Thursday, January 26, 2012

13 by 2013: Plan of Action

I’ve looked over my list of goals, and come up with a plan of action.  Some of the goals on my list are easy to come up with specific steps for.  Some of them are more difficult.  Hopefully as the year progresses, I’ll have a better idea on those more difficult ones, so this list may very well evolve over time.  I’m okay with that.  My intent is for the goals to be met, I’m flexible with how I get there.  I’m putting this up for my own information, and in hopes that making it public will help keep me accountable.  Feel free to give me your thoughts and opinions on any of it, or just give me a little prodding now and then. 
1.             Build up our savings account:
a.    Put a few dollars from each paycheck into savings.
2.             Strengthen our marriage- We have a good marriage, but I want to keep it that way.  I don’t want to get lax, and then wake up one day 10 years from now and wonder how we got there. 
a.    reread The 5 Love Languages
b.    reread The Love Dare
3.               Take a first step- I don’t know what this will look like yet; I just don’t want to get stuck in a rut.
4.             More focused prayer- I’ve made a list of a handful of things that I want to be sure to spend more time in prayer for. 
a.       Keep copies of this list in purse, car, home, work and pray through it when it comes to mind. 
5.             Deeper relationships- my relationship with God, with Dean and Dinah, with family, with others. 
a.       Constant prayer
b.      Call or text family on a regular basis: weekly?
6.             Do something I’m passionate about -again, the specifics are yet to be determined
7.             Step out of my comfort zone- I need to stretch myself, to allow God to use me instead of hiding in the things I’m used to. 
8.             Listen more- to God, to people… just listen
9.             Have a thankful heart
10.         Live out 1 Corinthians 10:31- So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 
11.      Be more active- for my own health and so that Dinah will grow up being more active.
a.    Go on walks
b.    Play with the dogs more
12.         Complete my goal from July
13.         Drink more water
a.       Choose water, except on occasion

Do you have specific goals, whether for the year or for the month or for the next 5-10 years

Friday, January 20, 2012

Make Me Cry

I used to never cry, especially over movies. 
 Well, except when Armageddon came out when I was in high school and Liv Tyler in saying goodbye to Bruce Willis started to cry and said, “Daddy no.”  I cried with her then.  Other than that, I had never cried during a movie.  Then I got married. 
 In the first few months of our marriage, Dean and I watched We Were Soldiers, which I’d seen before on more than one occasion and it had never bothered me.  Only this time, the thought of losing my husband made me tear up.  Still, I only cried over situations like that.  But then, I became a mother. 
At first, I blamed the extra emotion on hormones.  After sixteen months, though, it doesn’t seem to be temporary anymore.  A lot more things just pull at my heart strings.  A few months ago, around the time Dinah turned one, we were at an event where the pledge of allegiance was said.  Yep, you guessed it, totally teared up. 
Thanks a lot, Dean and Dinah!
They look innocent enough...

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Loading The Gun And Taking Aim

People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going.”
- Earl Nightingale


I read this quote today, and it got me thinking about the goals for 2012 that I shared in my last post.  I don’t want them to just become good intentions.  I haven’t let them slip my mind just yet, but I also haven’t really implemented a good plan of action for them.  The only one I work on daily is my weight loss goal from last summer.  I’m on the right track, and I’ve made progress, but I got kind of lax for awhile.  I’m working at it again, but I still need to work harder. 
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.”
- Yogi Berra

Some of my goals are going to be hard to put into a plan of action just yet, but I need to be constantly aware so that I don’t miss something.  Others can be implemented immediately.  Basically, I need to remember that it starts with small steps in the right direction to reach the end of the road.  Sometimes I’ll walk, sometimes I’ll run, but I need to be constantly moving. 
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."
Zig Ziglar
I’ll be working on my plan of action.  Please don’t hesitate to remind me and keep me accountable, and feel free to offer suggestions.    
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and then leap in the dark to our success." Henry David Thoreau

Thursday, January 5, 2012

13 by 2013

Last spring, I started thinking about goals and how mine needed to be more specific.  I made a start, but I haven’t gone much farther than that.  When I started 2011, I started it by looking back over the previous year.  It was a good thing, to look back and be grateful for the good that had come out of what had felt like a rough year.  I looked ahead some too, but this year, I want to look ahead even more and focus more on the present.  So, I’ve come up with a list of thirteen things I want to work on or accomplish by 2013. 

1.       Build up our savings account
2.       Strengthen our marriage- We have a good marriage, but I want to keep it that way.  I don’t want to get lax, and then wake up one day 10 years from now and wonder how we got there. 
3.       Take a first step- I don’t know what this will look like yet; I just don’t want to get stuck in a rut.
4.       More focused prayer- I’ve made a list of a handful of things that I want to be sure to spend more time in prayer for. 
5.       Deeper relationships- my relationship with God, with Dean and Dinah, with family, with others. 
6.       Do something I’m passionate about -again, the specifics are yet to be determined
7.       Step out of my comfort zone- I need to stretch myself, to allow God to use me instead of hiding in the things I’m used to. 
8.       Listen more- to God, to people… just listen
9.       Have a thankful heart
10.   Live out 1 Corinthians 10:31- So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 
11.   Be more active- for my own health and so that Dinah will grow up being more active.
12.   Complete my goal from July
13.   Drink more water

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Mathematics

I'm working on a list of goals for the year, but I'm not finished yet.  Look for that post to come.  In the meantime, I was able to spend some time last weekend looking through some old pictures of Dean's family. I love looking at pictures of Dean and his sister and brother when they were kids, and I have seen entirely too few of them.  Some of the pictures would automatically strike me with resemblances, some were just cute, some were funny.  I had a blast.  I picked up a picture of my MIL as a pre-teen and saw bits of my husband, then I picked up another of my FIL and saw more.  They're different ages, but I've decided the combination of these two pictures are really a good depiction of Dean. 




The next generation...