Goals, Goals, Goals!

Lists are one of my favorite things.  By simply writing something down, I am way more apt to accomplish it.  And if I blog about something, I'm 99.9% sure to do the task.  I hate failure, and even though only about 12 people read this and they don't care if I follow through or not, I care.  So something I'm going to be doing this year is sharing my list of monthly goals.  There are a few bloggers I read who do this, and it seems to work well for them.  I was actually going to start it back in May (shortly after we moved here), but then my computer died and I stopped blogging as much.  But here it is...

Use my planner- I bought a planner a few months ago.  I use to use planners all of the time in high school, college, and even in my teaching and nanny days.  But when I started staying home they seemed unnecessary.  Our schedule is busier now, and I forget things way more than I ever use to.  So I got a fancy planner and then was too intimidated to use it.  So I'm going to use it!

Go to the library more- We have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of children's books, so we don't really need to go to the library.  So we don't go often.  But I want to get more into a routine of going, because I think story times and music times and just general socialization is good.  Plus, there are titles and authors that we don't have that would be fun to read now and then.

Limit the kids TV watching- We aren't the kind of family that has the TV on all day long. It's generally on in the morning while the kids eat breakfast (so that I can get ready in peace), and then I turn it on at 4 in the afternoon and they watch until Michael gets home at 4:45 (so that I can cook dinner). That would be alright, but I'm sad to say that on the days we stay home... the TV stays on too long in the morning.  One or two shows is more than enough, but I often let it stay on until mid morning.  I'm selective with the shows they watch, so it's not that they are watching things they shouldn't. They are just watching too much.  So we are going to go back to the one to two shows in the morning and the 45 minutes in the afternoon that allows me to get dinner on the table.

Read 2 books-I really enjoy reading.  I have a list of authors and titles on my phone that I want to read.  I have a pile of books that I have collected over time, but never got to.  I have intentions to read, but then it gets pushed to the back burner.  I have read more in 2015 than I probably did in all of the 4 years before that put together.  So I'm making progress.  But I really want to be intentional about it.  So I'm putting it on my goal list.  Hopefully I'll read more than 2 this month, but 2 is the goal to start with.

Konmari method all clothes- I am almost done reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I had heard so many good things about it.  I also heard that she was a little "strange" in some of her thinking.  That's my assessment so far.  But she suggests starting with clothes and I think that some of what she has to offer is really good.  I have been slowly weeding things out over the past 9 months, but this month I am going to be very intentional with going through ALL of the clothes in the house and truly not hanging on to things "just because".

I read a blog that talked about changing our habits.  We all have a list of things we want to work on or change, but it can seem overwhelming to take them all on.  She suggested choosing one habit a month to work on, and then by the end of the year you will have dramatically changed 12 areas of your life.  I'm not sure I have 12 habits that I want to change, but I'm going to try it here and there.  I've wanted to do a gratitude journal for years now.  I start them, but never keep up with it.  I figured started the year out right by recognizing things to be grateful for is a good place to start.  So that is the habit I am going to try to form this month.

Here we go...