As I said I believe in my first post on here it was my goal this year to really prioritize my personal and family goals and live according to those values. Of course that doesn't mean that I will ever be perfect with that, gosh I am only human, a selfish creature at that. That being said I think that I have made good strides in a lot of areas for this year. However, I still have many areas to work on, so onto my goals for the coming year. I like saying goals, not resolutions. I am making a plan for these things to happen, not just hoping that somehow changes materialize.
1)Spiritual Life
-Family Prayer and study time in the evening. Trying to decide how best to approach this- I have one week for an exact plan!
-I will search for more opportunities this coming year for the kids(and myself) to be of service to others. I am considering checking into trying to work at the food pantry again.
2)Outdoor Time
- I want to continue with activities we have started, hiking, biking, etc. I would like to make sure we have one bigger outdoor adventure a month.
3)In the Home
-I took a good look this year at my own responsibilities and how I was meeting them. I found that my execution was not as even as I wished. I would take the time to mop my floors on my hands and knees but the laundry wasn't always caught up. Now, where is the sense in that? This year especially I resolved that I would prioritize and not get carried away doing this thing or that. I also lowered my expectations and I am ok with that. Before when anyone would come over I would spend weeks cleaning every nook and cranny, polishing the windows, taking a q-tip to various corners. I don't do it anymore.
I had company last week and I could have spent the night before in a tizzy about this and that but I didn't. I decided that playing games with the family was more important. Of course I seen things here and there that weren't as clean I was would like but I am not going for perfection.
While we have been doing good with basic chores; sweeping dishes, laundry etc. our deep cleaning tasks have been done rather sporadically. It takes too much mental energy for me to plan it out. How often do I do things like clean out the frig? Wash the walls? Clean out the dishwasher? Wash under the stove? Wash the baseboards? It takes more mental energy than I wish to plan and think it all out. My plans thus far have not worked well, either it has been too much work or really not went smoothly.
In an effort to reduce my load and try to simultaneously actually trying to keep up with those tasks I signed up for http://motivatedmoms.com/ At $8 for the year I felt it was an investment I could afford to make. It is a very simple system, every day has a list of daily chores and then a list of half-dozen or so deep cleaning tasks broke down into small chunks. Now the daily tasks, as I said have been getting done, but the deep-cleaning has not been fluid at all. I am loving the way it breaks down those more in-depth tasks. It seems to be organized in a way that my brain and organizational system works. That is all there is to it. Now, I don't have to organize my own spreadsheet to determine what needs to be done weekly, monthly, seasonly, etc. Just read a list and hopefully this will make my execution of such things much less sporadic. Another big bonus to the little tasks is that makes it easy to delegate jobs to the kids as well. Oh, and it even lists things like, clip the kids nails, refill prescriptions, exercise and such- much more than just cleaning!
4)Family Time
-Another one of my family goals is reduced media. Ideally I would like the kid's exposure to be limited to a few times a week. Sometimes this happens and sometimes not. On a positive note though I am pleased with what they have been watching when they are watching. We signed up for Netflix again as in winter we generally watch more tv. Now with a new Blue-Ray player I can pick exactly what to put on there and there are no commericials. We have lots of science documentaries, Veggie Tales and various PBS shows. Brian and I are still trying to decide what our exact family goals are in this regard. We know we don't want them to focus on the screen but how do you quantify that? What is too much? That will be different for everyone. The kids have different personalities as well. Some kids are more easily affected by tv, some become addicted more readily. I think for us that I want to continue to enforce no screen time during school time ie until after quiet time. In the evenings I would like to limit the movie times to twice a week, one of those being a documentary.
I would like our family time filled with devotion time, games, read-alouds, working together, music and handicrafts. We really did a lot more of these activities this past year but still could do more. I want the kids to look back with fondness our evening family time doing things with each other, playing together and working together.
5) Food
-Sigh... Do I have a whole life category for food? I don't know. Being a gluten/dairy/soy free family we have to give some thought to food, especially when out and about. This past year we have had a very simple diet. Mostly meat, eggs, veggies, fruit, nuts and fat. I had a new baby and honestly not that much desire to cook too much that was elaborate. I have had a bit more of a desire as of late to cook more but not a lot.
Honestly, by Traditional Food standards our diet has much area to improve. The kids have been having oatmeal a few mornings a week, it is not soaked- the horror! Their nuts haven't been soaked either, yep, blasphemy. I decided to just let it be. I am able to get everything done reasonably easy now with minimal amount of time and effort. We eat a fairly wide variety of whole foods. We all generally enjoy our meals, yep, seems to be going pretty good to me.
So, I should say I have a goal to do more soaking or probiotics or this, that, or the other thing for the New Year. But I don't to be honest. Of all my priorities for the New Year that one is pretty low on the totem pole!
I have 2 goals here; to continue to make consistent meal times a priority. Breakfast and lunch are pretty easy, but supper I still haven't figured out exactly what time it should be. We have wavered between 5:30-6:30. Secondly, I want to focus on cutting out so much snacking. Some days this goes well and others not so much. Lily especially constantly wants to snack and it drives me bonkers.
6)Finances
We have been so blessed in this down economy. Brian continues to have more work than time. Unfortunately with this past year and a new baby we didn't save as much as we would have liked. We are hoping in the New Year that we will remedy that. We have set up some things to make that easier.
We have 3 short term goals at present we are saving for on a 3 yr plan- we are entering year 2.
1)Replace our van- hoping to have another 5 yrs or so but we want to be prepared - just in case- my vehicle is 10 yrs old and Brian's 16.
2)Have our entire max out-of-pocket for our Health Insurance- we are on a high deductible plan and having this put back would be a load off of both of our minds- hopefully it will never be needed but considering we had to just last year(my husband is a genetic anomaly!) I think it is prudent.
3)A years worth of basic living expenses-
In 5 yr 11 months the house will be paid off, not that I am counting. Before that time I would like to have our finances in good order. Well, I guess they are in pretty decent order but time is moving on and as past experience has shown you never know what will happen. So, I tend to overanalyze everything. Making list after list of such things I hope to accomplish.
7) Personal Life
Last but not least I need to work on being more virtuous myself. I am a selfish person. I get jealous, vain at times, lazy, arrogant. Yep, all those things. I keep at work going against those things. Continuing to pray and try to be a better person with the grace of God. I know I will never be perfect(I am not that arrogant!) but I also know I must strive to be better. To be a good Christian example for the world and my children, maybe one day I will live up to that goal!
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