Goals (2016): August Results + September Objectives

Earlier this month I decided to create Mid-Year 2016 Goals. Things I wanted to accomplish before year-end. I am breaking these goals out each month, to make them more manageable and also to hold me accountable. Since I posted my goals, I made some tweaks to it and also added to them! I tried o make them more measurable, so it wasn't just "open ended."

Here are my revised 2016 Mid-Year Goals: 

Goal #	Category	2016 Mid-Year Goals
1	Budgeting Project	Budget: 1) Complete Budget before the month begins. 2) Reconcile at least 2x's a month. 3) Track budget items that go over/under.
2	Budgeting Project	Debt Snowball: pay Debt #2 50% down
3	Budgeting Project	Finish Smart Kids/Smart Money Book/Online Classes (6 lessons)
4	Decluttering Project	House Decluttered: 1) Make monthly target goals to tackle clutter areas. 2) Have loft, extra room, and son's room clutter free.
5	Photo Booking Project	Photo Booking: Family Year Book 2016. 1) Choose 10 pictures per month. 2) Storyboard album. 3) Drop pictures from Jan-Nov into photobook.
6	Photo Booking Project	Photo Booking: Complete Adoption Photo Book by November Family Day 11/21
7	Health & Wellness Project	Health & Wellness: 1) Rejoin the gym. 2) Make monthly gym attendance goals. 3) Go to the gym when scheduled!
8	House Repairs & Projects	"Patty-Do" List: complete 1 house repair a month and/or 1 small house project.
9	Taxes	2016 Tax Tracking: Update tax spreadsheet (costs, mileage) and collect receipts.

August 2016 Results:

Can you believe it, I met all of my goals for August! Woohoo!

Goal #	Category	2016 Mid-Year Goals	August
1	Budgeting Project	Budget: 1) Complete Budget before the month begins. 2) Reconcile at least 2x's a month. 3) Track budget items that go over/under.	1) Complete Aug/Sept budget. 2) Start cash envelopes 3) Reconcile at least 2x's a month.
2	Budgeting Project	Debt Snowball: pay Debt #2 50% down	Pay at least 20% of balance
3	Budgeting Project	Finish Smart Kids/Smart Money Book/Online Classes (6 lessons)	Complete Lesson 2 Complete Lesson 3
4	Decluttering Project	House Decluttered: 1) Make monthly target goals to tackle clutter areas. 2) Have loft, extra room, and son's room clutter free.	1) All unused/empty boxes to recycling. 2) Go through baby/toddler clothes, sort by size and label boxes. Blog Entry
5	Photo Booking Project	Photo Booking: Family Year Book 2016. 1) Choose 10 pictures per month. 2) Storyboard album. 3) Drop pictures from Jan-Nov into photobook.	Choose 10 photos for July and August for photo book. I did June, July, August.
6	Photo Booking Project	Photo Booking: Complete Adoption Photo Book by November Family Day 11/21	1) Complete Story-Board 2) Mock Up Photo Book Blog Entry
7	Health & Wellness Project	Health & Wellness: 1) Rejoin the gym. 2) Make monthly gym attendance goals. 3) Go to the gym when scheduled!	1) Gym Membership Renewed 8/20. 2) Monthly Attendance Goal: 3 days Blog Entry

I only have 7 goals here because I didn't create #8 and #9 until recently. I also added my "Health & Wellness Project" #7 to the list, but I made progress on it and actually made it to the gym 3x's this month! Woot!

September 2016 Objectives:

Goal #	Category	2016 Mid-Year Goals	September
1	Budgeting Project	Budget: 1) Complete Budget before the month begins. 2) Reconcile at least 2x's a month. 3) Track budget items that go over/under.	1) Adjust Sept Budget and allocate funds for October Budget. 2) For Sept - do not exceed any budget categories.
2	Budgeting Project	Debt Snowball: pay Debt #2 50% down	Pay at least 10% of balance
3	Budgeting Project	Finish Smart Kids/Smart Money Book/Online Classes (6 lessons)	Lesson 4
4	Decluttering Project	House Decluttered: 1) Make monthly target goals to tackle clutter areas. 2) Have loft, extra room, and son's room clutter free.	1) Baby blankets 2) Baby Misc Items (hats, socks, etc)
5	Photo Booking Project	Photo Booking: Family Year Book 2016. 1) Choose 10 pictures per month. 2) Storyboard album. 3) Drop pictures from Jan-Nov into photobook.	1) Choose 10 photos for Jan/Feb for photo book. 2) Decide on Story-Board "format" for Photo Book
6	Photo Booking Project	Photo Booking: Complete Adoption Photo Book by November Family Day 11/21	Choose pictures for photo book (limit only a few to a page).
7	Health & Wellness Project	Health & Wellness: 1) Rejoin the gym. 2) Make monthly gym attendance goals. 3) Go to the gym when scheduled!	Monthly Attendance Goal: 5 days
8	House Repairs & Projects	"Patty-Do" List: complete 1 house repair a month and/or 1 small house project.	1) Replace light bulbs on all outside lights. 2) Laundry Storage Solution
9	Taxes	2016 Tax Tracking: Update tax spreadsheet (costs, mileage) and collect receipts.	Update: Jan-Mar

So far, focusing on a little bit at a time has really helped and I've managed to make time for these things. I'm hoping I'm not adding too many "goals" here. I figure not many of them take that much time. I just have to prioritize my down-time. Plus, all of these things I need to take care of one way or another, so it's best if I have them in my goals so I can actually make progress on them. Like getting tax documents ready. Very stressful in January if I'm not organized. If I get it done now, my tax meeting will be easy.

Here's to a productive September!

Click here for more info on my Goals & Projects.

PhotoBooking: Family Year Book + Adoption Book

As part of my August 2016 Goals, I wanted to start working on my 2016 Family Year Book and work on completing my son's adoption book. I'm happy to say that I've actually made progress on this! 

Using My Mac Photos

I haven't really been organizing my photos on my Mac. I started working on this a little bit and getting Photos in a good order.

2016 Family Year Book 

I'm tasked with actual completing a Family Year Book! I've always wanted to make one and am so very excited that I have the opportunity to make one this year... a year where we have been a Forever Family :) Creating a photo book, yet alone a whole years worth of memories, is no easy task. I'm already years and years behind on moving these digital memories into a cohesive photo book. Small steps... and small tasks... will get me there (hopefully). For August, my task was to pick 10 photos ONLY for two months: July and August 2016. Luckily July and August weren't difficult to pick pictures from! So far, so good!

I'm back and forth on whether I should actually drop the photos in a photo book NOW... and keep adding as I go. Or do it all in one sitting (which might take a very long time!). But I guess I'm still contemplating what a full 2016 formatted Family Year Book should look like. It's all in the details, right? :) That'll have to be pushed to a different month as a goal, as it's a lot to try to accomplish this month.

Adoption Book - Story Boarding

It's taking me so long to finish my son's adoption book. There are so many ways to organize it and I couldn't really make a firm decision on it. Once I decided one way, I leaned a different way. Part of the reason I'm so indecisive is that I want to make an Adoption Book about our family and how we became a family vs. a lifebook. A lifebook is a book that goes into more things than just the adoption. I love making lifebooks for my foster kids and my son has 2 completed books. But I've been conflicted on how to approach our adoption book.

Plus, I want it to be just the most perfectest adoption book ever! I just had to really let go of all that and think about how I want to tell my son his story. I finally sat down with myself to really think about OUR family and OUR story. What I really want to accomplish by making an Adoption Book:

• I want it to be the story I tell my son. 
• I want my son to feel special about his adoption book. 
• Hopefully it'll be a story he wants to read over and over again because he loves the way it makes him feel. 
• Each adoption day (and hopefully days in-between) I want to be able to sit and read this book with my son. 
• I want him to feel loved from the book. 
• I want him to feel good about adoption from the book. 
• I want him to get a little about his "story" from the book - in an age-appropriate way. 
• I want him to know that I love him. 
• I want him to know he's loved by his birth parents. 

Lots of HIGH expectations from a little bitty book! No pressure or anything! :) 

When I think of our adoption story... I think about how our lives intersected in the most unexpected and random way. Like it was meant to be! I also think of my son's story as beginning in his birth mother's tummy. This is VERY important... because I think that's where part of the story really "begins," right? 

So, we have ME (aka Mama) who became a foster parent. 

Then we have Little Guy growing in his birth mother's tummy. 

With that said, that's where OUR story will begin!

I'm so excited about completing the adoption book, that I had to slow myself down. I made an outline and I've dropped it into a photo book on Shutterfly. I'm still playing with parts of the story, so I'll post the "completed" storyline once I go to print in Oct/Nov.

I have to say... I can't wait until it's done and I get to sit down with my son and share it with him. I think it's going to turn out really well. 

Post-Adoption: Communication with Birth Parents

I've been thinking a lot about Little Guy's adoption and communicating with his birth family. I haven't written much about it on my blog, although it's been on my mind a lot.

Since my son was adopted from fostercare, his birth parents didn't voluntarily put him up for adoption. We went from court hearing to court hearing for 18 months until the very last one to terminate parental rights (TPR). It was at this hearing where his birth parents stopped fighting and expressed interest in me adopting him. For more on the specifics of our adoption, see my Adoption Timeline.

At the time of the TPR trial, there was also discussion about communication post-adoption. We do not have an official post adoption agreement. But verbally, I agreed to some sort of communication, but was not specific. I set up an email address and a PO Box for them to communicate with me. 

My son's birth mother has consistently written... Almost at an obsessive level. We receive multiple letters a month from her. Sometimes what she says in the letters makes me question if she really "gets things." She would panick if I didn't write her back right away and think I was "mad" at her. 

I quickly set up some limits with her. I agreed to write 2x's a year and send pictures. She can write as much as she wants (and she does). She expressed some dismay at "two times a year" isn't enough and some side comments about it in her letters to my son. Almost trying to guilt trip me (it hasn't worked and I don't respond to her on those comments). I keep my letters 100% about my son and what he's up to. 

She has tried to get me to meet up with her sister and her kids (my son's birth aunt and cousins). She's also tried to have me agree to phone calls. I've said no to both... Which surprised me. I thought I would be more open to building relationships with my son's birth extended family. But I guess I'm leary of their sincerity. This is the aunt that tried to get custody of my son and who only visited him 2x's the entire time they had fostercare visitations (where they could've visited 2x's a week). Plus, his cousins are way older than him - no real relationship building there. I had to think, "would the contact benefit my son?" My answer was no at the time. I think it would've only benefited them and I had a gut feeling that the request wasn't really to see my son, but to keep an eye out on me. 

As for phone calls, my son doesn't even know how to talk on the phone yet! 

Eventually I know she's going to ask for in-person visits. Right now, I'm leaning towards no. There are some safety concerns that I don't want to post here... Which is another reason why I'm against contact with the aunt. I don't want to get into specifics on all of that and may be a little vague. I know it's my son's birth mother... but my son was in foster care for a reason and the State terminated rights on his birth parents for a reason. There are a lot of aspects to consider in this and it's not black/white. My son's safety is my #1 priority and that trumps anything and everything. 

My son doesn't know his birth mother, hasn't seen her since he was 5 months old. I don't feel like I should make that choice for me son at this juncture. When he's old enough, I'll let him make a decision on whether or not he wants to meet his birth family. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I'll support him either way. 

Now, there's his birth father. He made visitations pretty consistently right up till the TPR trial. Then he missed he goodbye visit and I haven't heard from him since. Which is so odd! He was very adamant about having a communication plan. Since my son knew him, I probably would've even allowed in-person visits with him. But not one email and not one letter. 

It didn't bother me at first. But recently I started to question if I should initiate contact. I want to have contact with his birth parents so that when my son is ready (and he chooses), it'll be a smooth process on getting him in-touch with them. Not only that, I want to have contact if any medical issues come up. I also want to do all I can do to keep my son's birth parents informed of his life and development. Partly because I would want to know if my child was adopted. 

I've been playing with the idea of emailing the birth father... I didn't want to initiate contact because I had to think there was a reason he wasn't communicating? Plus, maybe he's involved in unsafe behaviors again? 

Well, I bit the bullet! I emailed him today. I asked if he wanted to set up a communication plan and receive pictures. I also asked him if he had any pictures of my son and him together. I know he does (he showed me on his phone), but he never gave me a copy. I would love for my son to have pictures of him with his birth father. He might also have pictures with my son and relatives that attended visitations. Right now I only have 1 photo of my son with his birth parents. I would love for him to have more... 

Anyways, now I wait to see if I'll hear back from his birth father! 

Adoption can be tricky and there are so many things that I have yet to be faced with. I'm not sure how my son is going to react to all this as he gets older or how sensitive he'll be to his foster care/adoption story. Only time will tell.

Right now, I'm working on his Adoption book... which I've been working on FOREVER. With our one-year anniversary of our adoption coming up (our "Family Day"), I'm forcing myself to really make the effort in finishing it. Which it's why it's part of my August goals this month and one reason I'm thinking so much about post-adoption communication with his birth parents.

I am making a point to talk to my son about being adopted. I show him pictures of his birth parents and tell him "his story" in age appropriate terms (which will be easier once I can get a few of his adoption books done). They are part of him. I'm also looking at other ways to "honor" his birth parents on an on-going basis. As he gets older, I am hoping that our discussions and stories will help him through understanding his past. I'll write more on that later. 

Goals: 2016 Mid-Year + July/August 2016

GOALS!

There's been a lot going on in my life: the new job, keeping up with my toddler, going through IVF, being involved in Toastmasters, etc. Sometimes I just get caught up in the day-to-day that I lose track of aspiring towards specific goals that I end up just not getting much done.

It was nice when I was in college because there was a clear and measurable goal: Graduate.

I had personal goals that I've managed to reach post-college: buy a house, become a foster parent, earn my DTM award (Distinguished Toastmaster). I've even listed a few projects that I've "tried" to work on in my blog: decluttering, budgeting, photo booking, wellness (which I haven't even started posting on), gratitude, job hunting. Some of my projects I've been better at keeping up with than others.

What has been lacking in making progress in these projects is making tangible GOALS every month and tracking them. In July, I made "mid-year" goals I started tracking. Yearly goals are great... but breaking those down into smaller steps each month would be even better.

I've decided to start tracking my Goals on my blog. Mostly to hold me accountable and to see where I'm not making any progress. I don't expect to be "perfect" in this, but I do want to start making progress on my goals and in my projects. So, here we are!

2016 Mid-Year Goals (July-Dec):  

1. Budget Monthly (Part of my Budgeting Project) 
2. Make Progress in my debt snowball: Get Debt #2 down by half. (Part of my Budgeting Project) 
3. Take the Smart Kids/Smart Money online classes (6 lessons) (Part of my Budgeting Project) 
4. Get the House Decluttered  (Part of my Decluttering Project)
5. 2016 Family Photo Book (Part of my Photo Booking Project)
6. Adoption Photo Book for my son (to be done by "Family Day" in November) (Part of my Photo Booking Project)

July 2016 Progress On Goals: 

Goal #	Mid-Year Goal	July
1	Budget Monthly	Done!
2	Debt Snowball: Debt #2 50% down	No Progress
3	Smart Kids/Smart Money Book/Online Classes (6 lessons)	1 of 6 classes completed.
4	House Decluttered: Get through all boxes	No Progress
5	Family Photo Booking 2016	No Progress
6	Adoption Photo Book by November Family Day	No Progress

The reason for no progress on my debt snowball is because I cash-rolled IVF #3. All my extra funds went there. No excuses for the other areas, I just wasn't disciplined enough to set time to do them. One of the issues is, I didn't really have "clear" steps on what I wanted to do that were realistic. I'm fixing that for August and making specific, small, realistic goals.

August 2016 Objectives: 

Goal #	Mid-Year Goal	August
1	Budget Monthly	Done! I am a month ahead and budgeted for both Aug/Sept.
2	Debt Snowball: Debt #2 50% down	Pay at least 15% of balance
3	Smart Kids/Smart Money Book/Online Classes (6 lessons)	Lesson 2 and 3
4	House Decluttered: Get through all boxes	1) All unused/empty boxes to recycling. 2) Go through baby/toddler clothes, sort by size and label boxes.
5	Family Photo Booking 2016	Choose 10 photos for July and August for photo book.
6	Adoption Photo Book by November Family Day	Complete Story-Board

For my budgeting project, I did start a new debt free spreadsheet. I got too behind on my last one. I made the new one simpler and easier to maintain on a monthly basis. I also started using these debt free charts that I found on a blog. I have two printed: 1) total debt progress and 2) the current debt I'm trying to knock out. I love the visuals of it and hoping it motivates me to continue to make progress.

For the photo projects, the SMC forum had a thread on how to organize photos. I'm trying the method out to see if it helps me make progress on my photo books. 

I plan to do monthly updates on how I did with each month's objectives in getting to my goals. Let's see if this process actually works this time. I really want to make headway in my debt snowball, I want my house to not be so darn cluttered, and I want to actually finish a Photo Book! LOL. Not to mention that I really need a distraction from TTC and on FET #2! Focusing on my goals would be a positive outlet and more productive than other options.

Hopefully goal setting and tracking will do the trick on reaching these goals by year-end.