Off to a great start!

So I have been thinking about all the goals I want to be meeting and then things I want to do to change my life. Right now things are a disaster and for a while now I have been feeling like I am just fighting to keep my mouth above water (not my head, just my mouth - that's how much I have been drowning in CHAOS). So since it is the new year, I guess I could call these goals New Year Resolutions - however, they are more like Life Resolutions. Brian and I have been talking about the goals we want to meet individually, and most of them match, so we had a talk yesterday about how we can meet those goals.

I went to my sister's blog and she had written her resolutions down, and I thought that would be a great idea so I can keep track of them all.

1. Read the scriptures and pray daily - individually, as a family, and as a couple. Things have been so hectic that we just lose the momentum of working on our spiritual health. We are really good at family prayer but we haven't done family scripture study for a while. Now that the kids are old enough and own their own set of scriptures we are going to start in a book and read a chapter each night with all of us taking turns reading 5 verses. We started last night.

Since Brian and I both have callings that make it so we can't go to Sunday School (I'm in the Primary working with the kids, and Brian is the Ward Clerk so he is usually doing stuff for the Bishop), we decided that for our Couple scripture study we would go through the Sunday School study guide discussion questions. We were going to read the scriptures together after the kids went to bed, but we felt like we had just read the scriptures 10 minutes ago... oh wait we did! We have family scriptures study at 8 so then we get done and put the kids to bed, so we decided we will read the sunday school assigned scriptures for our individual study, then discuss them after the kids go to bed for our couple scripture study.

Since we are studying the Book of Mormon this year for Sunday School, I want to read the whole thing this year, so I have a chart that will help me read it completely but keep me on schedule for reading the assigned scriptures.

2. FHE - now that Brian is cutting back on his Monday gigs we can have a regular night again for Family Home Evening. We were doing well when Tuesdays were always free and that was our night. Then Tuesdays became all-city day fro Brian, so we potentially moved it to Thursdays, but now with Quianna in Mutualy (Youth Group) on Wednesdays and Brian teaching All-City on Tuesdays, Thursdays became the day that Brian could do meetings, go out with the missionaries, have gigs, or filled up with other stuff and we never made the switch to Thursdays official. Now, we are going to do Mondays. We are starting are first Monday FHE off with going over to the Holmes. They invited us and the Christensens over (people in our ward that have kids Quianna and Elijah's age).

3. Exercise - Both Brian and I are doing the 100 Push ups Challenge, and the 200 Sit Ups Challenge. We are also doing the couch to 5k. The plan is we are doing the sit ups and pushups on our own, but when he gets home for work, we go for a jog. Hopefully doing this with someone will help me stay accountable. Also, it will help to not have to go jogging in the morning.

4. Get my life and our house decluttered, organized, and keep it that way! Today I reorganized my control journal along with routines for keeping my Homeschool, All-city Work, Sierra Work, and House work straight. I also downloaded and printed the 2011 and 2012 Declutter Calendars.

I want to declutter and organize the garage especially. That is the biggest problem in our house. I want a spot for each holiday's decoration (and wrapping paper/supplies). I want a spot for our food - since we don't have a lot of room upstairs for one. I want spots for outdoor games, gardening, camping, my boxes of fabric and craft stuff, Halloween costumes, snow clothes. My dream is to line the walls with shelves and then have storage tubs and drawers with everything. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a place for everything so when I need something, I know exactly where it is and it is easy to grab? Then when I need to put it away, I can take it to its place. Oh, that would be amazing. First step is to declutter, and do one section at a time. I think I'll start with the Christmas stuff since it is already out. Then move to the food section.

The biggest thing about all these goals is self discipline and not to procrastinate. That will be the Master Challenge - my Master Resolution! Wish me luck!