Last year, we wrote our New Year's resolutions and put them into this time capsule, made from an oatmeal box covered in fun scrapbook paper.
But the box got put away with the other Christmas decorations and not all of the resolutions were kept.
Like praying the evening office and finding a new dance studio. I didn't do so well at memorizing Scripture either. Some of it was because I didn't really have a good plan to make it happen. I think the rest of it was that saying that tends to be all too true: Out of sight, out of mind.
So before summer rolled around last year, I bought a huge piece of posterboard and taped it to the sliding glass door in the breakfast nook. I kept a Sharpie handy and we started a list of everything we wanted to do over the summer.
Summer goes by so quickly and we didn't want to come to the end of summer and wonder what we did, or feel like we didn't do the things we wanted to do.
We started our list a couple of weeks before school got out, and kept adding to it whenever we thought of something fun. We marked off some of the things we did, and had a great summer. We saw our list every day--and so any "I'm booooored!" was met with "Go look at the list and think of something fun to do."
As we started talking about the new year, Toben had the great idea to use our poster idea again. So I bought some posterboard, grabbed four different colored sharpies, and hung it up on the basement door. (It got hard to keep the sliding door clean with the poster hanging on it.) We started writing on it and are all thinking about what else we'd like to add.
We've added things we'd like to do individually, and things we'd like to do as a family. And though it's not always listed specifically, I'm also thinking about the little steps necessary to achieve some of those goals. Because lofty goals rarely get met without a serious plan of the steps necessary to get there.
So here are a couple of the big goals for me:
Philippians 4:8.
This verse is the theme for the girls' school this year--and I memorized it back in September along with the girls. But while I know the verse by heart, I haven't really taken it to heart. My thoughts often focus on the negative, the non-admirable, the things that aren't praiseworthy, but are instead complain-worthy.
I believe that if I could get my thought in order ("take them captive") and focus on the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy--that it would change my attitude, my words, and my actions. It would have a huge effect on my family.
(So for those of you who've wanted to memorize this verse, but have a hard time remembering the order, here's what my friend Shanna told me that has stuck and put them firmly in place in my mind: TNR PLA EP--tenor, play, ep. True, Noble, Right, Pure, Lovely, Admirable, Excellent, Praiseworthy!)
Cheerful Service.
Philippians 4:8 ties in to this one. I want to serve my family--cheerfully. To not complain about laundry, ironing, cooking, picking up after the girls. Am I demonstrating what it means to be a servant to my children?
A couple of other goals for the year...
Have Wednesday mornings at home for friends. I so miss doing this like I did in San Diego.
Host a "Loving Well" retreat. I won the retreat in a giveaway earlier this year and would love to use it with friends...like you! Anyone up for a trip to Colorado?
Finish projects that I've started and stopped. Like the Seven-Year Quilt, and Audrey's curtains, which have been almost done for the past six months.
Decorate Emma's room. She needs some curtains, some pillows.
Come up with a plan for the kitchen. The one room in our home not updated. It really needs some help.
Clean up the kitchen each night. Dry the dishes and put them away instead of leaving them out overnight and coming down to them each morning.
The rest of the family?
Audrey wants to write neater, read more books, and work on not being moody.
Emma wants to go on more family dates, get along well with Audrey, have a family game day, and read more books.
Toben wants to take a girl on a date each week, take a month off this summer, and make some progress on the backyard.
The cool thing about this list is that we can see it every day and we can keep adding to it as the year goes on.
