We're Going to the Beach

We are going on a family beach trip to Destin, Florida in May! Jack, my nephew Bennett, and my niece Maybree have never been to the beach which makes this trip even more exciting. As soon as we booked our condo I started shopping for Jack some cute beach clothes. My sister has bought Jack and Bennett matching shirts from Zulilly and I have already purchased Jack's spring/summer clothes. I didn't need a whole lot but I knew I wanted to get a few new things just for the beach.

Our DESTINation

super cute lobster pjs

I'm going to pair this shirt with some khaki shorts. He is going to be adorable!

Whale flip flops to go with the rashguard shirt and trunks below.

Whale rashguard 

Whale trunks

We have over two months until our trip and the anticipation is driving me wild but there are lots of things to plan and buy before then to keep me busy. My sister and I have already been collaberating on a Beach Vacation Pinterest board. 

We want to spend the majority of our time on the actual beach but we do want to get out on the town a few times. I'm excited about taking the kids to Harborwalk Village. There they have lots of shops, rides for the kids, and a small train for the boys to ride in. There is also an amazing water park nearby. We are staying at Sundestin resort and they have lots of fun things for the kids to do also including a splash pad.

We are checking in on a Saturday but we have decided to leave Friday and drive half the way, stay at a hotel, and then drive the rest of the way that Saturday. We knew taking a 5 year old, a 4 year old, and a 1 year old that we couldn't do the drive in one day. I need to prepare all the road trip essentials. 

Since I just went to the beach this past September I remember exactly the things I need to pack. I packed way too much then but will not make that mistake this time. I pretty much stayed in my swimsuit until we went out for supper at night. I just need swimsuits, a beach towel, cover ups, flip flops, and a few evening outfits. Jack will need trunks, a few t-shirts, some shorts, flip flops, floatie, and a few nice outfits. I hope to pack it all in a medium size suitcase. I'll also pack a smaller bag for our roadtip essentials. 

I'm sure you will see many beach posts from me in the coming months. Writing out these posts helps me to organize my thoughts. 

Have you ever been to Destin? If so, where are the best places to go? 

Powersheets Progress

Since it is March I wanted to take a few minutes to update everyone on how my Powersheets are going. I'm two months in and I'm super proud of my progress. Lara Casey, the genius behind the Powersheets, is all about progress. I've had to retrain my mind to think about the little steps as more important than I once thought of them. 

I had a couple different goals that I've really been rocking. There are some other goals that I'm just now really working on. My goal themes are finances, happiness, health, religion, and community. 

FINANCES

I got my taxes done and started a savings account. I've also been paying off a lot of the smaller medical bills and paying on the bigger ones. I put together a google sheet of my current debt where one cell calculates the sum at the bottom. I love seeing that sum number decrease each month. 

HAPPINESS

I found myself really feeling anxious and stressed towards the end of 2016. I would snap at people and find myself getting frustrated quicker. I knew these feelings were taking a toll on me and I didn't want to hurt the people around me. In the first week of January I went to my doctor and she put me on Paxil. It has been such a turn around. It took about two weeks to feel the positive effects. My only side effect was not being able to sleep but that only lasted about a week. It is hard to explain what it has done for me. The best way for me to put it is that it has mellowed me out. I don't feel different in my body, I just can deal with things so much better. It is like an instant count to ten for my brain. I can't recommend it enough.

HEALTH

This is the one area where I've made minimal progress. I need to lose weight but let's face it-that isn't any fun. I do worse with eating crap for breakfast instead of planning ahead. I still drink too much Dr. Pepper with my favorite Sonic ice. I have done well with moving more but I'm still needing to work on that so I bought a Fitbit in hopes of walking more steps. Does anyone know of any step challenges that I could participate in? I have started taking a multivitamin daily, taking better care of my teeth, and doing a nightly face routine.

RELIGION

I had felt the urge to be closer to God and started exploring that relationship mid 2016. In 2017 I wanted to go deeper so I started a prayer journal that I write in through the week. At first my goal was to read a book of the Bible each month but now my goal is to read the Bible this year. I feel so much closer to God and I'm happy with the direction I'm heading. One area where I haven't done well is getting into church. I went a couple of times in December. The first time Jack got lost. The second time he screamed and refused to stay in children's church. I then started letting him just stay with me but the whole time I'm entertaining him and couldn't pay attention. Honestly, it was just a lot of work getting ready to just get there and not being able to enjoy myself. The issue with children's church is that it is a different person keeping the kids each Sunday so Jack is never able to get comfortable. I hope that we can try again at a later time. 

COMMUNITY

  Since moving back to my hometown I lost the daily interaction with my friends. I'm planning on staying put for awhile so I wanted to make friends with people in my community. All of my high school friends have moved away or we haven't connected in awhile. I've also wanted to get more involved in my community. I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined our local Womens Service League. I hope to do good works in my community and hopefully meet some new friends. 

After March I do the Spring Refresh in my Powersheets book. These pages are dedicated to thinking about what has worked and what has not worked. You can then rethink your goals and see if any of them need tweeked or thrown out. I can already see some of the changes I want to make. I'm happy to report I've made such progress with my goals that I'll be able to make them more complex and even add another one or two. For example, one of my goals is to make happy memories with my family. I want to add more to that goal by being more specific and adding some adjectives to that goal. Cultivating important relationships is something I want to continue working on by exploring new ways to make fun memories. 

I'll leave you by saying that having my Powersheets has been such a positive game changer in my life. I knew I wanted to make some major changes in 2017 and I couldn't have predicted how instrumental Powersheets would be in making my goals a reality. 

How are your goals going this year?