Being Gleeful - the first real week

It's been 9 days since I wrote my first post in the #BeGleeful series. Let just tell you. It has been harder than I thought it would be. I published my post on Saturday January 3rd. That evening my daughter got sick. She started throwing up late that night. She seemed mostly fine on Sunday, but we had to miss church and that always makes me sad. Then Monday, she puked multiple times an hour all day long. We had to get her meds so that she could stop puking and get rest. Poor thing had bloodshot eyes from barfing so much. That lasted through Wednesday. We had planned on starting our homeschool week back on Wednesday, so needless to say that didn't happen. 

So Thursday we are in the clear, right? Nope. Not at all. My mom fell down the stairs and it was super scary. Thankfully, she is okay. Just some bruises. It could have been really bad.

Friday I overslept and didn't take Sam to preschool. For those of you who don't know, Sam is a little cling-on with me. He pretty much has to be touching me in some way. It is really hard to school the big ones with him being like that, so we send him to preschool 3 days a week. It really helps. 

I work part-time 3 days a week. Work was insane. 

I suffered from my night time anxiety issues which kept me up all night almost every night  this past week and therefore felt like a zombie. 

But guess what? I'm going to #BeGleeful that my daughter is back to her normal self and feeling healthy again. I'm super thankful that she never got dehydrated.  My mom could have been badly injured, but she wasn't. God was there. No doubt about it. Oversleeping helped me catch up on rest Friday morning. Work won't be nearly as insane this week. I'm praying the anxiety won't be an issue this week 

Here's what I'm clinging to this week. 

1 Thessalonians 5: 16 

Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 

Romans 12: 12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. 

Psalms 46: 1 God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. 

Romans 8: 31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 

Zephaniah 3:17 (one of my favorites)

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in your with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. 

Psalms 29: 11 The Lord gives his people strength. The Lord blesses them with peace. 

Psalms: 13: 5 But I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. 

I'm pretty sure God is telling me to be in constant communion with Him. It will keep me joyful and help me be thankful for all things. If I'm having a hard time, I should be patient and keep on praying. No matter how tough things are, He's going to be right there with me. He is always for there for me. He calms me and loves to see me when I'm happy. He give me strength and peace. He has rescued me. I'm pretty sure I have many things to be gleeful about.

I've been trying to capture some of the gleeful moments of my week. Here ya go! 

 

My first ever granny square. I'm making an afghan this year. It's a little wonky looking, but I still need to block it.

A stashbuster/scrappy afghan I'm also making.

My sweet little girl with her new glasses.

2014 Goals and Changes

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!