diy mama

lifestyle blog sharing diy, family, travel, organization & disney tips

Life

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June Goals

June goalsHappy June to you all! June means school’s out, the sun’s out and there should be less work and more play. May, as always, flew by despite it’s thirty-one days. I made sure we had scheduled rest because I knew we’d be exhausted with all we had planned. I was right in doing that but I think June is going to go by even faster!

Before jumping into June’s goals, let’s see how I did for May. I rocked my family goals. We went to the library at least once per week and visited the park more than three times per week as a family. Jeffrey and I had an amazing date night in Chicago where we dined at the Rosebud Theater District before being blown away by the awesomeness that is The Book of Mormon. Thankfully I did great at my family goals because I bombed my life goals. I partially completed each one of which I’m completely satisfied with.Indy 500 2015

Despite not accomplishing everything I had planned regarding my blog goals, I’m still proud of what I completed. There are still tweaks I want to make with the re-design but know I’ll need to focus large chunks of time to work on them. I am half way done completing six photo backdrops and designed/received my business cards for BlogU (that’s this weekend!!!!)

Bubble FestivalJune Goals:

Family

  • Complete Sophie’s kitchen tower and board book
  • Have June date night with Jeffrey
  • Start swim lessons

Life

Blog

  • Attend first blog conference: BlogU
  • Implement one task from conference
  • Complete half of re-design tweaks

The key to goal planning is to make sure they’re achievable. I know that this month’s goals needed to be slightly easier because of all we have planned. I’ll be away from home the next two weekends and will be going on vacation the last week of the month. The week days in between are speckled with appointments, lessons and play dates. I’m looking forward to all of the fun ahead but also really excited about the scheduled reading time for mandatory relaxation. What do you have planned this month? I’d love to know your goals!

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Running Through the Fields

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Hello and happy Memorial Day! I had an awesome weekend spending lots of time with family and getting a pretty rad track burn at the Indy 500. We also spent Saturday morning running through the fields at a park. Saturday was definitely a ‘I wish I could freeze time’ moment because of the cotton candy clouds, bright blue sky, butterflies fluttering in the wind and my daughter’s laughter as she chased them around the park.
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Today is another picture perfect day but I’m not playing outside with my family because I’m doing a re-design for this blog! Bear with me if things seem fishy. I hope to get this redesign done today so tomorrow I will be celebrating with some sprinkler fun!

PS. Still working on the site this week but I’d love to know what you think! I’ll be doing a full post on how I did the re-design but if you’re interested, I used an Angie Makes theme called Jasmine.

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May Goals

This post contains affiliate links to books I recommend from Amazon.
May_featureHappy May! Did you go to a  May Day festival this past weekend? I would love to go to a May Day festival draped in a flowing white dress and flowers in my hair. This year I spent it with bubbles and chalk outside with Sophie which is equally as awesome. Although the days are getting longer, they seem to be shorter because we’re having much more fun!

Before getting into my May goals, let’s see how I did with my April goals. My biggest family goal was to have more patience towards Sophie. I definitely have had more patience with Sophie. There are still days when I’m counting down the minutes til Jeffrey’s arrival but overall I’m getting better with staying calm with her. Jeffrey and I had a star gazing date night with dinner and a movie at the planetarium which was amazing. We’ve also started watching (second time for him) Game of Thrones and spending time together everyday outside once he gets home. We also had a ‘5k date night’ of which we’re both very proud of because we didn’t walk during the race! I did a meal plan every week but didn’t even touch my video files that are in desperate need of organization.

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Although I did not get accepted for any sponsored posts, I’m happy with my month of blogging. I only applied for two sponsored posts because I didn’t feel the options meshed with DIY Mama. I re-worked two drafts (Gooey Granola Bars and Love Letters Scrapbook) that went live this past month. I did very well at scheduling content for my social media accounts in advance and learning more about each outlet. I’m still not a fan of Facebook but I’m getting better at it. In fact, I did my first ‘boosted’ post and got amazing results. Continue Reading about May Goals →

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April Goals

April_featureApril means ‘play outside every time it’s sunny’ and so we will. Last month I talked about staying busy to help the winter pass more quickly but I think we were too active. March flew by so fast I can hardly remember what happened.

Before getting into my April goals, let’s see how I did on my March goals. We did not meet our goal of 40 days of no spending but spent pennies compared to our normal spending. I have to admit, it didn’t even bother me to not be able to impulsively buy. We were great about putting our wants on a list for later purchasing and the only extras we spent were on entertainment. I wasn’t able to do the full #40bagsin40days straight through but the amount of decluttering and organizing I did makes me proud.
We also did not make our monthly ‘date in a box’ (which reminds me to make one for April)! We were a week short of the Whole30 but have been great at keeping a Whole30 regime during the week and being more lenient on the weekends. I did not swim twice per week but I either ran or swam three times per week!

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I’m also happy to say that I had my first sponsored post and even happier to say it was a Disney product! My social media goal of increasing each by 50 followers was pretty good. I raised Pinterest by 203, Twitter by 147 and Facebook by 18 (womp womp). I’ve never worried about my social media numbers until I monetized last month. I have been studying and asking fellow bloggers all month and Facebook seems impossible. Some companies require a certain number of followers before they work with you so I’ll continue to work on all three. I read Paper Towns and Wonder this past month, both of which I really enjoyed.

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April Goals:

Family

  • More patience towards Sophie
  • Date night with Jeffrey
  • Play outside everyday (weather permitting)

Life

  • Swim or run 3x/week for the 5k on April 25
  • Organize all video to date
  • Meal plan every week

Blog

  • Do a sponsored post
  • Re-work drafted posts in que
  • Every Sunday schedule week of Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest posts

I’ve made my April goals pretty simple because we have some secret behind-the-scenes stuff that we’re working on that I will share with you in time! My big goal for this month is to be present and be happy with my present. That’s true success. What about you? did you make any goals for this month??

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#40bagsin40days Challenge Update

#40bagsin40days is tough guys. I had complete confidence in myself to do one task/day and if I’d skipped a day or two I’d easily pick up the slack a few days later. This did not happen. I’ve taken two large breaks so far and with Soph’s broken toes and immobilization, this week isn’t looking good either. Thankfully, next week is Jeffrey’s vacation so I’m hopping to be a crazy whirlwind cleaning twister lady and getting caught up on my list.

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Not to say that my efforts are to be scoffed at. So far I’ve tackled: Continue Reading about #40bagsin40days Challenge Update →

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