When Red was sick, she wasn't well enough to go to school, but wasn't sick enough to stay in bed. I had been to Joann on one of her sick days and I found these heart cards in the $1 bin. You got eight cards for $1. There were some Valentine's Day rubber stamps in the dollar bin too. I ended up buying her three packs of cards, 4 rubber stamps, 3 stamp pads, and a couple packages of glitter glue to help her entertain herself. They did the job! The photos above were taken by Red herself of her finished Valentines that she made for her classmates.
Here's the results of a another Joann purchase. I made this winter/Valentine's Day wreath from stuff I found in their 90% off Christmas area. Believe it or not, it cost me less than $2 to make. It was Red's idea to make the berries into a heart that would float in the middle.
We are on vacation for a week beginning tomorrow so I'll be back with some fun in the sun (I hope it's sunny) photos next week!
All photos in this post were taken professionally by Red or Tom Thumb. Can you tell what they are?
These gems were found among the 150 other photos that were blurry beyond recognition or unrecognizable except to the photographer. My favorite was when we were looking at a shot that appeared to be just darkness Red said, "Oh yeah, that's a picture I took of the inside of my mouth."
A couple of years ago one of my dear friends was very pregnant with twins. I decided I'd go clean her house for her to help out one day. Upon arrival, I asked to be shown to her cleaning supplies and she directed me to the hall closet. I found the cleaners no problem, but there was absolutely no sign of paper towels. After tearing apart the closet for a few minutes, I finally asked, "Where are your paper towels?" She pointed to a laundry basket full of rags on the floor of that very same closet.
I thought she was nuts at the time. Why, why, WHY would you use rags when you could just grab a roll of paper towels? My parents made me use rags to clean the bathroom when I was a kid and hated how cleaning with a rag and a bucket of water with cleaner in it always seemed to just push the dirt around and never get anything clean---at least not easily.
Fast forward to today. I spent a couple hours today cutting up old bath towels (what was I thinking buying white towels in the first place???) and zigzagging around the raw edges with the sewing machine to make smaller, paper towel size towels. My plan is to try to use them just as I would a paper towel, but throw them in a fabric bag to go in the washing machine instead of in the trash. I'm not going to do the rag/bucket deal of my childhood. I'm going to spray the cleaner, wipe with the towel, and when it's dirty it's getting tossed in the bag. None of this rinsing out and using again.. Hopefully, since I have around 60 I'll have enough to give me the convenience of paper towels, but the benefit of less money spent and less paper in the landfill.
The Cobbler and I have been trying for a while to reduce our expenses and also be more environmentally friendly. I'm currently making an effort to switch from Windex to vinegar and water as well. Oh how I love my bright blue cleaner in the bottle! It's been hard. I still have one bottle with a bit of Windex left in it so I haven't had to go cold turkey. We still have about 6 rolls of paper towels left. It's time to hide them and see what happens next!
On a separate note of thriftiness, I found out that you can easily make foaming hand soap for pennies if you already have a dispenser. Check out this blog post about making your own foaming hand soap. We use bar soap in the upstairs bathrooms, but need to use foaming soap in the downstairs bath (otherwise the black floor gets instantly gross looking from drips off the bar) and the kitchen (kids drop slippery bars into the garbage disposal). Yesterday I finished off a bottle of foaming hand soap. I squeezed about a quarter inch of a shower gel I don't use into the empty container, slowly filled the rest of the container with warm water, gently shook it up, and voila foaming hand soap!
I'm a book gobbler. Once I start a book I eat it. If it's easy to get into and it's good, I'll plow through it in a day. I don't tend to savor it. I just get the essence and move on. If I really like it, I'll come back and read it again in a few months so I can remember why I enjoyed it in the first place.
Books are like meals to me. You've got your meat (or your tofu or beans for my veg friends), your sides, and your dessert. You've got to throw a snack in here and there for some variety. And then there are the guilty pleasures. You feel bad reading them and you don't want anyone to know you read them, but you still like them...secretly. Think The Twilight Saga. Yeah, I got hell for that from my book club people. I guess it should have stayed a secret.
The School of Essential Ingredients falls into the dessert category. It's not a guilty pleasure because there's no level of embarrassment that you read it, but it's not at all meaty. The book follows Lillian, a restaurant owner and chef, and her cooking class students as they cook their way through their meals and their lives. Each chapter is dedicated to a member of the class and their back story interspersed with Lillian teaching them how to cook a meal that the author obviously thought would complement the character's story. For example, the stay-at-home mother who is struggling with her identity and is described as "that cracked-apart person that had been Claire" is paired with cracked crab. Tom, who is grieving from the death of his chef wife, is required to cook pasta and sauce---his wife's signature dish. This drill gets a bit tiresome as the book goes on, but....
Yes, there's a big but. The book really is delicious. Despite the author's formulaic path to the end, it truly is a treat for someone who likes reading about food (me!). The author's descriptions of food and locations are exquisite. I could taste the creamy white cake! I could feel the sun coming through the trellis on the patio! I really wanted a bite of that tiramisu! If the author had done as much with the character development as she did with the food description (perhaps this could have been achieved by reducing the number of characters), this book could have been so much more. That being said, everyone can use a little dessert now and then. I ate this one and it was tasty.
After Christmas is over, there always seems to be this decorating gap. Valentine's Day is in February, but I like to have a little something between the tree and the hearts. Here's the beginning of the deliciousness that fills that post-Christmas void---
...and a peek into our sleepy backyard.
I'll be breaking out the icicles in the next few days.
And now---the kid quotes of the day:
"What is a love shack? Is there one close by?" --- Red, after hearing the classic B52s song.
"It's too punchy!"---Tom Thumb commenting on anything he doesn't want to eat, touch or clean up.
When I was a freshman in college, my psychology major roommate approached me one day. "We need to talk," she said. "I seriously think you need to see someone. You either are clinically depressed or have seasonal affective disorder." Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me. For as long as I could remember, I would feel this way every winter. I wouldn't want to get out of bed in the morning. I wouldn't want to do anything for that matter. I felt gloomy. If I had my choice, I would just stay in bed until the trees started budding again in the spring. This apparently is what my roommate found so disturbing. I would stay in bed unless I was going to class, eating, or studying (which was also done in bed). I figured this is how I am so I didn't do anything about it.
When I started working after college, I obviously had to get out of bed, but I felt miserable for the entire winter season. During the course of our marriage, the Cobbler has dealt with my winter blues every single year. One Christmas he even bought me a Happy Light in the hopes that it would bring me back from the dead. Sitting in front of it for 15 minutes every morning helped some, but the effect was negligible. I still really wanted to be in bed hibernating.
Finally, a couple of months ago I read a thread on the Well Trained Mind forum about seasonal affective disorder and some of the posters mentioned taking a Vitamin D supplement. I wondered if it could work for me. I did a lot of web research and discovered that your body produces 10,000 IUs of Vitamin D for every 20 minutes of full body sun exposure. Exposure to the sun is the only way you get Vitamin D unless you take a supplement or eat a lot of dairy which is fortified with it. My daily multivitamin contains a modest 400 IUs, I tend to stay out of the sun, and I eat very little dairy these days.
In November, I made a pilgrimage to the Vitamin Shoppe and purchased their brand of Vitamin D3 in the 5000 IU dosage. This is the exact bottle I bought. That little bottle purchased for $5.99 has changed my entire life! I know that seems a bit dramatic, but I feel like a different person. I don't want to stay in bed all day! I'm not tired anymore! I feel like the woman I am in the summer time. I have since finished off my $5.99 bottle and went back and ponied up for the 120 day supply $9.99 bottle. Best money I've spent in a long time!
Do you have SAD too? Here's a YouTube video about it:
Finally, Red's fever is gone this morning --- yay! She acting more like herself and I am so relieved.
And with that---here's the rather disturbing link of the day WHY?!?!? WHY do people insist on texting while walking or texting while doing anything else for that matter. I think the art of doing one thing at a time is gradually being lost in our society, but that is an entirely different blog post altogether.
My perpetually healthy daughter is in bed with a fever. This is day #6 of the illness. I should have known something was wrong last Thursday afternoon when she had a friend over to play. She came to me on the family room sofa and said, "I just want to snuggle with you Mom" and proceeded to cuddle up with me. She's been getting up in the night since then and taking naps everyday (she hasn't napped in YEARS!). The doctor yesterday deemed it a virus that we'll just have to wait out. Today he advised us to make sure she's drinking enough because she's dehydrated according to her urine sample results. Caring for her and entertaining Tom Thumb while keeping him away from her (next to impossible!) has taken up most of my days since last week. Her fever was lower today so I'm hoping this may be the end of it.
On a separate note, the site of my wisdom tooth extraction is infected. The oral surgeon who saw me today---keep in mind, he is NOT the one who took out my tooth---said, "I know you! I know that X-ray! If I were you, I'd be taking those other wisdom teeth to the grave! If I were you, they would have to drag me kicking and screaming if someone wanted to take those out!" I didn't really know how to respond so I said, "That's good to know." Who knew I was fodder for oral surgeon gossip? I can just imagine them hanging out after work saying, "Get a load of this X-Ray!" Anyway, a prescription for antibiotics was written and I was sent on my way.
Hopefully, I'll have better news to report in the next few days. Healthy news...please be healthy news.
...exercised again this morning. It took about a 10 minute pep talk to convince myself that I would survive exiting the warm bed. The workout was a little easier this morning in the beginning (I did the Level 1 from The 30 Day Shred like yesterday). I was able to get through the push ups, but still struggled with the strength training part of the 3rd circuit. Swaying back and forth from leg to leg while lifting weights up to my eyeballs is just not happening...yet.
I then dug into "the pile". Everyone has one. I realized our pile needed help last night when I called our new HMO to figure out what I needed to do paperwork/referral wise so I could go to my follow up appointment with the gastroenterologist next week worry free. During the phone call I asked the woman I was speaking with if we had to do a health assessment this year. She said, "Yes, you do. You should have received the paperwork in the mail. Do you have it?" I didn't. I said, "Do you know the kind of people who have the huge pile of stuff on their kitchen counter and they have no idea what's in it? We're those people." I waded through the pile for about an hour this morning and still haven't found the paperwork she was talking about. Luckily, we can download it from their website. All I know is that the pile needs to go!
I threw out, recycled, and shredded a lot of it this morning, but there's a lot more to sort out. I'm creating a family of pack rats! Red was carefully watching everything I threw into the recycling bin so she could decide if she wanted to garbage pick it. Her new favorite TV show is Artzooka (it's Canadian---we happen to get it since we're so close to the border), which is a thorn in my side in terms of being able to throw anything away without it being scrutinized for any possibility of becoming part of one of her art works in progress. Her last project she made included a Krispy Kreme coffee cup filled with navy beans with the top closed off with plastic wrap. The cup was then glued to a piece of construction paper. That paper was then connected to a rainbow made of alternating blue and yellow strips of paper. Finally, the rainbow was connected to another sheet of construction paper on which was taped an empty Scotch tape roll topped with a pencil. It got ruined when she and Tom Thumb decided to pour water on it to see if the paper would change color. I wish I had taken a photo of it before it became a crazy mess.
We went skating this morning with some friends. Red isn't taking skating lessons this year, but I think she may want to again next year. She seems to really enjoy it. Tom Thumb always says he wants to skate, but then cries when I take him on the ice. He seems much more content to just open and close the doors into the rink, run up and down the bleachers, and push the buttons for the elevator and vending machines over and over.
The Cobbler is working late tonight so the kids and I will be feasting on some leftover Middle Eastern take out from last night. Yum! We always get the platter which is two grape leaves, two fried kebbie, chicken shawarma, tawook, kabob, kafta, shawarma , falafel, hommous, pita and Lebanese salad. It costs about $25 and we can get at least two meals out of it.
I'm off to grab a rest before Red gets home from school!
After two years of fighting with it, the quilt for my nephew Finn is done! It may not look like much, but I feel pretty triumphant. I screwed up when initially piecing it so that the seam allowances were too big on some of the blocks, which pretty much made it impossible for them to fit together with the other blocks. I would work on it for a while, get frustrated, and give up over and over and over. I thought that thing was going to rot in my craft closet forever. I wish I would have known 2 years ago that all it would take is me just deciding to finish it. Here are some photos of the final product:
Me holding it up in the office---victory is mine!!!
Pumpkin can't resist sitting on it.
Alone in its glory :-)
One unfinished project done---a million to go! Okay, not a million, but it feels like a million. What should I work on next? Scrapbooking or more sewing?
In health news, I bought Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred based on the recommendation a couple of ladies over at the Well Trained Mind forums. The result ---> this morning I had my ass handed to me. I couldn't even make it through the whole thing. I mean I made it through the whole thing, but I didn't do every single rep because I couldn't keep up. And Jillian's damn back up aerobicizers Anita and Natalie were smiling (yes, SMILING) throughout the entire thing. I'm going to try to get up and do it again tomorrow. The second day is always the hardest. You're probably wondering why I didn't go to the gym. I want to wait to do any major working out over there until I get my training on the equipment on the 20th. In the meantime, I have Jillian to give me the beat down right in my own home.
Let's start off by saying that I'm 5 feet 11 inches tall and weigh around 130 pounds. I joined our city's rec center/gym and went in for my fitness assessment today. The extent of my recent exercise routine (i.e. the last five years) has been chasing around the kids and taking them to the pool twice a week. I get in the pool with them, but don't swim laps or anything. So here's what happened: My heart rate was 152 after doing the 3 minute step test. (Verdict: very poor) I could do 12 modified push ups. (very poor) I did 32 sit ups in a minute. (above average) My body fat (they measured my tricep, waist and thigh with the calipers twice) is 31%, which is one category better than obese. The assessor (a certified trainer with both undergraduate and graduate degrees in health and nutrition who is employed by a hospital's PT office in the rec center) told me its accuracy is +/- 2%, but still that is very sad to me. I am considered "moderately fat". On a good note, my blood pressure was good (98 over 60).
My fitness goals are to gain weight but have it be muscle instead of fat. I hate exercising and I just know it's going to be an uphill battle. I have another appointment with the trainer who assessed me on the 20th so she can tell me what type of exercising I should be doing to gain weight but have it be muscle. She mentioned something about doing less reps but making the weights be heavy. I'm kind of nervous. I'm more nervous though about whether or not I'm going to be able to commit to exercise consistently.
Being "skinny fat" was actually profiled on the Today Show recently. The woman in the video below who is "skinny fat" is at 27% body fat.
This is what is left of the chocolate chip pumpkin cake I brought to dinner at my aunt and uncle's house last night.
It was absolutely delicious. I did a little modification to suit my dietary issues (NO NUTS!!!) and put the layer with the melted chocolate in it on the bottom of the cake instead of the top (I was feeling lazy and melted the semi-sweet chips I had leftover instead of using unsweetened chocolate), but I thought it turned out awesome. Here's a link to the recipe.
On a separate note, the quilt is DONE!!! Photos of the finished product will be forthcoming. I did my first ever machine binding and it turned out pretty great (my expectations were very low). I turned the binding under like I normally would if sewing it on by hand and then machine stitched a decorative stitch over it. Here are some photos:
Now I'm off to cook dinner and then I have an appointment with a personal trainer at the gym tonight to help me come up with a plan. It's a new adventure everyday, right?
I have a tendency to be unable to say no. I admit it --- I get excited at the prospect of holding church officership, chairing fundraisers, and planning parties. I like being thanked when it's over and being respected for sharing my time. What I don't like is that sense of obligation that I feel when someone asks me to do something that I don't feel passionate about. The voice inside me says, "Say no, say no, SAY NO!!!!" and suddenly out of my mouth pops, "Sure, I'd love to help you with X." ARGGGHHHHH!!!! Why do I keep doing this to myself?!?!? I need to start taking on projects on my own terms, and not out of any sense of obligation.
Read this blog entry. Expresses my thoughts on the direction I want to go in exactly.
After two years, I am SO CLOSE to finishing this quilt. The machine quilting is about 75% done. My stippling is improving. It's not great, in that the stitch length is kind of inconsistent and I have to stop and start a lot because I forget where I am in relation to what I've already done, but it is definitely getting better.
I know it's hard to see in the photos (I'm using variegated thread that has all the same colors as the quilt). I'm hoping to be done with it now by next Wednesday so I can bring it with me to book club to show my two quilter friends who will be there. Hopefully, I can finish the book we're reading for the meeting too. I've been dragging my feet a little on that one.
I agreed in the fall to be on the fundraising committee for Red's school's PTA. I figured if we were going to be there for the year, I should help the school be able to have field trips...otherwise, there aren't any.
Time passes. I don't hear anything from the chairperson. I'm new so I figure that they met without me, she's got it under control, and I'm not concerned. I go to the meeting in December and the PTA president freaks out because there isn't anything planned yet to raise money. We plan a meeting for 1/5 so it's after the holidays. The meeting was at my house last night. We need to raise $6.390 in order to cover planned expenses. This is what the four of us at the meeting last night planned:
Events & Expected Profits
January Bowling Event: $500-750
March BPA Free Bottle Sale (I'm coordinating this one through www.greenbottleonline.com) - $1000
Registering local grocery rewards cards to benefit the school - ?
Silent auction and 50/50 raffle at upcoming International Night- $500
We still need come up with an idea that will raise $3-4K before the end of the school year. We thought of doing a book fair at Barnes and Noble (decided to plan this for closer to Christmas this coming school year) and doing restaurant nights in which the restaurant donates a percentage of the profits, but the max we'd make off those is probably a couple hundred bucks each.
We discussed doing a walk-a-thon, a talent show, and/or a dance, but we don't know when to plan those because the three of us there have either kindergarteners or 1st graders and no real history with the school. We don't know when International night is, what it's about, if it's okay to raise funds at it. Sigh...where is this money going to come from???
If you played the lottery numbers Hurley played on the Lost TV show in the Mega Millions lottery last night, you won $150!
Or if you're not into gambling, you can always learn who was Matt Damon's Ab Double for the movie True Grit here.
I've got a PTA fundraising committee meeting. I'm brainstorming how to get everyone to buy my ideas about NOT selling cookie dough or gift wrap. More on that later...
My sister is getting married this year. I'm excited. She's the youngest. She's the last one. I'm a bridesmaid---no matter that I'm married with kids---I'm a maid! It suddenly occurred to me how much her impending nuptials are going to cost me. Yes, ME! Here are the expenses that I've come up with so far as minimums:
Dress: $200. That's how much the one she initially picked cost which was subsequently vetoed by our other sister who is in the wedding. I'm guessing the final choice (I think it's final?) will be $150 plus alterations. Nope, neither one of these are the dress.
Shoes: $30 Shower gift: $50-100 (this is my baby sister after all) Wedding gift: at least $100 Shower expenses: ??? The bridesmaids are throwing the shower. Flower girl and ring bearer ensembles: ??? Chances are that she'll ask Red and Tom Thumb to be in the wedding. Babysitter: $75-100. We're paying to plate a meal for our babysitter at the wedding so she can drive the kids home and put them to bed so we don't have to leave the reception before 8PM.
I'm guessing we're going to be spending somewhere between $500 and $1000 on this wedding. Where is this extra cash that we don't have going to come from?
My first brainstorm is turning down the thermostat. I'm naturally cold so I like the thermostat at between 68 and 70. Can I turn it down and be comfortable? And if so, am I actually going to save money?
I tried it out yesterday morning. I put on a sweater and turned the thermostat down to 64. Initially there was no real difference. By the end of the afternoon, I was a little chilly but doing okay. Last night I slept with a sheet, a thermal blanket, an afghan and the comforter. The verdict: I survived. But will it make a real difference monetarily?
I found a website run by Duke Energy that has an online thermostat calculator. It's intended for Indiana residents so I knew it wouldn't be an exact calculation, but I figured it could give me a ball park estimate. I used zip code 47906 as my bogus zip code to get it to work. You essentially describe your house (i.e. size, number of rooms, when it was built, etc.) and its heating system and it estimates what your savings will be based on how many degrees you turn down your thermostat and when. Based on my home's thermostat settings previously being 68 degrees, it estimates that if I turn my thermostat down to 64 I'll save between $153 and $255 annually. And voila --- there's my bridesmaid's dress! Now I just have to dig out my sweaters and figure out where the rest of the cash is going to come from...
So my adventures in free motion quilting were largely unsuccessful last night. I broke four needles---one of which sent shrapnel careening into my eye. Luckily, nothing tragic happened. I finally got the ultimate tip from a quilting forum thread that I found when I googled "stippling and needles breaking". The tip was sew fast while moving your hands slow. I was afraid, but amazingly it worked and no more broken needles.
Other than that, just a typical day here. Lots and lots and lots of laundry. I don't even know how many loads I did. Six maybe? And of course while I was doing it, Red and Tom Thumb dumped out all the bins full of books and toys in his room in order to build a house out of them. I should be grateful that they're creative, right?
Today was Red's first day back to kindergarten after the holiday. She was happy to go back today, but keeps saying that she does not want to go to first grade. Her reasons are they have timed math quizzes (do they really? I have no idea, but she seems to think so.), there are big boys there (again, her anti-boy sentiments rear their ugly head), and she misses her homeschooled friends. She has even brought it up in front of my parents, which resulted in my mother telling me in a very distinct voice that she belongs in school next year. Sigh...
We haven't firmly decided what we're doing next year, but I was really hoping that she'd stay there through first so I could get Tom Thumb into the K class via sibling preference. If they go to full day K next year that won't matter anyway though since we want 1/2 day. Oh well...take each day as it comes.
Today's devotion had a great verse--- "He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORDrequire of you But to do justice, to lovekindness, and to walkhumbly with your God." Micah 6:8
That certainly puts things in perspective, doesn't it?
I took some steps today to start working on my 2011 goals. First, I reached out to my Well Trained Mind Forum sisters to see if anyone had any suggestions for a daily devotional to get me started on my goal of getting closer to God. BeckyFL directed me to Crosswalk.com where I found the Bible Pathways devotional. This is just what I was looking for. There's also a whole variety of other daily devotionals that are available that I am looking forward to perusing when I have more time. I found it very interesting that today's Day by Day devotion was discussing the feeling of accomplishment. The Bible verse that was cited was John 17:4 when Jesus was talking to God the Father --- "I glorified Thee on the earth,having accomplishedthe work which Thou hast given Me to do." So what does God want me to accomplish here on earth this year? That's something I'd like to ponder more.
Speaking of accomplishment, I started working on completing all those unfinished projects that have been plaguing me. At the end of this year I want to say to myself, "See---you did get something done!" I went with Red to Joann and bought a sterling silver jump ring to fix my broken necklace. The Cobbler bought it for me the Christmas after Tom Thumb was born and I wore it a lot. Being a baby at the time, Tom Thumb was obsessed with touching it. He pulled right off my neck several times and the last time it happened the jump ring was lost. Now it's as good as new. Yay!
The other project that I took upon myself today is a quilt that I started at a quilting retreat in February 2009 for my nephew's first birthday that was in December 2009. Well, he's 2 now and still doesn't have the quilt. I did some piecing work to it today so now the quilt top is complete (woo hoo---it's a New Year's miracle!). I still need to quilt it and bind it. I bought some material to back it with at Joann along with some variegated thread for machine quilting it. I'll post photos when it's done. I'm shooting for completion by February 12th which is the date of this year's quilt retreat so I can show it off to my quilter friends before I ship it to my nephew. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview:
I have oodles of other projects to work on, like scrapbooking the photos of our pre-kids 2004 trip to Italy. Unfortunately, I quit at day #3 of our two week trip sometime around when Red was born. In spite of my past project procrastination, today made me feel good. Hopefully, more days like this one are around the corner.
I hate writing New Year's resolutions. Hate them. I always feel like I'm setting myself up for failure because in the past they've always been so unrealistic. Like the year I said I would go to the gym everyday. Yeah, that was realistic.
This year I wrote up some goals the other day that point in the direction I want to go. Will I accomplish all of them? Probably not. On the other hand, it's always nice to have a path laid out in front of you so that if you find yourself getting off track you can just say, "Hey self! The path's over here! Why are you out walking in the weeds by that lake? You're going to fall in!!!"
So---for better or worse, here are my goals for this year.
In the ideal 2011, I am:
Healthy - I am managing my illness. I am planning healthy meals and snacks for my family. I am exercising at least 3 days per week. We just bought a 3 month membership at the local rec center so I'm planning on taking the kids 2 days a week to swim (one of those times is for their swim lesson and once for just fun). I'd like to make it over one other time on my own before they get up in the morning. I have an appointment with the trainer on 1/10 to come up with a realistic workout that accommodates my knee injury.
Happy - My husband and I are close and are going on a couple of date nights per month. I am planning time each month to spend with friends. I am spending less time on the computer and watching TV and more time living my life. I'd like limit recreational computer time to 30 minutes (with allowing extra time for listing things on eBay or doing household related items) and limit TV time during the week to 1 hour per day.
Getting to know God - I am spending time daily in study, prayer, and meditation. I am committing one hour per week to a cause I am passionate about. I will find a church situation with which I can be content. I will continue to teach Sunday School and write for the prison ministry. I will commit myself to listening for God's voice in my daily life. I will plan family devotions.
A good example for my children - I want to feel like my kids would be great adults if they modeled my behavior; therefore, I need to think more before I act or open my mouth. Continue to teach them and read to them. I want to give them opportunities to try new things and have new experiences without being pushy. I want to give my children equal individual attention.
Pursuing a personal goal - I want to establish a meaningful goal so at the end of the year I can celebrate a tangible achievement. Some ideas are pursuing publication for my children's book, getting family scrapbooks up to date, and starting a trip fund so we can go on a big vacation in 2012. I'd also like to finish the quilt I started for my nephew's birthday 2 years ago. Unfinished projects be gone!
Now that I'm reading all this back, I must admit I feel a little bit overwhelmed. I know in my heart though if I break it into baby steps I can accomplish more than I imagine. Here's to a 2011 that brings success, accomplishment and beautiful blessings to all!
