February draaaaagged by for me this year. Short month aside, it felt like it lasted a year of Februaries. What’s been funny is that January used to be the month I dreaded the most in winter, so I made sure I always built in fun plans for January to help me through it. Well, that means I definitely dread January way less, but now the Winter Scaries seem to have just been pushed off into February.
There were still some good things about the month though, so I’ll make sure to take you along for the whole bit.
February 2025 Recap
Highlights (Personal + Family)
On the personal side, February did hold some nice highlights. I was asked to be the featured speaker at our local Chamber of Commerce’s monthly dinner, which led to a published article in the paper and some great new contacts. I finished up teaching both sections of my cut flower gardening class at the local college, which had a great turnout this year. And Matt and I got a whole day to ourselves while my in-laws watched our kids so we could go to the Utah Flower Conference, which is an annual event for flower farmers, florists, and others in the floral industry to get together and see where trends are headed for the year, learn lots of new farming and growing techniques, watch a floral demo, and network. We’ve loved going every year, and it was amazing to have that day set aside just for the two of us to be together and to do some business development.
My friend Kylee watched our kids every night I had to teach (since Matt is still working away from us up north during the week), and when my classes stopped, we decided we needed to keep the weekly time together going, so we had her and her family over for dinner one night, and then I gifted her a session with the guy I go to for the specialized massage therapy I need to keep my back functional, which gave us some fun girl time just the two of us. It’s taken me awhile to make a close friend since we moved here, so it’s been amazing to build up a friendship there over the past several months. Good friends make such a difference!
For Valentine’s Day, we celebrated a day late (as always, to take advantage of everything being 50% off at the stores!), and I was so touched when another friend (one of the florists we sell to) brought me flowers as a thank you for helping her out earlier in the week 🙂 We had to celebrate a bit quickly though, since Raven and I were heading two hours up north that day to go to a bridal shower for Matt’s niece. I loved getting a chance to visit so much with Matt’s side, and Raven loved all the one-on-one time with me (as did I, as that’s hard for me to come by with having four kids and a full-time business!).
The next weekend, my mom threw a Chinese New Year party for my side, and other than getting home late, it was a really fun night filled with good food and conversation and lots of games. Even though driving four hours on those days can be challenging, we’re still really thankful that we live close enough that attending family events like these is still feasible on a semi-regular basis.
Naomi also showed a lot of progress in February with gaining weight, which is something we’ve really, really been working on. In fact, she not only was within the range of what’s desired for daily growth, but actually had some catch-up growth on there too, which was a wonderful surprise! We were also pleased that at her orthopedic appointment at the end of the month, her scoliosis had shown slight improvement, which gives us hope that she might be able to mostly grow out of it on her own as she starts to learn to walk rather than needing a brace. Time will tell.
Hard Things
By far the hardest part about February was still Matt being gone during the week, every week. Basically I’m on my own from Mondays after lunch until Friday morning, and with a lot of medical appointments and farm stuff to still juggle, it’s been hard to do on my own (on top of just the normal stuff that comes with being a mom of young kids).
What compounded the issue is that we were hit with yet more sickness — Raven got strep first, closely followed by Naomi, who actually needed to go on antibiotics TWICE back to back in order to kick it. I also got sick with something I thought was strep, but the test always came back negative, and it was only after they sent the test in to the lab that they discovered that it WAS strep, but just an unusual strain. Once I got on antibiotics (technically in early March), I felt better within a couple of days, but I basically spent most of February feeling a bit poor. Luckily the boys have been healthy, but there has been a LOT of trips to the doctor (on top of the high volume of appointments we already have for Naomi) plus a lot of nights with little sleep.
Flower Farm
I already mentioned my speaking engagement and going to the Utah Flower Conference, and other than that, February didn’t hold much excitement for the farm. Our sales were low (which is expected, considering we’re still in winter), and it was definitely one of those times that I sometimes irrationally despaired that winter would never end.
If we did Valentine’s Day, things might be different, but the winter tulips I’d attempted to grow inside for the first time to try and do just that ended up being a colossal failure…I literally only had 2 bloom out of 300. However, failures are a necessary part of the learning and growing process, and now I definitely know a lot of things NOT to do if we ever attempt that again.
Overall Thoughts
February obviously wasn’t all bad, but I’m still pretty glad to see the end of it. Winter and I still have a rough relationship with each other more of the time than I’d like!
Here’s how the goals for the month shook out.
February’s Big Three
Home Goal: Complete the Great Freezer Clean-Out of 2025 (+ blog about it!)
Okay, so I haven’t technically “finished” the whole challenge, but considering that I’ve finished the part about actually cleaning out the freezer and have definitely made a super solid start on the challenge, I’m counting it as complete for the sake of this post (although I will keep blogging about the challenge until I’ve gone through everything!). This has been a great way for me to be more intentional about using up what we have, and it’s also been pretty nice to give me a better sense of a meal plan for the week.
In fact, I’ve been feeling so encouraged by how well this is going that I’m making one of March’s goals about an adjacent thing.
(If you want to read all the posts so far in the freezer clean-out challenge, you can click HERE.)
Financial Goal: File taxes + pay off credit card in full
I feel like this one should have a million exclamation points around it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU GUYS!!!! I absolutely despise debt of all kinds, and I CANNOT BELIEVE it took us so long to pay down this debt we’d taken on to replace some of the windows in our home. True, a lot of it was due to financial factors completely beyond our control, but still…this felt really, really good.
Flower Farm Goal: Upload all our inventory for the season to Rooted Farmer + apply for grant
I did apply for the grant, which was no small process — it took several hours of writing, planning, getting quotes from professionals, looking up data and numbers…I honestly don’t know how good of a shot we have at winning it, but if we did, it would be SOOO worth any effort we put in.
As for the other goal, I did make a little bit of progress, but not as much as expected. Part of that was because I was waiting on other people, and part of that is because my time was tied up first in the grant and then in trying to start wrapping up the winter marketing work I’ve been doing for a friend. This will be a rollover goal for March because it’s crucial I get it done in the next six weeks or so.
March is already looking more hopeful than February because Matt’s last week of work up north is next Thursday, and then he’ll be home again with us like usual all the time. This is important on multiple levels, not just because of how much stress it will take off of my shoulders, but also because we have sooooooo much spring prep work to do on the farm, and we’re a bit behind because he hasn’t been here to do it (and my ability to do so has been limited because of our current childcare situation).
We also had an out of town family wedding last weekend, and the kids start their spring break at the end of the month. So lots of good things!
March’s Big Three
Work Goal: Finish up marketing work
I’ve been doing some winter marketing work again for my friend (same as last year), but now that we’re in March, I really need to free up all my time for our own business as soon as possible. I did make a lot of progress on this at the end of February, but I probably still have at least 15-20 hours left to finish this up for him.
Financial Goal: Keep grocery spending to $800 for the month
I’ve been so encouraged by my progress in the freezer challenge that I thought it was high time I challenged something that’s been bugging me the past few months — our high grocery spending! I mean, I know with inflation that prices have just gone up and up, but still, I shouldn’t be needing to spend $900-950 a month if I’m being intentional about it.
I plan to do a post on the breakdown of our grocery spending for March, so stay tuned for that! (For the record, our grocery spending also includes things like diapers and non-food items.)
Flower Farm Goal: Upload all inventory for the season to Rooted Farmer
Rollover goal. And boy, is this daunting! I have something like 300 entries (with photos!) that I need to put in the system.
How’s your March going so far? What kinds of plans do you have this month?
