Coming at you with another Big 3 Goals post for February, as well as letting you know what we’ve been up to for the past month!
January 2025 Recap
Highlights (Personal + Family)
January was all about finding a rhythm with Matt being away from us during the week for his winter job while I balanced all my home and childcare responsibilities with teaching my cut flower classes (which were every Tuesday and Wednesday evening in January) and other flower farming duties. While the increased load on my own shoulders made for the bulk of January’s hard things, it was also pretty awesome to see how much Matt took to his new winter job as a running and agility coach.
Matt graduated in human movement science over a decade ago, but he’s never really had a chance to use his degree in any capacity since he didn’t get into PT school like we’d hoped, and he ended up taking the job as the operations/fulfillment manager at the pet food plant that he ended up having for ten years before he graduated with his undergraduate. So when the same guy who works on my back and who did trade-out with me last year (I did some marketing and website work for him, and all my massages for the year were covered) started talking to us about Matt possibly coming on for the winter while they needed a short-term running coach, it seemed fated. And Matt has LOVED the job…he loves working with the kids, he’s loved the chance to get back into formal exercise again (he’s even signed up for a triathlon this summer!), and having a lot of time to spend with his parents and other family members up north has helped him to get the recovery he was needing after his own farm burnout, since he was covering for me so much during mine.
It’s definitely not a long-term thing we would be willing to do, but it has been a blessing for the short-term, and Matt has learned a ton, plus it’s been awesome to see him work somewhere where he actually loves the work itself (something that hasn’t happened yet when he’s gone to work for anyone else).
On my end, I was really pleased at the strong enrollment I had for both of my cut flower courses this year, which basically more than doubled the income I took home from it last year. It is so fun for me to teach cut flower gardening to people who really, really want to learn, and I’ve made some of my best contacts and friends through these classes. Actually going through all the prep work for the classes was kind of stressful because my time was so limited, but once I actually showed up to teach, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I was especially grateful that my friend Kylee was willing to come watch the kids for me while I taught — it really put my mind at ease knowing that someone was coming whom I trusted and whom our kids love, as well as knowing that the same person was going to come for most every night I was gone. It also served to strengthen my friendship with Kylee, and since adult friendships are a lot harder to build than childhood friendships, I really welcomed the chance to get closer to her and her family.
Raven had a big month in January–she not only finally got to start dance for the first time (something we’ve been trying to get her into for years but had never been able to find any openings anywhere), but she also won her class spelling bee and got to compete at the school level! She ended up making it to the 6th round, beating out about half of the other finalists. Considering that we hadn’t spent all that much time studying with her, I was especially proud at how well she did, especially under pressure.
We had a really fun opportunity around the middle of the month, when we were invited to a very fancy steak dinner out with Matt’s parents and all his brothers and their wives. It was definitely the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten, but it was also the best steak I’ve EVER had, plus it was amazing to have an actual date night where we got dressed up and everything and did something out of the ordinary 🙂 It had been way too long! Coincidentally, I was supposed to attend a brunch the same day with my sisters and sisters-in-law to celebrate my mom’s birthday, but then we ended up getting caught in a freak snowstorm on our drive up, which meant we could just make the dinner and I had to skip brunch. You win some, you lose some!
January was a lot of time spent at home, doing computer work and then squeezing in reading for fun wherever I could. Matt and I also did a bit more simplifying/minimizing in the house on the weekends when he was home, which always makes such a big difference, especially during the growing season. All in all, it was a very quiet month compared to December, which I really needed.
Hard Things
By far the hardest part of January was having Matt away from us during the week from Monday to Friday while he was working at his job up north. I thought it would get easier as I got more used to it, but that hasn’t necessarily been how it is…perhaps I’ve gotten more used to handling stuff on my own, but I can definitely tell my body has taken on a lot more stress from it. I already had a lot to do in January anyway because of the classes I was teaching and the behind-the-scenes computer and admin stuff I had to do for the farm, but my time to spend on those in any kind of focused way was severely cut down since I was on my own. It basically meant I had to do everything at night, which translated to a lot of getting to bed past midnight while still having early wake-ups the next morning (not to mention the fact that usually at least one of our kids will still wake me up in the middle of the night most nights for some reason or another).
However, compared to how hard the month of January USED to be for me, it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I’ve learned a lot of great, concrete strategies so I don’t totally fall back into old anxiety patterns, and the farm keeps me busy and outside more often than I would be otherwise during this time of year.
So all in all, I’m counting it as a win for January since it’s always my least favorite month!
Flower Farm
January flower farming stuff largely revolved around the cut flower courses I taught at the local college, one of which I needed to come up with a brand new curriculum for since it’s a brand new class I offered for the first time this year. I also met with the growers’ co-op that we joined last year so that we could plan for the season ahead, which made me excited to see what this partnership will do for our farm.
As for the rest of January, it mostly held the usual flower farm winter stuff, like tax prep, finalizing planting plans, ordering seeds and supplies, and marketing.
Overall Thoughts
Honestly, if Matt had been home more of the month, I think January would have been kinda awesome in a lot of ways. But then he wouldn’t have gotten the rest and recuperation he was desperately needing after having shouldered so much of the farm stuff at the end of the season, so I was happy that he got the chance to do that while making the money we needed to in the off season.
All in all, while January held a lot more daily stress on my shoulders just because I was on my own, it also allowed me to just have most of my focus be on our home and on the kids, which was nice.
January’s Big Three
Home Goal: Rent dumpster and clear out garage, basement, and other storage areas
This is definitely a case of “progress over perfection,” but we did rent the dumpster, and we did fill it, so I’m counting this as 100% completed even though I feel like we still could have gone a lot further in purging certain areas of the house and outbuildings.
Flower Farm: Create curriculum for new intermediate cut flower course + finalize planting plan for season
It was kinda intense coming up with an entirely new class curriculum when Matt was working away from us during the week, but the classes went really well.
And while my planting plan will probably get further tweaking as stuff fails to germinate or things die or whatever, it’s about as finalized as I can hope to get it for now.
Financial: Do all tax preparation so we can file beginning of February
I did a lot, but definitely not all. Kind of a half win?
February’s Big Three
Home Goal: Complete the Great Freezer Clean-Out Challenge of 2025 (+ blog about it!)
Both the smaller freezer attached to our fridge in the kitchen and our stand-alone freezer out in the garage are packed, largely with stuff that’s been in there a long time. We are long overdue for a solid clean-out, plus a freezer challenge so I can use up what’s still edible 🙂 I plan to blog about this to keep myself on track!
Financial Goal: File taxes + pay off credit card in full (YAY!!)
This is going to feel AMAZING to finally be debt-free other than our mortgage again. If you want to hear the whole story of how we got into debt, you can read this post.
Flower Farm Goal: Upload all our inventory for the season to Rooted Farmer + apply for grant
I have to basically create a profile of sorts for every single flower we’re planning on selling this year through the co-op (complete with pictures and specific info like stem length, color, vase life, etc.) through the platform Rooted Farmer, which is extremely daunting, to say the least, considering that we grow something like 250 different things when I’m having to separate everything out by color and not just variety (i.e., creating a profile for both white snapdragons and blush snapdragons, even though they’re both snapdragons). I’m trying to just chip away at it a few at a time, but I can almost guarantee this is going to be a goal that has to stretch into March by necessity.
Since I’ve had decent luck with winning grants for our farm thus far, Matt and I are wanting to try for a much more competitive/high value one to see what happens, since we could really use a walk in cooler and a delivery vehicle ASAP. The grant process alone is pretty intimidating, so wish us luck! This particular grant application is due at the end of this month.
