I absolutely love a new year. I love the promises that a new year holds. I love the way I feel and the motivation I have ready to make a difference in my year. I stick with some of my goals and abandon some of them. I think the important thing is to vocalize them and try to implement a plan. Last year we changed our diet pretty drastically. We certainly need to improve some after the holidays and I need to get back into the habit of some more time consuming things, but all in all - I am happy with the dietary changes we made in 2013. We also made some large life changes - mainly in that we moved in with my mom temporarily while we try to sell our home, which should happen this year.
Here are my/our January goals.
1. Grow spiritually in our marriage.
2. Grow spiritually as a family.
3. Re-establish some of our healthy eating habits and develop new ones.
4. Drink more water.
5. Evaluate budget and make necessary changes.
6. Learn to knit. (specifically casting on)
7. Make and sell crocheted items.
8. Blog at least once a week.
9. Organize a different room once a week.
10. Read one book a month.
11. Minimize ipad/electronics/computer time.
12. Lesson plan for the month of January for homeschool.
13. Develop new chore charts for the children.
14. Work on and implement structured weekly plan.
15. Exercise and rehab my knee.
Here is how I/we plan on making our goals happen.
1. Grow spiritually in our marriage. I've created a document for devotion and discussion questions. I will share it in a week if we like it and it is working for us. We are going to journal our thoughts daily and work through these together in the evening. This will keep us in close connection and help us be more intentional about our time together. Unfortunately, we've gotten into the rut of putting the kids to bed and playing on our electronics or doing our own thing. That isn't always a bad thing, but it is really easy to make it a daily habit and not spend enough quality time together. We really want to change that and we are both so excited to make this change.
2. Grow spiritually as a family. We definitely spend time reading the Bible and praying with our kids, but we want to be more consistent. We purchased a new devotional to go through with them every night. This will be in addition to what I do with them in school. This will likely become our bedtime ritual as a family.
3. Re-establish some of our healthy eating habits and develop new ones. I am going to start making kombucha again as well as having my cooking day. On my cooking days, I would make lara bars, muffins, pancakes, bone broth, and prep and foods we would need for the week. I want to start making water and milk kefir. I also need to get back into the habit of making weekly meal plans for every meal. It keeps us from dining out and helps us stay on track with our food budget.
4. Drink more water. I am going to keep my water bottle full and make myself drink it. I just get out of the habit and the best way for me to get back into the habit is by keep a full water bottle with me at all times. This is something I will do for the kids as well.
5. Evaluate budget and make necessary changes. This is where we look at our spending and see what can change. Cut out unnecessary things. We will evaluate interest rates, insurance rates, cell phone rates, etc. I also want to develop a debt reduction plan so we can eliminate what debt we do have this year. We need to figure out how to pay for some medical expenses for Harrison and work on a good savings plan. We tend to do better on a cash envelope system. Thankfully our debt isn't overwhelming and I feel like we can knock it out this year if we stay focused.
6. Learn to knit. (specifically casting on). Chris got me a knitting book with DVD for Christmas and I just need to slot myself time each week to work on it. I believe I'm going to slot out time from several evenings each week.
7. Make and sell crocheted items. I am basically going to start posting some of the things I make for sell. I'm considering taking orders on custom items, but I need to figure out time frames and prices.
8. Blog at least once a week. I am going to schedule time to blog. I've never scheduled time before. I just do it when I feel like it. I would really like to be more consistent.
9. Organize a different room once a week. I'm going to look through some of these plans that other people have already developed and find one that works for me. I think I can manage 15-30 minutes a day of organizing in one room. I actually enjoy it. Something is better than nothing in this area.
10. Read one book a month. Rather than scrolling through facebook or playing on my ipad or watching TV when I lay in bed to go to sleep, I am going to read at least one chapter a night. I love reading, but I get out of the habit. I have tons of books to catch up on, so this is how I'm going to do it.
11. Minimize ipad/electronics/computer time. I am going to start by putting my phone on do not disturb for a big portion of the day. I am also going to start setting a timer on my electronics time. It adds up fast.
12. Lesson plan for the month of January for homeschool. I am going to do it this week and have it ready to do when we start school, next week. It will probably take me half a day.
13. Develop new chore charts for the children. Our kids have gotten lazy. They also want to earn money. I'm going to start figuring out a new chore chart for each child. I will share when I'm done.
14. Work on and implement structured weekly plan. Time management is not my strong suit. It never has been. I need to have a flexible routine of things I want to accomplish each day, so that I can consistently accomplish goals. I'm going to develop a new weekly cleaning schedule. The kids chore charts will help with this. I will incorporate my weekly organizing into this plan. I think this will really help me from feeling so overwhelmed all of the time.
15. Exercise and rehab my knee. I just need to schedule my PT for my knee. I also want to walk and/or do The Shred a few times a week. Nothing crazy. I just need to start moving regularly again.
And there you have it. My monthly goals for January. I will update at the end of the month on how well we did. I'd love to hear your goals too!
