Sweetly Broken

The church that we went to on vacation played this song during the worship service.  I hadn't heard it in FOREVER, but I can't get it out of my head now (even two weeks later).  :) I love a song that gives me shivers every time I hear it no matter how many times I play it.

Wednesday Update

I meant to write a bit more throughout the week to work through my process here a bit more, but...I didn't.   I don't have an excuse other than laziness and putting it off, but I'm also working on it.  :) Maybe next week will be more detailed, and I DO have some time still left in this week after all!

Let's see, so far I've kept up with my wake up times, prayer time, exercise and laundry (well, up until today...just realized that I didn't fold up Nathan's stuff and he's already in bed, so my goal of having it all put away before the end of the day won't happen...opps).

I've also set up a list of activities for the kids, and we've actually been doing them!  I feel so much better just knowing that I've done something special and semi-out-of-the-ordinary with them.  :) And it makes them so happy.  I do have a few activities planned that take some prior set up, so the challenge for me with be to actually set things up before hand for these.  But so far, I've done well.

I got some reading and crocheting done yesterday, but if you've got a good memory you know that means I still have quite a few things left on my list for the week.  I may have been a little over zealous when planning this out on Sunday, so next week I'll try for a few less.  I'll keep working until I find the balance, because I'm convinced this blog-accountability will be good for me.

This Week's Goals

I tried to limit my goals to around ten for the week.  It keeps it a manageable amount.  I hope :).

Personal

• Get up at 6:15 everyday
• Do 15 mins. of solid prayer time every morning
• Exercise for 100 mins. total (ideally 5 days of 20 mins.)

Marriage

• Plan two date nights

Mothering

• Plan activities for Sept.
• Read Chapters 5-7 of The Strong Willed Child

Home Management

• Finish one complete load of laundry Mon-Fri 
• Complete pantry and freezer inventory
• Create a menu for next week

Ministry

• Write to Rose (our child we sponsor through World Vision)

Fun

• Spend at least one day working on my crochet blanket

Some of these are things that I hope to become habits over time, while some are one time items.  I hope eventually to get everything settled enough to be able to stick with one time projects, but I have to get my maintenance cleaning to be a habit first.  A few of these may pop up next week and for the foreseeable future if I really struggle with them.  Well, we will see how the first week goes :).

What I'm NOT Worried About

Here are the things that I'm not worried about at this point.  We are all human, and our time is limited.  There are only a certain number of things any one person can do in a given week, so something has to give.  Here are the things that I'm not worried about at this point.

1. Cooking from Scratch.  My family is hard enough to please when it comes to food.  I struggle each week simply getting a decent menu plan together.  Until I get better at planning food, I feel it gives me a bit of a break to use cooking helps.

2.  Doing my hair and makeup everyday.  I want to be able to do this, I really do, but I don't want to get up early enough to do this along with my devotional, my exercise, and my daily planning.  So, again, something has to give :).  Until I can discipline myself to get up earlier, a ponytail is just going to have to suffice for some days.

3.  Crafts.  I want to be crafty, I want to make things by hand, but the time is just not there.  I don't have a lot of knowledge in how to do things like this, so I'm learning a lot from the very beginnings and that is time consuming.  So, for now, these will be regulated to a small part of my week.

4.  Gardening.  It might sound like a strange one, but my family is big on gardening, so I really want to try to do this, but it's another thing that I don't have the time to put it it right now.

Those are all that I have come up with so far.  I'm sure I will come up with more as I go along, but this is good for now.  Mostly, my goal with this is to simply give myself permission to NOT do everything.  I'm not SuperMom or Wonder Woman, and I cannot accomplish it all.  And that's okay :).


If you're interested, here's the link to Money Saving Mom's blog on the same topic: here.

Focus Areas

I've broken down the things that are important to me (or important that I do) into 6 areas.  I have personal, marriage, mothering, home management, ministry (which for me includes my extended family), and fun.  I got these basically verbatim from Money Saving Mom, if you're interested in what she has said about them.  She also has a printable you can use if you're into that sort of thing :).

To break them down a bit more, here's what they entail:

Personal: spiritual disciplines, my relationship with God, exercise (I consider it not only vital to my health, but also my mood and outlook tend to be much better when I've gotten some exercise in)

Marriage: Don't expect to see too much posted on this as it is a bit private.  I do plan on restarting my goal of weekly at home dates.

Mothering:  Basically anything I can think of to help me be a better mother, anything from activities to Bible verses to help me through my day.

Home Management: Another self-explanitory category.  Will include cleaning, decorating, finances, anything to do with running my house.

Ministry:  I want this one to be ways that I can specifically get myself to find ways to minister to those around me each week.  Too often we are guilty of thinking about doing something and then never getting around to it.  Ideally, this will rid me of that excuse.

Fun: A way for me to still dabble in projects but hopefully get me to finish them at the same time.  I have some serious trouble when it comes to finishing what I start, so maybe that will keep me on track.

As I said, I'm still working on the goals within these categories.  I'll post them in a few days, but first up (hopefully tomorrow) I want to focus on things that are NOT on my list of things to do right now. This is another idea I got from the Money Saving Mom website, and I'll link the specific page in the post.  (Honestly, right now I need to be getting to bed, so goodnight!)

A New Start on an Old Plan

Kent and I spent the last four days on vacation.  It was wonderful and fun and everything a vacation should be, but beyond that it was a time for me to sit and reflect.  The craziness of the summer has really gotten me out of my rhythms and I'm struggling now that summer has ended.  Abigail started preschool a few weeks ago and that has sent my already struggling routines further into the realm of undone things.  Sooo, back to basics it is!  I'm going to start Monday with posting my goals for the week (okay, probably Sunday night, just to be sure).  Hopefully by focusing on a few things at a time I can get things back into shape.  I have a few more long term goals to set down before I can break things down weekly, but I plan on finishing that up this week.  I'll try keep this updated as I go along, but there's so much running through my head that I have trouble knowing how to get it all down in writing!  So, here's the beginning :).

Dunlap Love

My friend Kaylyn is super crafty and makes some wonderful and beautiful things.  God has been working on her recently to use her talents in a way to serve those in need around us, specifically orphans.  She recently put together a blogspot for her business, Dunlap Love, and has outlined what she plans to do with her creations and the money she makes.  I'm so amazed by her godly heart and desire to serve, so I wanted to share with all of you.  (You can also find her on Etsy!)