February goals

Homemaking

*  Establish Flylady routines.  I kinda have my own version of that.  I spent today making up a general calendar that can be reused monthly (no dates on it) to make sure everyone helps with work. I'll make up a Flylady calendar to guide my own work.   I really just need to follow through with my plans.

*Make lunches daily.  I think my biggest challenges with this has been: (1) I don't always have bread, because I don't always get around to making it.  So, I bought three plastic containers big enough to hold the dry ingredients for two of my favorite bread recipes.  All I have to do is put in the wet ingredients and dump in the pre-measured dry ingredients.  Maybe that'll help.  (2) CM and JJ don't always wake up with enough time to make their lunches.  So if it's sandwiches I'll have them make their lunches the night before.  I can also have a cooking day when I make up several salads or other non-sandwich lunch items that can be stored in the fridge til they're needed.  The challenge with that will be not snacking on them. :)

*Make breakfast daily.  Again, biggest challenge has been not enough time to make stuff.  So, again, baking day to make quick breads and muffins, and stuff like waffles that freeze well.  I've also seen a recipe for homemade egg McMuffin-type sandwiches that can be frozen.  And I need to actually follow through on my plan to make breakfast casseroles for Fridays and Saturdays.

Church

*Be at church at 10:45 for JJ to do his priesthood duties.  The biggest thing to this will be: making sure I follow through on my plan to make sure everything is ready for Sunday on Saturday:  clothes ready; anything we take to church put in the car Saturday night; any food we need for Sunday taken out of the freezer.  Also, taking my shower and getting mostly dressed immediately on waking up, instead of messing around reading news, etc.  And getting everyone up at 9 and getting going on showers.  If we can't make our departure time of 10:40, then we'll have to go to waking up at 8:30

*Go the extra mile in visiting teaching.  Doing visiting teaching itself hasn't been a problem--I have a great VT companion and we work well together.  So my goal will be to go the extra mile.  February will be my turn to teach the lesson, so I can prepare lessons with the sister in mind; take each sister a little Valentine's Day something (two of my sisters are divorced and one is living separately from her husband due to job circumstances); follow up with them at church weekly, etc.

            

*Keep up with RS birthday visits.  I will contact the RS secretary to see who's left and then lay claim to 4 of them.  One of those February birthdays is the RS first counselor, so I will make her a special birthday card.  

*Do at least 1/4 of my emergency list.  This is simply making sure that the sisters of our ward know who their local emergency leader is, his/her contact information and knowing where to go in case of emergency.  I will email everyone I have an email address for and then follow up.  My goal is to get at least 1/4 of the list done.

Spiritual

*Do gospel study daily (Book of Mormon, Sunday School lesson, RS lesson, etc.).  Every day, twice a day (morning and evening) I will read several chapters in the Book of Mormon and get caught up on the 90 day reading challenge.  On Tuesdays I will read the RS lesson.  On Thursdays I will read the Sunday School lesson.

*Personal, meaningful prayer daily—remembering to pray for friends, family & ward members.  The biggest challenge I have had with prayer is that I am not making it part of my bedtime routine.  So I need to allow more time to get ready for bed, which includes washing my face, brushing/flossing my teeth, reading my scriptures and praying.

Mental

*Read one classic book of literature.  Instead of playing games on my Kindle, I'll read.  I think I'll delete my games from the Kindle.  Not just remove from the carousel but actually delete them.  I got the Kindle for reading purposes, not for playing games.  I need to look at the books I've downloaded to choose one.

*Write in blog minimum 3x/week.  I think I'll do this at 1 pm after dropping off AD at school and let NW watch a half hour of Disney channel.

Physical

*Restart exercise program.  I'm excited because I was able to order two of my favorite Jane Fonda workouts on DVD!  So I'm thinking I'll do yoga and weight training at home in the morning, then alternate nights between Jane Fonda workouts and gym C25K running.  When our year membership is up, I think I may drop mine in favor of running outside.  Not sure on that one yet.

            

*Limit sugar to weekends.  I know I'm eating way too much sugar, and too much in general.  So my February goal in revamping my diet is to limit sugar to Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Sugar meaning things like candy, cookies, desserts, soda pop and sugary drinks (bye bye lemonade).  I will eat waffles with fruit instead of syrup.  I will find or make foods that are sugar free (i.e. make salad dressings without sugar instead of consuming store bought dressings with sugar).  Next month I will limit sugar to Saturday and Sunday.  Then in April, sugar only on Sunday.  After that, only for special occasions (i.e birthdays).  I'll see if I can refrain from eating sugar on holidays, or have just a small piece.

Social

*Date with The Writer.  We'll have a nice at-home Valentine's date.  Not gonna try to go out on Valentine's day on Saturday!

*GNO with L.  We'll try again to schedule something.

*Invite family over for dinner.  I have a family in mind--hope it can get scheduled.

Outdoors

*Keep driveway and walks clear of snow.  If it ever snows again this winter.

*Backup plan:  Clean up yard.  Rake up old leaves and sticks.  If ground is thawed, clean out flower beds.  Walk around property and make a list of repairs that need to be done.

*Clean up garage.  Throw away stuff that needs to be thrown away.  Put stuff that belongs in shed in there.  Gather stuff to be donated and get it done.  Take stuff that belongs inside, inside and put away. See what else I can get rid of.

Financial

*Figure out credit card repayment schedule.  This is more of a follow up to be sure we're on track.

*Get savings accounts for each child/deposit money. I just need to collect the money (it's already divided out into envelopes) and ID stuff and get myself over to the bank!

Scrapbooking

*Get almost finished pages finished and into albums.  That's going to be my only goal for scrapbooking for this month because I have a foot-tall stack of pages on my table that are waiting to be finished and put in albums.

I'm not going to set a sewing goal because I want to focus on the scrapbooking.

Well, there are my February goals!  Hope this month goes better!