My goals for 2010

I wanted to get my goals for the next year--goals, not resolutions--written down somewhere. My cooking blog seemed an odd place, as did our family blog, so I thought putting them here would be fitting since technically this blog is about a goal in my life. While I'm sure there are other things that will come to mind at some point or things I decide I want to do mid-year, I think this is a good starter list for me and mostly attainable if I work at it! I'm just listing my personal goals, not ones John and I have set together for our family.

Weight Loss: I've kind of fallen of the WW bandwagon over the holidays, which I completely expected to do. I've been mindful of what I eat but at the same time haven't tried to be good. I'd like to start exercising five days a week--treadmill three days a week and an exercise video twice a week--as well as monitoring my daily point intake. Ideally I'd like to drop about 35 pounds from what I weigh now, but I don't know if that's healthy. I have a doctor's appointment for a regular ol' check-up coming up next week, so I'm going to discuss it with her.

A Clean House: This past year I made up a cleaning schedule for my house, different chores for each day so that my house would stay clean, laundry would get done, etc. Yeah...I never really stuck to it. I'm tired of my house seeming to be a mess all the time, so I vow to stick to the cleaning schedule I created. Along with this I'd like to focus on one room over a two week period and do a thorough clean out and organize of it to limit clutter build up. We have a decent size house, but we have very little storage space, so things tend to accumulate quickly.

Smart Kids: We were always really good about reading books to Will when he was a baby, but sadly we haven't done as good a job with reading to Miles. I want to make sure I read at least two books a day to him. So far his language development is pretty far behind where Will was at 13 months (but physically he can do more, so who knows), and I wonder if this is part of the reason. For Will I want him to be able to write more letters and start to recognize sight words for reading. He's so interested in letters and numbers I think this should be pretty easy to accomplish.

Crockpot Dinners: I want to make at least one dinner a week in the crockpot. Dinnertime gets to be so nuts around here, this will definitely simplify things for me.

Eat More Vegetarian: We were doing really well for awhile at eating several vegetarian meals a week, and then I started slacking on it. I'd like to get back to planning at least three vegetarian dinners each week.

Scrapbooking: I am ridiculously far behind on scrapbooking for my family. Like to the point I wonder if I can ever catch up. I'd like to spend some time scrapbooking at least once every two weeks, if not every week. Even if it's just doing one layout.

Read More: I've always loved to read, but since I've had kids I rarely have time to sit and read something for fun. I'd love to be able to do more reading for fun, and I think it would be beneficial for my kids to see me reading for my own enjoyment as well.

Bible Reading: I find when I'm consistent about reading my Bible every day that the Lord really blesses my life and things in general are a lot easier. It saddens me to think how little I've read in the word this year, so for 2010 I really want to make reading the Bible a daily priority--something that if I skip doing it, I notice that I didn't do it.

Body Maintenance: My friend Beth told me one time that she and her husband refer to anything you have to do to keep your body in line (i.e. showering, teethbrushing, etc.) as body maintenance. I thought that was funny and it stuck with me. Since I stay home with my kids I can get really lazy about body maintenance since a lot of days I don't have to be anywhere or if I do, it's with other SAHMs who don't really care if I've showered or not because chances are they haven't either. I feel a lot better about myself if I take the time to actually dry and style my hair and--gasp--put on make-up, so I'm going to aim for more of that in the coming year. For the record, I generally shower every day or at the very least every other day. If I'm going to all the trouble of dropping 30+ pounds I figure the rest of me should look good, too.

Message Board: I'm a member of a parenting message board that I really enjoy but rarely spend time on anymore. The ladies that frequent the board have such diverse backgrounds and great viewpoints, I really enjoy reading and posting there, so even though it seems strange to add something that relates to more time online to my goal list, I would like to become more involved in TMS again.

New Hobbies: I don't really know why I'm toying with this idea since I don't have time for the hobbies I currently have, but I'd like to add something to my repertoire. I'd like to learn how to knit, but I'm not sure how easy that is to self teach. I'm going to look into it at the very least.

Phew...I think that's about it or at least all I remember at this point. Some seem kind of lofty as I read over them, but at the same time it's really just a matter of getting in a new routine.

So...bring it on, 2010!