Mini-Van Mom: 2023 Goals

The past many years, I've had some very lofty goals. I kept track of them on here, because it forced me to come back and revisit them monthly and remind myself what I had set out to do at the beginning of the year. It has been very helpful. It has kept me motivated when I would otherwise have forgotten what I wanted to do.

But this year is already starting out differently than other years.

Mom is 11 months into Hospice.

Our house. Wow. We finally started working on the major repairs we had been wanting to get to since we moved in 17 years ago. The house is 53 years old, and either us or my in-laws have owned that house for 50 of those years. Sadly, there were many issues when we moved in. My father in law promised he was going to have them fixed. He passed away a couple of years after we moved in, and my MIL proclaimed that any issues were our issues. And so, we have done what we can over the years. But this fall, as work began in earnest, we realized that the issues our house has are serious issues. We had to move out, and our house has been torn back to the studs.

We are living in an apartment. Lots of stories to go along with this adventure. Oh, so many stories I need to share. Some good, some bad, some are genuinely WTF?

I have applied and been turned down for two separate promotions this year. I know it happens, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating.

I want my focus to be a little different this year.

I want to move back into our house and make it our home again.

I want to finish going through the storage units and take care of the things we no longer need. I will even go so far as to say that I want to rent a van and drive stuff out to Kansas to the middle child just to get it out of my house.

Oldest child will be finishing his post doc later this year, and will be searching for another job. If he doesn't stay where he is, I want to go explore his new area. I also want to finish exploring Central Pennsylvania before he moves. Once he moves out, I don't know that I ever see heading back up there again "just because". It's a long way from home, I didn't go to college there, and without him in the area, I have nothing to make me want to go back.

At my last check up, my doctor told me that my cholesterol was up. I have 10 months to bring it back down before I see her again. Getting that down is a major goal for 2023. I told her when I went in to see her that I was positive all my numbers were off because of the stress. Shockingly, the cholesterol was the only thing that was off. (Was that the coconut milk products or the sheer volume of crap I've been eating on my visits to and from Mom?)

This year I am going to focus more on me. Taking care of me. And of my relationship with my husband. Now that the kids are all out of the house, it feels like we need to get to know each other all over again.

I want to develop some friendships and find new interests. The pandemic put a damper on my social life. Many of my friends retired and moved away from this area, and may of my social activities never resumed. I need to find new things!

I'm not going to be updating these goals monthly, but I intend to write about them throughout the year.

So, those are my goals moving into 2023.

What are your goals for this year?