A New Year, a New Set of Goals

A brand new year, a new chapter, a new way to look at what is coming, a new attitude and trusting only in God to help guide my family and myself is how I'm going to approach each day. I'm looking at this year a day a time...at least that's one of my goals.

This year, I've set some goals for myself that I'm hoping I can keep and accomplish. I know each new year people make goals that they end up not keeping, but I'm hoping that by making a list, I can keep them and hopefully people will keep me accountable.

My life long goal while I live on earth is to always try my best to grow closer to God. He fills our daily lives with many blessings and yet we are still not pleased. Without God we are nothing and I am nothing. Without God, life is not worth living. I'm sad to say this, but I've never read the entire bible. I've read every book, but not every chapter. So with this in mind. I've made a point to pick up my bible every night before I go to bed and read one chapter. So far, I'm doing good. I've had to go from the old testiment to the new at times because I'll place my bible elsewhere but I always keep a new testiment by my bed.

Goal 1-Grow closer to God by reading the bible daily

Goal 2-Try and be a better wife

Sometimes I'm not the wife I should be either. I need to be more of an encourager and not a nagger. These days Robert works a lot! Meaning he's either out of town on business or gets home really late! He needs enouragment and needs love. Rather than be like, 'oh good, you are home, please help me do this and that because I'm the one who does it all the time', I need to let him know that I appreciate him working and let him know that I know he's had a long day. His love language is also touch. And no peoples, that doesn't mean just sex. I need to make sure I'm continually letting him know that I love him by hugging him, holding his hands, cuddling with him, etc...

Goal 3-To be a better parent

I think I'm a good mom, but I can always be better. Robert and I both work a lot!!! We don't see the girls until after 5:30pm to then put them down by 8pm. So we only see them 2 1/2 hours a day. They spend more times with their teachers then they do us. We have to work at the moment, until things get better and hopefully soon I can be at home. Any whoodles, I need to make sure that those 2 1/2 hours are better spent. Normally I come home to cook. While I'm cooking, I can be better about having Arianna help me in the kitchen. While cooking we like to dance and sing. Really! However, I could have Arianna learn during this process by having her help me in the kitchen maybe. She can pull up a chair and help me cook. Avonlea, is a bit harder. I always put our gates up so she is not able to escape from the kitchen. So she just runs around. I could place her in her high chair so she could watch us as we talk through the cooking. After cooking and eating, we take baths. During this time, rather than trying to be so quick about it, I can teach them about animals or each letter in the alphabet. Now we just talk a lot! After baths, we normally will play in their toy room. I'll let them play with whatever toy. I know I could take a little more time here and actually pull out 'educational toys'. Instead of barbies or whack a mole, lets actually build a puzzel together...Any ways, I want to be a better educator and mother. Any suggestions?

Those are my 3 main goals ALWAYS.

Now for my everyday goals that I want to just do and accomplish before the year is over.

*Be a better blogger. Right now, once a month is good for me. I need to get better. So rather than once a month, I'd like to be better by writing at least once every two weeks or once a week. I have friends who fantabulous at this. I don't know how they do it. I have so many things to write about that I know I can do it. I also just want to improve in blogging overall. I don't know how to do anything...change pictures, backgrounds, etc....I need help in this area.

*Run at least 5 5ks. I've decided not to run the 1/2 marathon due to the commitment I'd have to put into it. It was hard last year, and I just know this year would be harder with Robert's work schedule. I don't want to drop running all together. I need to keep the working out and the motivation for me last year was doing the 1/2 and two other 5ks. So my motivation this year is to spread these out and keep the workout. My first 5k for the year will be the Tom King 5k in Nashville during the month of March. I'm excited and looking forward to it. For sure of others I'll be doing will be Mercy Ministries and Susan Komen again.

*ORGANIZE. My bonus room needs H.E.L.P! As soon as after christmas sales came around, I bought 5 large storage bins. Why you ask? The amount of toys we have is ridiculous. I feel as though my girls have way too much they don't even know where to start. I feel they don't appreciate them as much. I want to start some kind of cycle with them. I want to take out, store, let them forget about them, and then take them out again for them to play with them. Actually I'm going to hopefully here soon, start looking through them and donate a lot.

*Pictures. I have a bazillion pictures. I load them, put them in a folder, but don't sort them. Yep, bad I know! I want to start going through them and hopefully get somewhere by the end of the year.

*Water. Yes, water. I'm a horrible 'drinker' all together. I normally don't take a sip of drink until I finish my meal. People always ask me how I don't drink during my meals, but it's just habit. I don't know why, but thats just how I am. That's with any drink. So I don't really drink at all. I drink more coffee I guess, but I do like water. However, I need to focus on drinking more water. A lot of water! I'm horrible!

*Socialize. I love making dinner (I'm really not so bad) for people and just having people over. I really do enjoy this, however I don't do it enough. I want to make a meal at least once a month and invite friends or family over.

*Spend my time better during down times-enough said! I could do better and do more of the above.

*Cook more! I need to actually cook more. I cook probably about 3 times a week and the rest we're kind of on our own. And by this i don't mean we eat out, I mean we'll pull out a can of soup, eat a sandwich or something frozen. I need to cook like 5 times a week!

*Coupon! Robert was AMAZING at this while he was home last summer. We literally saved hundreds. When he got his job we kind of fell off the wagon. I'm into it now and am organzing my coupons weekly. Today is publix penny item! And key is the bogo at publix weekly. We need to restock! This also helps us put more money into our banking account..so why not!

*Quit my job! I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to hand my boss that 2 weeks notice. I'm getting bored and bitter at my job, but I can't just quit due to insurance and not finding anything. It's not that easy. And when I say quit my job, I don't mean working all together. That means get a job closer to home (way closer to home), be a stay at home mom full time or get a part time job. We'll know soon. Yay!

So there you have it. My three main goals for life will always remain God and being a better person all around (wife and mother, that also includes friendships). If you have any suggestions to help in any of the areas I listed, I'd love to read them.