I’m taking, it’s growing pretty fast and has oddly become finer, yet there is A LOT of it. My default is to put it up everyday, but I’m hoping to get a bit of a new style to enjoy for the next few months before I’m too tired to care again.
Make new household budget
I got a tiny raise at work and other than upping my 401k contribution by 2 percentage points, haven’t sat down with Q to make a new household budget. We keep separate financial accounts (and will continue to do so), but with all the baby expenses coming our way, need to figure out a better way to organize the household stuff between the two of us, plus see how much unpaid family leave we both might be able to take beyond what our paid work leave provides us. We might also need a roof and have an electrical issue that I worry is going to annoying and costly.
Meal plan & better organize grocery shopping
I love Q very much, but one of my pet peeves of our life together is his pickiness about his food and brands. It’s great that he does a lot of research, but it also means that some of this desired choices are only available at certain stores. This finds us often going to 2-3 grocery stores a week to get everything we need. Amazon has simplified a bit of this and the fact that Whole Foods now delivers via Prime Now to our neighborhood has helped A TON (though not for the aforementioned budget!). I want us to get more organized not only with meal plans that work with his picky food requests and my growing hunger for just about any food, but also require far less stops at the market during the week.
Life By Kristen 