Every month I set a few simple goals to add focus to my life. Here are my monthly goals for April 2026.
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How was March 2026?
What You'll Find on This Page
My life right now is completely different from everything I planned and expected. It’s going to take a while to find a new normal (whatever normal means), but I do feel like March was a step in the right direction.
March Goals – Reporting Back
March 2026 goals were super simple.
I enjoyed taking Anna to a ballet competition, and especially seeing my oldest daughter Emma while on that trip. I also enjoyed spending time with my good friend Gwen on the same trip. Later in the month I got to see my sister and most of her children – another gift.
Enjoying Kids
My kids are the best, and I got to spend tons of time with them in March. We even managed a belated celebration of Emma’s 20th birthday.
Pets (Gratitude Goal)
Our pets are my second favorite thing in my life after my kids, and their antics offer an excellent counterpoint to life drama. Our poor dog had to get 10 teeth pulled in March. She is enjoying canned dog food while she heals.
Music and Sewing
I’ve been very busy keeping up with work and school and basic life, so I haven’t had much time for music or crafting. I sang in my church choir one Sunday, and I spent a Saturday morning at a Sew Day for my local sewing guild. While at the Sew Day I made this Sallie Tomato Smith organizer. It was my first time sewing with cork, and I love how it turned out!
One of the members of my sewing guild, Lorraine, had already made a couple of these, so I followed her notes and made some adjustments to my copy of the pattern. I simplified the pockets on the right hand side to what you see above, sewed in a horizontal cork panel to hold the notepad in place (as opposed to vertical elastic for a flip-open notebook), and added about an inch and a half to the width.
That inch and a half is especially helpful when you close everything up. In the photo above the organizer is holding the notepad you saw above, the pens (I highly recommend TWSBI ECO fountain pens) from the same photo, and my 13″ ipad pro is in the tablet pocket.
I had cut out all of the pieces out the night before, and I am pretty efficient with a sewing machine, so I was able to sew this entire project in under three hours. I’m sure my next one will go even faster I love how this Smith organizer turned out, and I have already used it a lot!
Sallie Tomato sells gorgeous cork fabric. Unfortunately, I wasn’t organized enough to order their fabric in time for this sew day, so I wound up shopping on Amazon for the fast shipping. I found this travel print and this purple cork, which looked a lot more purple in person than in the photo but thankfully worked for the project!
I found cork surprisingly easy to sew with! I’m curious to test out how it holds up over time.
Spending Time in Nature
California weather made it easy for me to spend some time outside everyday. My friend Teresa helped me ace this goal by inviting me for a day out at Filoli, where I took the photo of the beautiful trees above and the pink flowers below. The red tulips are from a neighborhood near my house that always features beautiful flowers.
Setting Goals for April 2026
April is going to be very busy, but with good things! Here are my April goals:
- Make the most of time with my kids. This has always been a huge priority for me, but it’s even more of one with the divorce.
- Enjoy a trip to the East coast to visit colleges with my son Johnny. He has some amazing schools to choose from, and the two schools we will visit on this trip are campuses I’ve never seen. So I will enjoy discovering them as well. We’ll be road tripping through parts of the country neither of us have visited, and I am very excited to stay with one of my sisters for part of this trip! I’ll also join Johnny for a visit to my alma mater at the end of the month, since it’s one of the schools he is considering attending in the fall. We live right next to it, so we’ll bike in for that.
- Meet up with my dad and some of my siblings in Utah. This will be a very short trip, but I’m looking forward to it.
- Record a talk for work and then give the same talk at a conference in Minneapolis. Again, a very short trip, but a cool opportunity.
- Keep up with schoolwork. I got ahead this week, but I think I will lose that quickly with all of my travel. Or, maybe I will be super efficient during flights.
There is so much other stuff going on, but I’m going to stop with those five goals. My life features a lot of uncertainty at the moment, but hopefully there will be a little less of that by the end of the month.
What does April look like for you? What are you hoping to accomplish this month?
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Tell me more about this cork fabric, it sounds fascinating.
All of those trips sound like a lot of fun, especially getting to see parts of the country you haven’t seen before.
I think you would enjoy experimenting with cork! It’s a very thin layer of cork tree attached to a fabric backing; it’s surprisingly easy to sew with. It could be fun to use for a bag for a Renaissance fair or maybe even some sort of belt or maybe a bodice. People use it similarly to how they use leather, but it’s much easier to work with.
I’m on my trip with Johnny, and it’s been amazing. We saw one school and will visit the second tomorrow; we also visited Fallingwater and the Capitol building in Harrisburg, PA. I highly recommend both if you make it out here sometime!