Reexamining My Year

Last year I posted four New Year's Resolutions.  I had never really done resolutions before but I decided to try it.  I apparently proved the theory that if you make it as a resolution you absolutely won't achieve it because there is only one of my four goals that I successfully kept: keeping up with One Tale a Day.  The others I failed miserably.  Just as a summary for you...

- Weight loss program?!? What weight loss program!?!? I definitely only deprived myself a little and didn't achieve any great weight loss this year.
- Cooking through the Pioneer Woman's cookbook?  I gave up about October when I realized I had about 30 recipes left and football ahead of me which means weekends in Tuscaloosa, Wednesday's or Thursday's getting ready to leave and Monday's and Tuesday's unpacking and getting readjusted from the weekend.  That leaves little time to cook in depth recipes!  I did make my way through over half of the book but that's it.  It is a great cookbook though and I do highly recommend it!
- And spending more time enjoying God and less time stressing about what comes next?  I will blame post-partum emotions and craziness for not following through with this although I do feel like I've gotten better about this in the second half of the year but I also picked up a lot more outside the home commitments so I'm not sure it's an even balance!

So, since I've got a pretty awful track record I decided to go back with my traditional not making resolution's plan.  But there are some things I want to accomplish in 2011 so I'm going to say that they're goals instead of resolutions and maybe that will break the New Year's Resolution curse! :)  I'm also going to post them as a page on the blog so that I can go back and refer to them easily throughout the year.  So, without further ado here are my "goals" for 2011.

1. Be more intentional about dates with Jason.  I'd like to go on a by our self date at least every other month and a by our self date or a double date the other months.  I think it's so important to make your marriage a priority after kids and it's harder to take a night off than I thought it would be.  We get out a lot and spend a lot of time together but rarely on an intentional date night and I would like to do more of that.

2. Continue Bible Study with friends.  I've got a great group of ladies that meets on Monday night's once a month during the school year and more often in the summer and I want to keep that up.  Some weeks it's hard to make it a priority and get there but I'm always rewarded with learning something and strengthening our friendship's when I go.  I want to keep it up even if it's just a few of us for a few months because I learn a lot from these women and it helps keep me accountable for staying in the Word.

3. Get involved in our new church.  We've spent most of the last year looking for a new church and have finally found one that we are comfortable with and feel like God has led us to.  Due to our crazy football schedule and sickness we haven't gotten to really get plugged in yet but I want to take this year to get plugged in to our Sunday School and also help throughout the church. 

4. Work on weight loss.  Amanda Jones has inspired me with her decision to take most of 2010 and 2011 off from french fries.  So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I'm taking the year off from french fries also.  I think that will be easier than all fried foods just because sometimes the non-fried options aren't the best so I'll stick with french fries and try to avoid fried foods in general when I can.

5. Get a darkroom set up and play with photography.  Back in high school I took two years of photography and I also took one course in college  Back then (in the dark ages) digital photography was just becoming mainstream and we were still developing black and white film in darkrooms.  I always told Jason that when we got older I wanted a darkroom but once everything pretty much moved to digital I kind of wrote it off as something that would never happen.  Well, Jason surprised me with darkroom equipment for Christmas and I am so excited to get it set up and going!  It's going to take quite some effort to get a place in our house set up for it but I want to make the time to get it done so that I can start messing around with it again!  We'll see how long it takes me to relearn rolling a film on a spool which I was never good at to begin with! :)

6. Continue One Tale a Day.  I loved the everyday pictures that I captured with this project and I want to keep it up.  However, I'm not going to be as crazy about making sure I get each and every day this year.  I'm just going to do my best to capture most of them.  I love Erin's description of what the one frame a day project should be like and I'm going to continue this project like that.  I also want to finish my book of One Tale a Day from this year and get it printed!

7. Complete the Siesta Scripture Memory Team challenge.  Beth Moore puts together a group of women on her blog (Siesta's) and they memorize two Bible verses a month on the 1st and 15th.  Those that finish the challenge through the end of the year are invited to a special weekend January of the next year.  I really want to get more grounded in the word this year and I think this is going to be a great way to do it.  I can't wait to post my first verse tomorrow!

8. Be more intentional about girl time with friends.  Women that are in the same place in life as you and who build you up and encourage you are so important but it's easy with kids and families and activities outside of the house to kind of let those friendships slip into the background.  I want to make it a point to call and check up with friends and see how I can pray for and help them and also make an effort to get together without our kids for a little stress relief and fun time.  I can't wait to put this into action!

9. Limit my spending to things that I need instead of things that I want and donate the difference to Compassion.  There is little that I truly need and I'd like to limit my want spending this year to things that are really important to me.  I'm hoping that I can save quite a bit of money and donate more to Compassion this year because I really believe in what they're doing and want to be a part of what they're doing in an even bigger way!

10. Change the blog over to a more customizable format.  I'd like to switch to Wordpress and my own site name but we'll see when I have time to make that happen! But it is a goal!

The last goal is something I alluded to after going to Deeper Still but I'm still not ready to go blog-public with it yet.  I'll add it and blog about it when I'm ready! But know that there is a goal 11 for 2011!