Spiritual:
This year I am taking a slightly different strategy towards my spiritual growth. Last year, my goal was to read through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice by following along with this website. This was very good in the fact that I did get into the Word most days. I also once again was able to see all of the amazing connections there are through the Word.
However, this year I want to be more focused. Each month I will either have a book or some theme for the month. This month's theme was inspired by a New Year's Eve service/singing that I attended. The person speaking talked about how although there are so many great things to look forward to in the new year that bad things will happen. Things that hurt. Things that drag us down. Things that make us want to give up and curse God like Job's friends. But..... We must remember. Remember all that God has brought us through. Remember the blessings that He has given us. Remember what He has done so that we might be able to be called sons and daughters of God. Remember. Don't be like the Israelites who had miracle after miracle after miracle and yet would turn away all of the time.
This month I am focusing on the word "remember" as it appears in the Scriptures. If you search the Bible you will find it appears over 200 times! I feel like this has already been speaking to me in so many ways.
I also want to do more of a Bible study with my husband. We used to do one together fairly regularly, but then school happened and it seems hard to fit in, and when we do fit it in, it feels forced. For right now, we are going to be taking classes at our church one night a week and I will use that for our time. I'm still brainstorming on how to fit this in as an effective way for us to grow together and not just be a chore.
I also want to keep a prayer/ Bible study journal. I just need to go out and by the most plain Jane notebook. For some reason I love writing in the cheapy spiral bound notebooks, and I actually don't like the dolled up diaries. Maybe its because I'm a teacher. Who knows.
Finally, I want to memorize 6 verses this year. I know that is very few, but I really want this to be an attainable goal. I'm still searching for my first one. I know that it will need to be something about trusting in God to give me strength, since right now teaching is wearing me down.
Personal:
I still want to make the goal to visit each set of grandparents at least once a month via any means (phone or in person). This was an amazing goal last year, and I'm afraid if I don't leave it on the list it won't happen.
Visit distant siblings at least twice a year at their homes. Right now while we are young and don't have kids, I think we should take more of an active role in keeping up relationships even if they are far away.
Have extended family over for dinner. Hopefully this will happen. I am scared half to death to cook a meal for other people, but I need to get over it.
Exercise three times a week. I have on permanent loan a really really really old treadmill. Seriously, it has no digital readings just a 4 ft long crank to make it go faster or slower. I can get it up to a fast speed walk, not quite a jog, so it is much easier for me to exercise even if I am not going overly crazy. I should be able to cram in 3 times a week.
Follow a housekeeping routine. I have been horrible at this recently. For a while I kept up with it, but now I am just surviving. I am thinking that for now I will focus on laundry on the weekends, bathrooms and kitchen maintenance on Monday/Tuesday and vacuuming/general house cleaning on Thursdays. Later I might break it down more, but for now I need to be vague.
Stretch often enough to where I can do splits all three ways again ( I miss that from my gymnastics days).
Buy a pedal for my loaned keyboard and practice playing again.
Education/ Career:
This sounds horrible, but reduce my responsibilities at work enough that I can get most everything done in 9 and a half hours all but one day a week.
Focus on strategies to deal with "joy busters," ie. other employees and occasionally students who don't even do this on purpose, but somehow just steal my joy.
Improve discipline in my classroom. Create a weekly schedule where the responsibility is more removed from me and is shouldered by more of the class.
Be less of a perfectionist. Worry less about what others think.
Continue reading education blogs. Continue organizing all materials.
Create a sub folder.
Read a book on small business.
Read a book on investing.
Read a book on discipline.
Financial:
Reach our "small goal" of money for our house by September. We are currently about 73% of the way there.
Reach 75% of our big goal by the end of the year. Right now we are tentatively planning to build in 2012. We might push it back to 2013, but we'll just have to see. If we do end up building in 2012 then this year we might actually start buying things for the house. That money even though it is spent, will be counted in our percentages of money saved towards building a home, since the items such as lumber are to be used on the home.
Continue giving to our local church and charities.
BIG GOAL:
To revisit these goals once a month on this blog and force myself to review and revise based on how we are doing.
Well there they are. I have many many other ideas especially for the summer, but this would be way to long if I wrote them all. Hopefully I will be able to get things under more control at school so that I can take back my time and be able to get some of these other things accomplished and write on here more often. I'll let you know how things go though, at least once a month (or at least that is my goal ).
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