Ok, I've always thought that New Years Resolutions were a little silly. I mean who needs to wait until the begining of the year to change or make a goal? Well I'm also a lover of new beginings and so being... I am one of those people who prefers to wait for a new day, a new week, a new month, etc. to start something new. So of course I will take advantage of the New Year to make some serious goals for myself.
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Growing up I had this vision of myself. I will be awesome and well rounded someday. Unfortunately I have no work ethic, no self discipline, no self esteem, no decision making skills and no strong personal convictions. (When I say 'no' that means not very much, but I'm sure I have some) So as the years have gone on I have gotten older, expereinced more, learned more, matured some and I have a bunch of kids. But there are rarely times when I feel like I am closer to the vision of the woman I want to be. There are those moments when I accomplish something I didn't think I could do and I look around me and say "I did a good job and I like where I am." But then the next day or week ends up to be a horrible step backwards and I can blame no one but myself. It's like I'm afraid of moving forward but I'm in love with moving forward at the same time. So confusing.
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Back to what this post is supposed to be about... my goals for this year.
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Scriptures - This has been a huge hurdle for me my whole life, I have never been able to stick with reading every day or get in a state of really studying the scriptures. But so far we have been reading scriptures with the kids every night (except 1 because John wasn't here and it totally slipped my mind) we finally made it through chapter 1 of Nephi last night. We have also read scriptures as a couple every night after the kids are in bed but before we turn on the TV. We have read the first 9 chapters of Matthew and we usually talk about a couple different points and try not to hurry through it. I know it's only been 4 nights of the new year but we are both pretty determined to keep this one up.
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Personal Prayer - This is another one that usually escapes my mind. We are really good at meal prayers and family prayer, but I hardly ever remember to have a personal conversation with my Heavenly Father and I don't like myself for it. He has given me so much and I need to put him as a priority in my life too.
Exercising/eating better - This is one that is pretty mandatory for me. I feel horribly unhealthy. I have only exercised 1 out of the 4 days but 3 out of the 4 days I have not eaten past 8:00 pm. John says he will join me after he's devoured all the junk food in the house. I do want to loose weight and look good but more importantly I want to feel good.
School - I want to have a more formal preschool with Vivian and be better with helping Michael with his homework. I have a hard time giving up 'me' time for this but it is waaaay important and if I put this as a priority, John will be happy too. This will probably require a schedule and that is something I am not good at keeping. So far this year... I have failed with this goal but today is a new day and as soon as I get my butt off the computer I will clean up the school room and make it happen.
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Teaching my kids - I would also like to do more hands on activities with them. I am a total perfectionist and control freak. I hate cleaning up messes so it's really hard for me to allow them to cook or craft but I know how important those things are for their development and I really want to get over myself and provide them with more opportunities to perform. I've already told them that we will do cooking lessons over the summer. Vivian got a Hello Kitty sewing machine for Christmas (it's a piece of crap) but I have promised her sewing lessons regardless. I have found so many ideas online for science experiments and activities to keep them busy so that is another goal of mine.
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Family Home Evening/ Temple - So just like my non existent prayer and scripture reading habits we are also very patchy with FHE and going to the Temple. Our goal is to attend the temple once a month and of course to have FHE every Monday night.
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OK, so those are all the really important goals I have for myself but I also have some other ones. These are the ones that I'm slightly more excited about but need to keep my priorities in check.
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Crafting - So around Thanksgiving I figured out what I want to be when I grow up, and since I'm already an adult, I can pretty much do it now. I want to be a craft blogger and own an Etsy shop.
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At various points over the last 8 years (since I was 18) I have inherited, been given or been placed in charge of storing different craft materials from my mom, my MIL and other various sources. Then last year I went a little crazy with going to the dollar store, JoAnns or Michaels and spent WAAAAAY too much money on intended future projects. I am also fairly green and I don't like to throw things away or recycle them if I can reuse or re-purpose them myself. All this has resulted in a huge mess of craft stuff. John was getting pretty frustrated with all of it and does not want me to turn into my mother. (Not that my mother is a bad person but she has craft stuff all over her house and usually takes on too many projects at once resulting in stress and chaos.)
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When we moved into this house, he insisted that the den was an office and I insisted it was a craft room. For a long time it was both, he did not think I needed a whole room for my crafts and he's probably right. But I was the youngest kid in my family and am therefore labeled as "a spoiled brat" and that is because I can usually talk and whine and complain enough until I get what I want. So we were finally able to compromise and come up with a better arrangement of furniture and I think it was late October when we moved the computer out of the craft room. I did a bunch of organizing but it wasn't complete until right before Christmas. My FIL had just given us a huge desk, it took us a good week to figure out how to arrange the room so that it would fit but we finally managed. Then of course I used it to get a few last minute Christmas projects finished. But after Christmas was over I cleaned everything up (not just by moving it over but by finding or making a home fore everything withing the room.) So I am starting out this year with an organized craft room and a huge working area to use.
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Since my goal is to own an Etsy shop I need to make things in bulk (which I'm great at, the first one is the hard part). I want to start out by finishing projects that are already in the works. I have over 20 of them (probably over 30). Then I have a list of projects that I already have the materials for. Then I have 18 boards on Pinterest with (so far) 548 pins in them of things I would like to make in the future. I would also like to have Christmas in July and really make all the stuff that I wanted to this last year but didn't have time for. One of which is a compilation of several different advent ideas.
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Cooking - I'm not very adventurous when it comes to food. I have a few recipies I use again and again but mostly it's Rice a Roni or something of the sort that is the base of my dinners. I would like to branch out and try new recipies to add to our regular menu.
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Food Storage - This was a huge focus for us a couple years ago and fortunately we had people living with us that helped out with food purchases and I was able to fill my cupboards quite nicely and keep them that way. However they have been gone for over a year and my cupboards are starting to look quite sad. Obviously I have not put a priority on this in my budget but I need to. Also I have a huge back yard and even though I am not a fan of gardening... I love canning and preserving food so I should probably gear myself up for the work this summer and fill the multitude of mason jars that I possess.
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So lots of good worthy goals just like every year where I get so overwhelmed and end up doing nothing. However I'm trying not to get overwhelmed by taking things slow. Obviously the top section takes priority over the bottom section but even that feels like a lot. I think the important thing is to hold myself accountable but not beat myself up when I miss something. I heard about a good self esteem habit is to write down everything that you have done that day... instead of making lists of all the things that need done tomorrow. I've tried it a couple times and it did make me feel good.
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What are some of your new goals? What are some of your methods for doing the things I'm working on?
