But there are changes that I'm wanting to make, ones that I have been contemplating for a little while and that I would have been implementing regardless of the date, so here they are:
My best friend, Bree, and I are planning to do Scripture study together and separately. We plan to do Seminary reading assignments and then meet up together once a week and discuss them. We're hoping to get a couple more friends involved in it as well. It should be quite a bit of fun and teach us a lot.
I rearranged my house this past week. Partially to accommodate a few Christmas gifts and partially to change things up and get areas neat, straightened and organized. I plan to continue to purge (a MAJOR part of what I did this past week) and to continue organizing as well. I plan to tackle a particular area of the house each week. I think the first week will be the den, as that is where Hubby and I spend most of our time. We got the furniture rearranged in here, but now there are some items sitting around in piles that are now, well, homeless. And they need homes. They deserve homes. I'll post more about this tomorrow, complete with pictures.
I also plan to start doing meal planning again. It works out so well but lately I have really dropped the ball when it comes to doing it. I mentioned in my post from the early morning hours today that I plan to have the family sit around and pick out recipes that they'd like to try and we will incorporate them into a monthly meal plan. This way, I can set a meal plan for the whole month. We can always tweak it a little bit based on changes for that day, but even still, it's much more helpful to have an actual plan in place.
And I have been working hard to set aside some money for savings. I have a goal this year to save up $1200, which isn't so bad. That's a mere $100 per month. I know that I can do it! And the idea is to not dip into it for any reason at all. So far, I have $300 saved up, which really isn't much. But this new goal to save $1200 would put us at a savings amount of $1500, which would be wonderful to have on hand just in case we should need it.
Our chore system is going well. I have tweaked it here and there and may need to slightly tweak it again here soon, but it will be after some additional thought and evaluation and a discussion with the Hubby to see what we like about it and what we want to change about it. But overall, the kids have done extremely well with it.
We have skipped the gym and all associated activities with our membership since, oh, I don't know, July maybe? Something horrible like that. We fully intend to use our membership at least once a week starting this week now. I would seriously like to lose 40% of my body weight, but probably it wouldn't be practical nor safe to lose that much in a year's time, so I'd settle for losing 2% per month, each month from now until I am at that 40% lost mark. That's a goal that will take 26 months to accomplish. Just over two years. I'm okay with that. I have to be. It took me awhile to get to the point where I am now and it will take me awhile to get back to where I was. At the end of this year, I should have lost (according to my goal) around 12% of my body weight. Regular gym activities, eating more meals prepared at home and as a family and cutting out soda (even diet soda) should help these things out tremendously.
So that's my New Year's "Not Resolutions, per se" post. Tonight, we are going to have dinner, pick out some recipes, maybe bake some banana bread, then curl up on the couch with our pajamas on, watch a movie, eat some popcorn (none for me, thanks, I'm not a fan) and just spend time together as a family. Sounds like a wonderful way to start a new year!
