Daily Goals
- Keep a gratitude journal. There have been about billion studies showing that doing this can increase happiness, joy, spirituality, appreciation for others, etc. etc. I have started doing this with an app called "One Thousand Gifts," with the idea of recording 1,000 "gifts" (joys/gratitude) by the end of the year. The app is great because you can capture images and locations of joys and then sync the pictures with Flickr to have a record of all of the images. I have been doing this first thing in the morning and have already noticed that I am paying a lot more attention to some of the beauty in nature.
Monthly Goals
- Conduct an in-depth purge/clean of one area in the house + car/van each month. We have come up with a schedule to do this and put one Saturday a month in our work calendar for this, along with an assigned area. First on the agenda is the fourth bedroom (the office/guest room), which has all of Will's childhood memorabilia.
- Go on a "date" with each of the kids each month. Will and I are really good about scheduling dates with each other and doing family activities with all four of us, but not as good at having quality one-on-one time alone with each child (unless you count driving someone to daycare or an activity as quality time). Our goal is to have two "dates" each month so that we each have a chance to have one-on-one time. This month, we put it on our work calendar for two of the Thursday evenings where we are all free and will let the kids decide what they want to do.
- Volunteer somewhere as a whole family once a month. We are trying to involve our kids more in helping the community. I feel like right now Will and I help in various areas at the kids' schools/activities/church, but we haven't involved them as much in helping themselves. So this coming Saturday, rather than one of us helping with the church "un-decorating" for Christmas and the other hanging out with the kids at home, we will all go as a family and work together (even if it means it takes us longer!).
- Perform a Random Act of Kindness as a whole family at least once a month. We did some of these in December and it was SO much fun for all of us. I've gotten some great ideas on Pinterest that I am excited to try (like leaving money and notes in random library books, gathering up all of the carts at a store parking lot, etc.).
Year-End Goals
- Meet my 5k and 10k time goals. As I blogged earlier, I want to run sub-30 minutes in a 5k race and sub-60 minutes in a 10k race. To accomplish this, I am working more on speed work, running a lot of 5k and 10k races (first up is Groundhog in Kansas City at the end of January, a completely underground race!), and will NOT run any half-marathons (I think this last part of the plan might be the trickiest...)
- Transfer all of our CDs to iTunes. We have a ridiculous amount of CDs randomly scattered throughout the house. I have set a date in May on my work calendar to just "do it" but it might translate into a longer summer project.
...And that's it! I am excited for this year. What about you? What are you looking forward to in this year? Do you have any goals you want to accomplish?
And finally, here is a picture of the Cherubs Choir from church this morning. So cute (not that I'm biased). ;)
3 comments:
This picture is great! Thanks for sharing and the boys had a GREAT time today!!!
Amy -- I just accomplished the "get all the CDs into iTunes" goal last year. I had started in about 2003 and gotten about 25% of them ripped! Last year I finished, totaling up to about 8,000 tracks and around 80 GB. Two suggestions: first, back this up as you go or once you've completed it. An easy way to do this is to buy the iTunes match service for $25/year. (Of course, other options are cheaper in the long run, but none are really any easier). Second, don't forget to rip any new CDs you buy or are given once you're through. You don't want to have to go through your library again once it's done!
Angela - we all had a wonderful time!! Definitely need to have them over again soon!
Brian - I am impressed - that must have taken for.ever. I am honestly not sure how many hours and hours it is going to take.... Thanks for the tip about the back-up service; I hadn't thought about that.
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