Doesn’t it seem like just last week we were setting our goals for February? February already has the short end of the stick when it comes to days on the calendar, but really, this month has truly flown by!

All the same.. February has been a very good month. MUCH better than January. ;0)

You may recall my 3 habit goals for February:

  1. Get up at 7am
  2. Read & pray first
  3. Have breakfast on time.

How did it go? Very well! Not perfect (is it ever?) but very, very well!

Get up at 7am — I’d say that I got up at 7 at least 60% of the time… between 7 & 7:30 at least another 25% of the time, and after 7:30 for the remainder of that percentage.. For a woman going from sleeping until 9 am or so after sicknesses and cold weather in January.. getting up at 7 MOST of the time makes me very happy. It has become habit enough I have no doubt I’ll continue it throughout March and thereafter.

Read and pray FIRST — I’m SO pleased with how well this went!! I got terribly behind on Bible in 90 Days during the month of January, and where I was half as far along as I should be I am now two thirds as far along as I should be. This is largely due to setting this habit of getting up and reading my bible first thing. Even if I didn’t get up on time, even if the kids got up early… at least 99% of the time I read my bible first thing in the morning. At least 30 minutes, most days closer to an hour, some days more than! It was so nice to have a quiet hour, LITERALLY, before beginning my day. One of the ways that I made this possible as often as I did was making breakfast ahead of time… see below. =)

Breakfast on time — One of the things I needed to iron out to make this work was getting breakfast ready by 8 if I wanted to get up at 7 and read for thirty minutes to an hour. Many days I made breakfast ahead. For example–making muffin batter (with fruit and nuts or oats, etc), pouring it into a pan and storing it in the fridge overnight so I just have to pop it in the oven and read while it bakes. Other ways to make breakfast ahead.. preparing freezer meals (we did sausage and cheese biscuits once and we all liked that.) You can make quiches and fruit breads, breakfast casseroles and healthier versions of fruit crumbles the night before and bake them in the morning. There are crockpot options. Mornings that need more work I can still read for thirty minutes. Mornings that need less work I can get in a whole hour. I like this, need to develop this habit better, it needs to stay!

So now that February is coming to a close (so successfully and happily).. it’s time to look forward to March. What habits shall we add for March, hm?

Since the beginning of the year.. I have added/refined these habits:

  • 7 am wake time
  • morning bible study
  • kids up by 8, breakfast at 8
  • been WORKING on a “lunch at 11” habit, it hasn’t stuck, but I’m working on it
  • (we’ve had a firm “snack at 3” habit for a long, long time.)
  • supper between 5 and 5:30
  • bedtime routine/storytime/prayertime at 8:30
  • going to bed earlier myself – my goal is midnight, making it most nights

Little by little we’ve been nailing down checkpoints in our daily routine. Some of these need more work than others. I’ve added a lot of bells and whistles to my phone (literally) for these and a few other time checkpoints to keep me moving through my day and that has really helped. Of course, it’s easy to ignore them if I want to, but that’s where the habit making part comes in. 😉 There are still some of those habits (like the lunch time habit) that need to be fully developed.

I have many things to choose from to work on for March! At the beginning of the year I really set about focusing on meal times and wake/sleep times and now that we’ve got those in place and a good morning and night routine, there are several other starting/stopping points in our day that we need to nail down. After talking with my girls about what we need to work on next in our daily routine, we finally settled on our 3. We chose them together, and we’re going to work on them together.

BUT… I’m going to tell you THOSE in the next post. 😉

How did YOUR February go??

Photo Credit: Attribution Some rights reserved by Minimalist Photography

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Amber

Hey, y’all! I’m Amber and I wear many hats. I drink a ton of coffee and I’m constantly sweeping crumbs off the floor. After 20+ years of homeschooling, we are starting over at preschool with our fourth, Lil Miss Mouse. She keeps us young and she’s the main reason for my excessive coffee consumption. Drink up!