Plan to have a great year Day 4

Day 4- Find your why

This was hard for us! It may be easy for your family but it was difficult for us to put into word why we want to accomplish our goals, why we want to reach our dreams or even why it matters so much to us to have these visions for our lives. This may be especially hard for younger children, Lily struggled with it much more than Kyle and Renee. The reason may just be that younger kids don't tend to see the future as clearly as older kids or adults. Natalie Bacon has some good tips and suggestions on how to find your why. You can read her entire blog post here. Basically we ask ourselves why we want what we want. Why is it important to us. Here is what I came up with. 

Health- I want to look and feel better, I want to live a long life but I don't want to end up old, sick in and out of the hospital and on medications. I want to help my kids and Shane to be healthier and help Shane control his diabetes. 

Relationships- So I won't feel sad and alone. I struggle with depression. I want my kids to feel like I'm a good mom. I don't want to end up a bitter, lonely old lady and die alone. Ok I admit that's a little dark but this blog is about facing my fears, writing honestly and from the heart and to be honest my biggest fear is dying not just the death part but to die alone, without anyone holding my hand and telling me I am loved and that my life mattered. 

Finances- I don't want to continue living paycheck to paycheck and being stressed about money. I want to set a good example for my family. 

Career/business- for the sense of accomplishment I'll feel. to help my family financially, as far as being a writer I think my why is that surely God has a reason and a purpose for the things I've gone through in my life, maybe that reason is so that I can help someone else who is going through the same things? And if not that then maybe I can find personal growth and healing through my writing. 

Environment- One of my biggest motivators for wanting to get involved with environmental issues is that I've noticed over the past two years that not caring about the environment has giving Christians a bad reputation and I do kinda understand why more Christians aren't very concerned about things like global warming or the ozone layer. We understand that the world was always intended to be a temporary home for us and it was never meant to last forever. That being said God did create this world and we should at least try to take care of it. So I guess my why for the environment is so that I can be a better witness. And whether we are here another 10 years or another 100 years I do want to leave the best possible Earth behind for my grandkids.

There is a day 5 to this plan but it involves setting up reminders and alarms and we don't really use our phones like that so we skipped that part, but it's a good tip so please be sure you check it out on Natalie's blog.

Plan to have a great year Day 3

So today we are on day 3 of our "family therapy session" where we are working as a family to plan our best year ever. We are following Natalie Bacon's plan and so far I have really enjoyed the discussions it's sparked. You can go to her blog and find the 5 day plan here.

Yesterday we came up with visions for our life and also for our family. One thing we agreed on was making these family Bible studies a regular thing. Since all of us have pretty busy lives we agreed the goal would be to do them 3-4 nights a week, some weeks we may get more in and some weeks we may get less in but we are going to be a little bit relaxed about the amount we do and focus instead on the fact that every little bit is a step in the right direction. The kids have renamed the family Bible study time to Family Therapy Sessions, I'm not sure if this is sort of a tongue in cheek thing or if they honestly feel like we need therapy, it's pretty likely we do need some form of therapy. 😄

Day 3 is all about setting goals and Natalie suggests using the smart system which she explains on her blog. This is really an excellent post about how to set goals and what are good examples of goals I thought it was especially helpful for the kids. so here are my goals for this coming up year.

Health- keep learning about healthy meal prep, learn at least 1 new recipe a week. Teach the kids to cook healthy meals. my plan for that is to have each kid help me cook dinner at least once a week. Lose 20 pounds and keep it off! Take my medication and supplements every day. Exercise 4 times a week.

Relationships- spend time doing a devotion/ prayer with the girls before school, family therapy  3-4 nights a week, weekly game night, spend 1 on 1 time with each kid at least twice a year. I already take the girls out for their birthdays but in the past I've let their friends come along. This year I want the time to be more one and one.  Date night with Shane twice a month. To repair my relationship with my parents I'll start inviting them over for the holidays and try to spend more time with my dad at least once a month.

Finances-  pay off our loan, put $200 in our savings, sell 1 liter of puppies.

Career/business- write a book and publish it. Spend an hour a day promoting, take 1 writing course. Post on FB twice a week.

Personal/spiritual- Read a chapter in my Bible every day, get more involved in church (ideas for that, start a LifeGroup at our church, volunteer for something?)

Recreation/play- 1 mini vacation with Shane, 1 mini vacation with the kids, spend less time on media and the phone.

Environment- be more consistent with having the kids clean their room, plant 2 rose bushes, plant 2 fruit trees, redo bedroom, bathroom, tape and float living room. learn about recycling,

Service/ contribution- Make friends with some of my neighbors that are lonely or alone. Volunteer once a month at a food bank, animal shelter, nursing home or the pregnancy center.

I'd love to hear some of your dreams and the goals you are setting to reach them.

Plan to have a great year Day 2

 The kids have dubbed this time of night Family Therapy, I'm not sure if that's good or bad lol. But here's family therapy night 2, I guess. If you didn't read day 1 you can go here to read it.

We are using Natalie Bacon's plan to reflect on 2019 and plan how we can make 2020 a great year for us personally and also for our family as a whole. You can read her post here. So day 2 we are to write down our visions for our life. She lists 8 areas to focus on those areas are health, relationships, finance, career/business, personal/spiritual development, recreation/play, environment, and service/contribution. last night we rated how we did in each area and so tonight we thought about our dreams and goals for each of these 8 areas. 

On a persoanl level I loved doing this with the kids, it was so interesting and sweet to hear some of their hopes and dreams for their lives and to get a glimpse into their hearts and minds. I think I can get caught up in the day to day raising of them that I forget they are real people with their own hopes and dreams for the future. Which is so important becasue one of my jobs and privledges as their parent is to try to help them identify and reach their dreams. I want them to dream big, think big. I can't encourage you enough if you have kids, especially older kids or teenagers do this with them. It will open up so many topics for discussion. 

So my vision for my life in these 8 areas are

Health- To be healthy (obviously), to be at a healthy weight, eat a healthy diet but not be on a diet, to be active , to take care of my mental health as well as my physical health by being less worried and stressed and to be more positive.

Relationships- Be closer to my family, mend my relationship with my parents.

Finances- Get out of debt, lower my bills

Career/business- publish a book this year, future goal become a successful author. I haven't pinpointed what will be the measurement for success. I'm working towards becoming a husky breeder so my vision for that is too raise beautiful, healthy, happy puppies and (hopefully) make a profit.

Personal/spiritual- Be a better Christian, define in my own heart what a good Christian is and strive to become that. Have a closer walk with God.

Recreation/play- be more spontaneous, take a vacation.

Environment-have a clean, organized home, yard, car. To start paying attention to global environment. It wasn't until I talked with the kids that I saw our need to be mindful of the world that God created as they pointed out God did give us charge over the world, over the plants and animals and we should be mindful of that. I was surprised by Lily and Renee's passionate advocating for us to take better care of the world we live in. 

Service and contribution- to do my part to make the world a better place, to think of the homeless, hungry, sick, the orphans the elderly and the lonely. 

^{Matthew 25: 35-45}

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

We talked about these verses and how we can make this commission part of our life, how we can actively fulfill this call to action that Jesus issued to us in the book of Matthew and here are some of the ideas we came up with.

Volunteer at a food bank, collect money or food for a food bank, visit people in nursing homes, maybe adopt a grandmother or grandfather, write letters or send cards to sick or wounded soldiers. 

Tomorrow night we will start setting goals to help us reach our dreams. 

Plan to have a great year Day 1

I don't make New Year's resolutions, it's just not something I've ever done and stuck with consistently. But each year I do try to sit down and look over the past year and make goals and plans for the next year. I started this when I was a homeschool mom. Every year I'd sit down and make a list for each child on areas I wanted to focus or work on. A few years ago I decided to make one of these plans for myself and I found this really great post by Natalie Bacon.

This year I decided to do this with my kids, since I've used her plan before I know a little bit how it works and I know that the idea is to a little bit over several days. So here goes Day 1.

Day 1
Kyle, Renee, Lily and I sat around our dining room table armed with notebooks and pens. Day 1 starts with reflecting on the past year. I think this is really important, it's one of my favorite parts of the plan. Natalie suggests getting out you calendars and writing out where you spent your time. We don't really use calendars but we did all discuss how we spent our time. She suggests that you rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each of these 8 categories.

health
relationships
finance
career/business
personal/spiritual development
recreation/play
environment
service/contribution

and this is how I rated myself. 

health -4

relationships -7

finance-5

career/business-5

personal/spiritual development-6

recreation/play-??

environment-0

service/contribution-3

So right away I see that I have some areas that I could really improve in. My health especially. I've gained a good bit of weight since quitting Wal-Mart, I'm not consistently taking my thyroid medicine or my iron pills and I haven't been cooking healthy meals. Part of living a happy life to me is being healthy and feeling good. I expect to live well into my 90's (hopefully) and I want to be active and healthy and have a good quality of life. This is something I feel very strongly about so my score in this area is a real eye opener.

As far as relationships I think I've done pretty well but there are relationships that I want to improve, especially my relationship with my parents and my sister. I've lost touch with my sister since going to work and even though we are still close it's not like it used to be.

My finances- blahhh *big sign* lets just say they need work, lots and lots of work. It's hard living on 1 paycheck and raising 3 kids! I definitely need to rework my budget and stick to it better. This is depressing though so lets move on.😉

As far as career and business that's hard to say I am taking steps toward it, I've written a book and nearly finished two more. Now I just need to focus on editing and getting them ready to publish. I think 5 is a little generous but I'm sticking with it.

I couldn't even rate myself on recreation and play. I spend wayyyyy too much time wasting time on my phone and social media and even watching tv. So do I give myself a high rating because I do spend enough time there or should I actually get a low rating because I spend TOO MUCH time? This is how an over thinkers mind works, nothing is ever easy or clear cut. So what I'm taking away from this area is that I don't need to spend any more time on recreation but I need to try to be more purposeful in my down time and not just waste it scrolling through Facebook for hours a night.

The area of environment isn't something I even really consider but I did learn that my two daughters are very interested in environmental issues. That's something I didn't know. I gave myself an appalling 0 in this area.

And finally service and contribution. As a Christian I was a little bit surprised when I started thinking about how much time and effort I put into giving back to the community.

The next part of reflecting is just asking yourself basic questions and we did this as a group. Things like what did you like about last year or what disappointed you about last year.

Last year was all about change for me I think and maybe about growth and finally coming to peace with who I am and who I am called to be. My faith in God took a hard hit and I'd say I was shaken in some of my beliefs and relationships. I grew spiritually and emotionally. Working gave me a new perspective that I didn't have before. I saw Christians, myself included, through the eyes of the world and to be honest I wasn't happy about all that I saw. I gained confidence going to work and pride over my promotion, but I gained peace in the knowledge that God didn't call me to bake bread or manage a deli, He called me to raise my children, to be a  mother and a wife. And I know that many moms do those things and work a full time job and to be honest I admire and respect them more now than ever because that was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But for me, it wasn't what I wanted or needed to do at the time. Who knows? Maybe once all my children are grown and moved out maybe God will call me back to the workforce but right now, I'm more confident than ever that my calling is here at home.

Visit Natalie's blog, she has so many interesting posts.

My Christmas Lesson

Have you ever felt like you should do something but you didn't do it? A few days ago I was driving by some apartments near my daughter's home and I saw an older woman standing outside. I know this woman but not very well, I've spoken with her maybe half a dozen times and we are friends on Facebook. But she isn't a close friend or anything. When I saw her outside I thought about inviting her to my house for Christmas dinner, I know that it was God prompting me because for one thing the thought came completely out of the blue and unexpectedly and also because the feeling that I should invite her was so strong! In fact I felt so strongly that I should invite her over that I actually made the block and circled back. I told myself or God, whichever that if she was still outside I'd pull over and invite her. Well, she was still outside but I chickened out. I reasoned to myself that 1) I barely knew the woman and it'd be awkward for her and for my family. 2) she probably already had plans. So I drove past a second time and didn't invite her. 

Fast forward to tonight. Christmas night. It's getting late and my house is strewn with wrapping paper and toys, there are unwashed dishes in the sink and I'm trying to motivate myself to get up and straighten my house. Instead I log onto Facebook and I see this woman online. Almost immediately she private messages me saying Merry Christmas and I respond back and ask if she had a nice day. 

The message I received back made me cry, she told me she had spent the day all alone, none of her family called or came to see her. She didn't have Christmas dinner or open any presents and she spent the whole day crying not understanding why everyone had forgotten her on Christmas. And all I could think was that God knew she was going to be all alone and he wanted me to reach out to her and because of my stubbornness and fear and shyness this poor woman spent the day crying and alone. 

I wish I could go back and make things right but I can't. But I can do better in the future and I made a promise to myself that I won't ever let fear or shyness keep me from reaching out to someone again. I made myself another promise too, I won't let this woman spend another holiday alone, not without at least extending an invitation to come spend it with my family. 

I spent almost an hour on Facebook chatting with her and she thanked me for cheering her up but I know that I could have done so much more.