2018 just flew by for me. I’m feeling excited and refreshed for what 2019 has in-store for myself and my family.

On New Year’s Eve, I wrote down a few goals for myself personally for 2019.

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My first goal is to journal everyday. Journalling is one of my favorite activities, but I rarely make time for it anymore. I’m going to make it a priority for myself this year to write daily. Journalling helps me relieve stress, brag about my successes, and vent my frustrations, all without having to say any of it out loud. I write about myself, my family, dreams, failures, basically anything and everything.

For my first mother’s day my husband bought me the One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book. Honestly, I think it is one of my favorite gifts ever. Now that I’ve had it for 3.5 years, I love getting to read what I was doing on the same day 3 years, 2 years, and 1 year ago. It doesn’t take long to write a journal entry because there’s only room for a couple sentences, and I cherish this memory book I’m creating. It’s a great way for me to keep up with my daily journalling goal when I don’t have time for a long journal writing session.

My second goal is to get at least 8 hours a sleep a night. It sounds almost impossible to me too, especially with two young kids, but I spent a lot of 2018 in a sleep deprived fog, and I want to make sleep a priority for myself again. When I am tired I tend to have a short fuse with my kids. When I am fully rested, I find I have more patience and happiness to share with my children, and that’s the mom I want to be.

In order to help with the sleep goal, I set a goal of no social media use after 9 pm. After I put the kids to bed in the evening, I can zone out for hours checking Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. If I set limits and don’t allow myself to do that every night I will have more time for writing the blog, reading, relaxing with my husband, and most importunately, getting to bed at a reasonable time.The fourth goal is no TV during meals with the kids. Every morning I have the Today show on TV in the background while we’re eating breakfast. The kids half eat, half watch the TV. They turn around when they hear the song of their favorite commercials, I’m always threatening to turn it off if they don’t eat and breakfast takes waaayyyyyy too long. So I decided, no more threats, we’ll just start with the TV off. Ideally, everyone will be more present, more focused on the food and eating, and on talking to each other. Sometimes this feels like more of a punishment for me than the kids because I don’t get to watch my morning news show, but I think it will benefit all of us.My final goal is to Thrive! I just finished reading The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines during my vacation home to New Mexico for Christmas. In the book Joanna talked about her family thriving, even in a tiny house when they had no money, and that really resonated with me. No matter where we are in our lives we can still be thriving if we have the right attitude. I want to be present with my kids, play more, don’t be afraid to travel with the kids, and just soak it all in. I want to enjoy my time with my kids while they are little, fun, and imaginative, and when they want to be with me too! We WILL thrive this year.

I’ll be changing the focus on the blog a bit in 2019. I want this blog to be more in-line with my personal goals of being more present with my kids, so I’m going to focus more on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) for kids. This way my blog goals better align with my personal goals to spend more quality time with my family.

My STEAM for Kids page will soon feature three main categories: STEAM for kids experiments, children’s STEAM book reviews, and Children’s Science Museum visits and reviews.

I’m going to continue to post STEAM for kids experiments that are fun and simple, and that you can do at home with your kids with little to no supplies needed. My kids and I enjoy these experiments and we hope you do too!

I will also continue to feature children’s STEAM book reviews. My kids and I spend a lot of our day at home reading. I want to add more STEAM books into our library, and I hope by sharing our the STEAM books we’re reading with you, that you will add some to your library as well.

Finally, we’ve recently started going to Children’s science museums with the kids. They love them, and I do too!!! We all have so much fun every time we go, so I decided to start taking lots of pictures and share our experiences with you here on the blog. Whenever we travel this year I am going to plan a visit to the local Children’s Science Museum with my family. We just visited Explora! in Albuquerque and I will be featuring that visit soon.

Did you set any goals for your self in 2019? What do you think of my 2019 goals? Will I actually achieve any of them? 😉 I’m guessing I will not be able to do these things every single day, but what’s important to me is to try. If I have a goal and focus I will work towards it, and any small change will be better than where I was before I tried. 🙂

How do you feel about the new focus on the blog? Are you most looking forward to the STEAM for kids experiments, children’s STEAM book reviews, or the children’s museum visits and reviews?

p.s. I’ll continue to share Women in Engineering Interviews whenever I can. I’m always looking for more women engineers to interview, so if you’re interested in being featured in an interview on the blog, contact me today!