Lessons Learned & 2023 Goals
We’ve officially wrapped up 2022, it was a good year for us! We became first time home owners, moved to a new town, and started our homestead. Those were the highlights.
Last year I made simple goals, that I’d hoped would be easy to achieve. Here’s how those turned out and lessons learned!
Over the past couple years I feel like I’ve had no balance or structure in life, and just juggling everything. It finally feels like I’m starting to take control again, and a routine started. Taking more time for myself has been more of a priority. My gut health has been very important to me this year, but not necessarily by choice. I’ve still got a ways to go with my health, and wellness journey.
One of my goals last year was to create more content, and I honestly failed that. I published less than 35 blog posts, and wasn’t as present on Instagram as I could have. Dang self-consciousness!
Now, as for my homesteading goals. Learning how to homestead has been going great, and I love learning how to live more self-sufficient. We’ve grown some stuff, although I do wish I would of started out much smaller, learned the suns pattern year round, and just worked on the things that were already at our new place. Eating out has been a tough habit to break, and I didn’t really learn anything new about preserving. We dried herbs, and froze fresh berries from our harvest though.
We’ve added a few animals to our homestead this past year; a dog, bird, chickens and a rooster. Can’t beat eating your own farm fresh eggs! We’ve also lost one of the chickens to a predator and realized we no longer live in the city. It’s also been amazing seeing all the wildlife, and nature. I’ve learned a little about foraging on our land too. 
I really enjoy making new goals for the coming year, it gives me things to look forward to, and a little roadmap.
This year I’ll continue working on structure in our life, and creating healthy habits. More specifically, we need to work on our lives being more put together and organized, choosing more fresh and whole foods, being more practical with money. With the increase of prices, it’ll be the year of buying things we need, over want.
As for myself, I’m keeping it short. I’ll be working on journaling and writing therapy. I also would love to learn a new hobby, and something that will be beneficial in life; learn bee keeping, knitting, fishing, wood working, are all things I’d love to learn someday.
I’ve got more than a few goals for the homestead this year, but all do-able. We live on almost 4 acres, but only about half of it has been touched, the rest is woods, wetland, and slopes. My main thing I want to work on is maintaining the landscaping, and plants that are already here. I do want to add a few raised garden beds for a herb garden, medicinal garden, and a flower garden. We also plan on cutting a few trees down for more sunlight, safety, and firewood for the winter. Continue learning how to forage on our land, build a larger composting bin area, move the chicken coop and make a large predator proof run. We also would like to add more outdoor lighting, it’s nice how well we can see the stars, and moon, but it can be very unsettling.
Trying to keep it light on the goals, and just be proud of all my accomplishments, big and little. What goals have you made for this new year? I hope you’ve had a wonderful start to 2023!
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” – John Lennon.
