Too often, I've stumbled upon a list of New Year's resolutions mid-year, only to have the thought, "oh, yeah, I forgot I was planning to do X this year!" So, this year, I decided that I would review resolutions monthly so that I can refocus my efforts. And, in case you're wondering, no, I do not plan to subject you to this every month. I'll just make a note on the 1st of each month in my planner to do a progress check. Here's how things are going so far.
1. Teach the kids skills to make them more confident and independent. Girl 1's once-a-week cooking has been a big hit! Also, Girl 2 has stepped it up in the kitchen and has been a big help in garden planning and prep work. Little Boy is getting his shoes on the right foot almost every time (on the inside of each shoe, I drew a profile of a person and told him to make them kiss to get the shoes right). He's also carrying his dishes to the table and putting on his own clothes (albeit, he consistently puts his undies on backward AND inside out -- baby steps).
2. Run at least 365 miles, including all area 5K races. So far so good. We've not had any area races yet, but we're registered for the one later this month, and because of training for the crazy race we have coming up in May (more on this later), I'm well ahead of my mileage goal.
3. Pray through Common Prayer for Ordinary Radicals. This is going really well. I'm loving this book. John is doing this, too, so it's nice that we can discuss the readings together.
4. Pray consistently with the kids at bedtime. It turns out that one of John's resolutions was to read to the kids at bedtime, so we've been able to work these two in together. With the girls, we are reading a chapter a night then having a quiet prayer time. Little Boy enjoys reading the books he's chosen from the library each week.
5. Market some homemade wares (soap, probably). Nothing on this yet, but I'm in the planning phases.
6. Eat/serve more raw and whole foods. We are definitely doing this. In fact, as I was searching the pantry for canned goods to use as the molds for my newspaper pots, I could only find one lone can of soup. The rest of the "canned" goods in the pantry were actually mason jars.
7. Support local businesses with my dollar. Umm. Well, I'm buying my gas locally, and we all get our hair cut in town. Other than that, I've not done so well with this one yet. Well, this is what today's post is all about -- renewing the focus.
8. Learn more about farming (goat kidding/cows/organic gardening). With it's limited daylight hours, winter provides a natural rest time on the farm. Because we enjoy very little screen time around here, that's meant lots of quiet evenings spent with books. I'm now all read up on goat kidding. I plan to do more research on bee keeping. And, I've finalized my list of books I want to buy with the Amazon card I got for Christmas.
9. Volunteer some of my time to a worthy cause or two (??) The Bethany Project hasn't hosted any events yet this year, but I'll definitely be involved with that when they do. I did notice a church in Batesville yesterday had a sign up regarding their soup kitchen lunches. Hmmm.
10. Eat lunch at the elementary school once a week. We love doing this!
11. Replace more personal hygiene products/ household cleaners with homemade/cleaner versions Well, the baking soda shampoo effort didn't turn out so well, but nearly all household cleaners are now homemade.
12. Maintain an active/interesting blog. You'll have to be the judge of this one! ;)
How are your resolutions going?