Starting Off Right

I want to be intentional this year. Intentional about what I do, what I say, how I say it. I want to spend more time with my kids and less time with Facebook. It's important to be intentional with our time or it can so easily get away from us. I've really been convicted lately about my poor attitude and my laziness, and I want to intentionally make changes that impact my family and my life in a positive way. I'm tired of just following the current, of being apathetic, of letting myself do wherever sounds good at the time. (I sort of feel like the ship captain from Wall-E: "I don't want to survive, I wanna LIVE!" Haha.)  I'm ready for my life to be different. And what better time to start than with a fresh, new year?

That said, I'm not really much for New Year's Resolutions. I always think they sound good at the time, but I keep up with them for about 5 minutes, if I'm lucky. This year I'd like to do things a little differently. I'm setting goals for myself instead of just throwing out a "resolution" or two; written, tracked, measured goals. And in order to help keep myself a bit more accountable, I'm going to post them here and update every so often about my progress. I hope this helps me stay on the right path!

The first, and biggest, goal that I'm setting is to read my Bible and spend time with God every day. In the past I've been very here-and-there about this one. I will go in spurts and read my Bible every day for a month, and then forget about it for much longer. That's no good! I have a Bible reading plan to read through the Bible in a year, and even if I don't get all the way through it, I want to read a little bit every day. It's the 4th of January today and so far so good! (Baby steps, right?)

My home keeping binder

I also want to get (and STAY) organized around our home. I had previously been using The Fly Lady's system to clean and de-clutter the house, but I've fallen off the wagon. Again. So I pulled my binder out, dusted it off (see what I did there?), and signed back up for her daily reminder emails. It's a great system and I've really had success with it in the past if I keep it up, so I'm going to to my best to stay with it this time! To me it's great to be able to find what you need, when you need it, and not have to dig through the mess to locate it, and I know Rob appreciates a clean house, too. If you need help getting things in order at  your house, check her out! I think you'll like it.

Finally, I have a goal to become a more healthy cook and save us some money on groceries if I can. I use Plan to Eat for meal planning and keeping my recipes organized, and I really love it! I sit down at the end of each month and plan all our meals for the month ahead. It makes dinnertime SO much easier if I can just look at the calendar and see what I've already planned for the meal. And we have limited our going out to eat to once a week also, which is a huge money saver.

And there you have it! There are lots of other things I want to work on this year as well, but these are the big ones for now. It feels good to have a plan of attack for the year! Did you set any goals for 2014? Share them with me! We can all keep each other on track. :)

Happy New Year! It's 2010!!

This week marks 25 weeks pregnant! HOLY COW time is flying!! I’m not very good at marking our progress with the weekly pictures anymore because it seems like the pages are just flying off the calendar faster than I can keep up with them! But, here I am at 25 weeks, in the nursery that we’ve been working on!

And here’s the punkin at 25 weeks, too!

25 weeks- a rutabaga!

She’s been kicking up a storm these last few weeks, and Rob’s had the chance to feel her quite a bit! I’m also noticing fun things like pinched nerves, swollen ankles, and that oh-so-fun heartburn, none of which are too bad, but all are still VERY annoying!

So, we’ve been spending a little time in the baby’s room getting things put together. We don’t really have a theme, but we are going with mostly pink and green. I did find some cute bedding that has pink elephants on it, though! Rob painted the walls and hung the blinds and the curtain rod, and we got a beautiful baby quilt from mom and a few cute pink outfits for Christmas. I think it’s starting to come together!

Here is the room so far. (Hooray for Other Mothers, they have great stuff for a good price! We got the crib, stroller, pack-n-play, and a bouncer there. I’m sure we’ll be back!)

A close-up of the quilt my mom made. It’s so soft, and just the right colors! I can’t wait to wrap our baby girl in it!!

We found a dresser on Craigslist the other day too, we just need to paint it. It’s cream and pink, but the rest of the furniture will be white, so the poor dresser looks like it’s yellow. So, Rob’s going to paint it white for me.

We still have a lot to do, but I feel like we’ve come a long way! All we need furniture-wise is a changing table and a glider. So far so good!

As it IS New Years Day, I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about some of our plans for 2010. Can you believe another decade has passed? I’m starting to feel like the older I get, the faster the time goes! I guess my folks were right. :)

Of course, the biggest part of this next year for Rob and I will be the arrival of our baby girl. We can’t wait!!

And on that note, we’ve both decided that it’s time for a “money makeover” if you will, and I’ve started reading Dave Ramsey’s book Financial Peace. We hope to be able to be a one-income family when the baby arrives, and we need some help to get to that position financially between now and then so I can stay at home with her if at all possible.

I gotta say, after reading only the first few chapters of his book, I can really see why so many people rave about Dave Ramsey and his money strategy. It’s not gimicky, or schemey, or complicated, or anything like that. It’s just common sense tools to use to help you better manage your money. If you haven’t read the book yet, I highly recommend it.

(Sheesh, I sound like he’s paying me to advertize! I promise he’s not, I’m just a big believer already. I’m excited about getting back in control of our money!)

I also hope to start sewing a little more, at least as much as possible with a new little one in the house, and Rob wants to find a more stable job. He has a few feelers out there, wish us luck! If we can we’d also like to take a trip to Seattle to see my brother and his family, and our friends there. We have a wedding to go to on the East coast in October (yay Andy and Alex!) and want to make a stop in Denver somewhere in there too. I guess I’ll learn what it’s like to travel with a baby! :)

No matter what the year brings, we' both feel very blessed to be where we are, and hope to be able to spend lots of time with family and friends. Here’s to a great 2009, and an even better 2010! Cheers!!