1. Plant a garden this year and hopefully end up with edible produce. We've had strawberries and loose leaf lettuce and spinach out of the garden. A crazy squirrel has made off with most of the tomatoes (Brian compares my relationship with this squirrel as "caddyshack-ian") but I'm still hopeful we'll have a few! We had the first of the peppers last week. Mmmm. :)
2. Eat at-home prepared meals only for a week. We've been so close to this almost every week this summer, but either Brian or I end up having a mid-week "let's order pizza or chinese" thing, and that ruins the streak. The big deal though is that I've been spending a lot of time in my kitchen and we're mostly eating homemade- definitely a big step in the right direction.
3. Read 20 fiction books this year. I've finished 7 books and I'm in the middle of book 9- Kushiel's Scion. I've decided that the answer to my obsession with books the thickness of bricks is to read 2 at the same time, or one big book along with a few middle readers or YA books, so I just started Farmer Boy as well.
4. Start Bible memory with Ender and build it into a habit. I need to be more consistent with this. It's really all on me- he has an amazing memory and I'm the one that forgets to pull out the box each morning. The box now has a home on the kitchen counter. I'm the queen of Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
5. Keep my nightstand area completely clear for 30 days except for vitamins, Bible and 1 current book. This hasn’t happened yet, but it has definitely been closer! The night stand currently has 5 books (all that I'm reading- 2 fiction, one non-fic, my prayer journal and Bible), the baby monitor, kleenex, the camera and water . . . and about 80 pens and pencils. Weird how stuff like that migrates to my side of the bed.
6. Keep/Toss/Donate 15 items each day for 30 days. Finished in January/February!
7. Move systematically through the house to declutter and re-organize. I've been doing pretty good at maintaining lately, and I finished with the kitchen earlier in the month. I'm trying to get things done in the laundry room now- the room that hold our washer and dryer, 2 laundry baskets, the vacuum, the pantry and all the assorted stuff that doesn't really have a home. It looks terrible.
8. Drink water. Make juice an occasional thing and soda a rare thing. After 3 weeks without any soda at all in June I had my first yummy taste of Dr. Pepper one day at lunch and then couldn't get to sleep that night until 1:30 A.M. I didn' t think too much of it until I had soda again a few days later and had the same problem. Without soda? I'm in bed between 10-10:30 and asleep without a problem. Since Ezra has been getting up at 5:30 for the last month or so the extra sleep has proved useful! So no soda for me. I've been drinking cranberry or grapefruit juice in the mornings and water the rest of the time.
9. Move to using as many fresh ingredients as possible in our cooking. Whenever Brian and I have decided to make diet changes the answer for our family has always been to make sure we don't purchase the things that we're cutting from our diets and to make very available the things that we want to have more of. We've been eating almost obscene amounts of fresh fruit and veggies this summer and I have purposely not bought anything pre-packaged. I have had to stay well organized with my meal planning for this to work, but it has been so worth the extra effort and extra time in the kitchen. Ender really likes to cook with me and I will never tire of the boys asking for more grapes or apples or broccoli.
10. Re-evaluate my goals every 3 months. I haven't checked in on this since late March, but I think we're keeping up okay. There is still work to be done here!
3. Read 20 fiction books this year. I've finished 7 books and I'm in the middle of book 9- Kushiel's Scion. I've decided that the answer to my obsession with books the thickness of bricks is to read 2 at the same time, or one big book along with a few middle readers or YA books, so I just started Farmer Boy as well.
4. Start Bible memory with Ender and build it into a habit. I need to be more consistent with this. It's really all on me- he has an amazing memory and I'm the one that forgets to pull out the box each morning. The box now has a home on the kitchen counter. I'm the queen of Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
5. Keep my nightstand area completely clear for 30 days except for vitamins, Bible and 1 current book. This hasn’t happened yet, but it has definitely been closer! The night stand currently has 5 books (all that I'm reading- 2 fiction, one non-fic, my prayer journal and Bible), the baby monitor, kleenex, the camera and water . . . and about 80 pens and pencils. Weird how stuff like that migrates to my side of the bed.
6. Keep/Toss/Donate 15 items each day for 30 days. Finished in January/February!
7. Move systematically through the house to declutter and re-organize. I've been doing pretty good at maintaining lately, and I finished with the kitchen earlier in the month. I'm trying to get things done in the laundry room now- the room that hold our washer and dryer, 2 laundry baskets, the vacuum, the pantry and all the assorted stuff that doesn't really have a home. It looks terrible.
8. Drink water. Make juice an occasional thing and soda a rare thing. After 3 weeks without any soda at all in June I had my first yummy taste of Dr. Pepper one day at lunch and then couldn't get to sleep that night until 1:30 A.M. I didn' t think too much of it until I had soda again a few days later and had the same problem. Without soda? I'm in bed between 10-10:30 and asleep without a problem. Since Ezra has been getting up at 5:30 for the last month or so the extra sleep has proved useful! So no soda for me. I've been drinking cranberry or grapefruit juice in the mornings and water the rest of the time.
9. Move to using as many fresh ingredients as possible in our cooking. Whenever Brian and I have decided to make diet changes the answer for our family has always been to make sure we don't purchase the things that we're cutting from our diets and to make very available the things that we want to have more of. We've been eating almost obscene amounts of fresh fruit and veggies this summer and I have purposely not bought anything pre-packaged. I have had to stay well organized with my meal planning for this to work, but it has been so worth the extra effort and extra time in the kitchen. Ender really likes to cook with me and I will never tire of the boys asking for more grapes or apples or broccoli.
10. Re-evaluate my goals every 3 months. I haven't checked in on this since late March, but I think we're keeping up okay. There is still work to be done here!
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