Happy New Year!! Can you believe it’s 2015?!!! I really can’t! It seems the older I get the faster time goes by. There are a lot of good and bad things about that and making resolutions is one of those! I have been making them for about the past 3 years, maybe more, and I always find that I am so excited that first month and then I forget about them or I am just “too busy” and I don’t complete them all. This past year I only made 3 resolutions because I didn’t want to fail, but, alas, I did. I did really well in January and even in September, after all of my kids were in school, but then I get distracted and don’t go back.
So, my solution this year is to USE a planner!!! I posted a few weeks ago about 3 different planners that I was looking into and I have been watching TONS and TONS of YouTube videos about different planners and how to organize them and use them. I have a lot of ideas rolling around in my head and I can’t wait to get my planner in a couple days!! I ended up buying the Plum Paper Planner on Etsy and I was able to add a bunch of sections to help me with different things in my life. You can read more about that planner post here.
Let’s recap what my Resolutions were for last year… You can find this post here.
2014 New Year Resolutions:
1. Be more spiritually minded (i.e. attend the temple, pray daily, read scriptures, and serve others) ~ I didn’t do great with this goal. I did okay, but not great. I need to keep working on this. I’m sure it will be a forever goal for me.
2. Finish my work before I play ~ Haha! I don’t think I did this at all. I don’t know, I guess there were some days that I did really well and did all the chores before anything fun, but most often I can’t fight the urge to just play. I often get lost in emails or Facebook.
3. Spend more time with my family ~ Mark and I went on dates a lot throughout the year. We usually did family movie night every Friday and we would all sit down with popcorn or another snack and watch together. We did a few more things as a family like going out to dinner or Kiwi Loco, which is a yogurt shop in town. When I wrote this goal I was thinking more at home time so I did do it, but not the way I initially thought and not as much as I wanted to.
Would you think I’m crazy if I say I am going to keep the same Resolutions for this year?! I kind of think I am, but the more I think about it the more I realize that these 3 goals will always be the main ones I have.
This is what I’m thinking…. I bought this awesome planner for $65, so I am going to use it!! I am going to buy a newer, bigger purse, which will probably drive me crazy at first, but I want to be able to bring my planner with me everywhere I go. I will use it to jot down ideas, write down purchases and appt.’s I make instead of scrawling them down on some scrap of paper that never makes it to the calender and then I find it weeks later and realize we missed it and have to wait another few weeks to make it again. I hate that!
So, really, my MAIN resolution is to GET MY LIFE TOGETHER! I am going to get organized!! Not just my house and the chores, but my WHOLE life!!
2015 New Year Resolutions:
1. Get Organized! ~ USE my planner every day. Figure out what works for me and stick to it. Come up with a daily routine and stick to it. I am going to start doing the Fly Lady Babysteps program on the 5th so you can go on that journey with me. While watching all those planner videos on YouTube a bunch of those ladies have talked about the zones that Flylady does and it has intrigued me. I can’t wait to start that!
That is the main goal I am making for this year and the other 3 are sub-goals. They all involve getting myself organized and getting my life together. Here are the specific things I will be working on with the “sub-goals”.
a.) Be more spiritually minded ~ (i.e. go to church, attend the temple, pray daily, read scriptures, and serve others) I have been really bad about going to church this year. I’m bad, I know, but when you go by yourself with 3 kids, it’s a bit difficult some days and it has become very easy for me to talk myself out of going in the past 4-6 months. It’s even worse when your kids wake up Sunday morning and say, “Are we going to church today?” and when your answer is “No” they ask “why?” and you have no real answer, it’s just that you want to stay home and do nothing.
My 4 year old goes to school from 8-11:30 Monday-Thursday so I am going to dedicate one day a week to going to the temple. I have friends that can help with getting my kids to school so that I can get into the 8am session and that way I can be done in time to maybe run a couple errands and then go pick up my preschooler.
I am going to set my alarm for 6am every morning, wake up, read my scriptures and pray. I always write it down on my current daily to-do list, but I don’t ALWAYS do it. And it bothers me. There’s always that voice in my head saying, “you didn’t read scriptures or pray this morning! Why not?!” and also, the OCD part of me hates that I can’t cross those things off my list! I find a LOT of joy in crossing things off my to-do list. If I do something that wasn’t on my list, I write it down, just so I can cross it off!
I know this sub-goal is going on forever, but I have a lot to say about it, I hope you hang in there with me!! I’m almost done! My 2 oldest boys have a chore list of things to do in the morning and on the list is read scriptures and pray. I have them do it individually, which is good, I know, but I also know that we need to be doing it as a family in the morning as well. So, my goal is to read scriptures and pray with them at 6:30, after they wake up. It usually takes Jonas a few minutes to get out of his sleepy fog so I’ll probably let them get dressed and ready for about 10 minutes and then we’ll sit down and read as a family. I think we’ll start out by reading the kid friendly scriptures. My step sister sent them to me a while ago and I have been wanting to use them with the boys, but I haven’t yet.
I also want to start doing Family Home Evening. I’m not sure if I’m going to do it on Monday nights or a different night. It might depend on the week and it will depend on how much time I have to plan. I think I want to start getting the boys involved in it more, too. I remember when I was probably 8 we started doing lessons and reading scriptures and things. Maybe I was 10, I don’t remember, but I know I was a kid. I want to make a cutesy and crafty chart to keep track of who’s turn it is to do what.
b.) Finish my “work” before I play ~ I am going to make up a new daily routine and stick to it. I recently started a business as a Jamberry nails consultant and it has kinda taken over my life. I don’t like that! I’m always on Facebook doing parties or talking to the ladies I work under, etc. I am going to establish office hours and stick to them. I will have to set a timer on myself and FORCE myself to stop when it goes off.
Sunday night will continue to be my planning night for the week ahead. I will write in birthdays and appts at the beginning of the month and then focus on that every week to let me know what appt.’s I have. I also want to start having family meetings on Sunday nights so that my husband knows what I have going on during the week.
c.) Spend more time with my family ~ Mark and I will still continue to go out on dates a few times a month. I do want to do dates with each of my boys, but I didn’t do that last year. I’m thinking maybe we will do it once every few months. Brynnan is really the only one that always asks about doing it. I’m sure the other two will love it and I think it will help my relationship with Tinian. He and I butt heads A LOT!! You wouldn’t think that of a mom and a 4 year old, but oh yes!! It happens all the time, every day with him and me.
Mainly I want to start doing family game night and spend more random time together as a family. We’re always in front of the TV or playing videos games. I want to just hang out. We did that a few days after Christmas and it was so much fun! We were all laughing and enjoying the time together. It was so nice to have an hour like that instead of the kids fighting over TV and Mark and I on our phones or the computer or whatever. I’m wondering if maybe we should enact a “no phones” rule from 5-8pm. My husband has suggested doing a no phones at the table rule, but we haven’t really done it yet.
Well, those are my goals/resolutions for this year. When I get my planner, hopefully soon!, I am going to write them down all cutesy and put them in it so I will remember them daily.
I also have some goals for my blog and YouTube channel. I think I will come back and talk about those tomorrow though, because this post is already so long. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me! I’ll be back tomorrow! I hope you have a wonderful New Years Day!