Goals: January Update

So it's been one month since I laid out my old/new goals and to keep accountable I'm reporting on my progress. I am overall happy with how I did in the month of January. I didn't focus on all ten this month so some I was more successful at than others.

1. Make teaching my kids first priority.....everyday. We did excellent at getting ALL of our schoolwork done this month. We are in a good schedule now of morning school and afternoon school. We passed the 100 day mark which is always a great feeling!!!
2. Focus on having fun. Some of the fun things we did this month were making a volcano, making a 3D drawing, and doing some fun chemistry experiments. When Prince Charming was away on business we also had late movie nights, banana splits, and s'mores. We have had to postpone a museum trip with friends a few times because of weather but I'm hoping to accomplish this in the near future.
3. Bible Study. I did fairly well with this one but there is no excuse why I can't be doing the study like I want every day. I will definitely work harder towards this goal in February.
4. Reading. I read one book in January!!!! Now granted I finished at 11:58pm on January 31 but I did it. It kind of felt like cramming for a test. I read "A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family". It was a great book and I took away a few new ideas. Now I technically don't consider our family an all out large family.....yet. But I do like reading books written by homeschooling moms with multiple children for the mere fact that they have many different age levels. This is where the challenge comes in for me. If I had all my kids working on the same curriculum things would be easy! But juggling two elementary students, one active toddler, and nursing a baby in the middle of it all.....that's my challenge.
5. Craft Day. I did not accomplish this goal.
6. Hospitality. We did have some friends from co-op come over for a sledding date. This months weather was so awful that I didn't want to make people get out of their houses! I did do a fairly good job at keeping the house at that "1 hour" rule though.
7. Exercise. O.K. but needs improvement. I think I exercised about twice a week and my goal is four times.
8. Start new ministry. Still more to come on this later.
9. Date nights. We went out once this month. Again, the weather kind of kept us in.
10. Blogging. While my January blogging was light I feel like I caught up quickly and actually am on top of things. That's a HUGE improvement!

So all in all I considered it a pretty successful month as far as goals are concerned.

Goals for 2010: Reading

So I have many goals for 2010 and will be posting on them throughout the week. My first goal is not only to do more Bible reading but also more recreational/learning reading as well. I did fairly well last year with 6 books. Now to you avid readers this is a rather pathetic number but for this VERY busy and tired mama I think it was a great accomplishment. I have a list of 14 books I would like to read in 2010. I figured one a month was an attainable goal if I really try. So 14 will be pushing me a little. Some of the books J and I will be reading together. Yes, we have been reading Family Driven Faith for about 8 months now but I'm determined to finish it by the end of this week. Finding time to read for me is hard but finding an extra couple of minutes to read with J seems nearly impossible. We'll be working on that. Here is my 2010 book list.



1. Ten P's in the Pod

2. Family Driven Faith(with J)

3. Practicing Hospitality: The Joy of Serving Others

4. The hidden Art of Homemaking

5. When You Rise Up: A covenantal approach to homeschooling

6. Permission Granted to do Church Different in the 21st Century(with J)

7. Mark of the Lion: A voice in the wind

8. Mark of the Lion: an echo in the darkness

9. Mark of the Lion: as sure as the dawn

10. The Mother at Home

11. The Family Integrated Church(with J)

12. Be Fruitful and Multiply(with J)

13. Beloved Bride: The letters of Stonewall Jackson to his wife.

14. Marriage to a Difficult Man: The uncommon union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards



I have the book list in the sidebar of this blog so I can easily reference it and so it's there staring me in the face to remind me of my goal. Sometimes I need that.

I'm Not Giving Up and Book Review

So I have been trying to put together a slide show of our Disney trip to music and it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I'm hoping Josh will be able to help me in the next couple of days. He said it was more complicated than it should be. I'm not going to give up!!! I was wanting to post that before I did any other blogging but because I don't know when it will be done I will just post it when it is.


Now onto the Book Review..............

I've never been one who is into fiction as an adult. When I was younger I loved reading it but as an adult I just haven't. Some days I get only a couple of Bible verses read and I've always said,"I'm not going to be reading something else if I can't even get in good Bible reading time." Well I've heard about the book "Redeeming Love" for quite awhile from some different people and I finally decided to get it from the library. I made a 2009 book list and I wanted to try to include at least one fiction and this was the one. IT WAS AMAZING!!! This book gave the best picture of God's grace, mercy, love, obedience,.......I could go on and on. I will definitely buy this book down the road and read it again. It is a must read.