March Books

These are the books that I've read in March, my "other" books.  Feel free to read the list of 12 books that I'm planning to read in 2013.  You can also see all the books I've read this year and find links to their reviews on my Pinterest page.

March was a much slower reading month than January or February, but that's OK.  The books I read this month were a little longer and I needed to "simmer" over them for a while.  In total, I only read 3 books in March.  I've reviewed Dirty God here.

Remember this picture?  Those were the books I planned to read this month.  (Don't know what I'm talking about?  Join me on Instagram to be kept in the loop.)  Yeah, I only read one of those books.  Oh well, they are still on my list for April.

So here are the other 2 books that I've read this month.

Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Update: Oops, I forgot to tell where I got these great books.  I found this one in a bookstore as we were killing time before dinner one night (those bookstores with train tables are great!).  My wonderful husband bought it for me.

Synopsis:  Two of the world's most successful bloggers walk you through how to start and run a money-making blog.  From choosing a blog, choosing the platform on which to host it, promoting it and learning how to earn revenue, the authors give you detailed instructions for every step of the way.

My Thoughts:  This is an absolute must-read for everyone who wants to blog for income.  I learned things such as how to build a "sticky" blog community and how to effectively use social media to promote my blog.  The fact that the authors run a successful, very lucrative blog at problogger.net is just icing on the top.  After reading the book, I visited the site and it's like I get an encore of the book every day.  That in itself is incredibly useful to me.

Although I wish the book had gone more in depth about some things like SEO (search engine optimization), it did give me a great deal of information about many things in relation to my blog that I had never thought about before.  It will take me a while to process it all.  I'm sure Problogger will be a resource that I refer back to quite often in the future.

All Things New by Lynn Austin

Update:  Since I'm a huge Lynn Austin fan and this was her new book, my mom bought it for me and gave it to me as a Christmas gift.  I just wish I hadn't waited 2 months to read it.

Synopsis: The Civil War has just ended and the Weatherly family is trying to figure out how to live this new life they find themselves in.  In Antebellum times, they had owned a prosperous cotton plantation in Virginia complete with dinner parties, carriage rides and the most valuable asset of all...slaves.  Now, Phillip, the owner of the plantation, as well as the head of the Weatherly family, is dead and their slaves have been freed by their former enemy, the dreaded Yankees.  Can young Josephine, her mother Eugenia and their former slave, Lizzy, all figure out how to survive?

My Thoughts:  Lynn Austin is one of my favorite authors and once again, she does not disappoint.  Every character in this book is so well-rounded and complex.  Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the three women: Josephine, Eugenia and Lizzy.  You get one view of a character from outside of them and a completely different view of that character when you gets to live in her shoes for a chapter or two.  What might look like one motive to one person becomes a completely different motive when viewed from the other side.  Lynn Austin does a great job with that.

I also love that this story looks at an aspect of the Civil War not often talked about in books - the Reconstruction. It's great that the North won and that slavery was abolished but when Southerners were sent home to figure out how to survive in a new normal that they knew nothing about, then you start to feel for them and empathize with their plight.  You get new insight into why the Civil War was fought in the first place and why the South felt like it couldn't survive without slavery.

But the best part of the book?  The hope that is present throughout it all.  Hope just emanates from the lives of all three women, hope that the future will be better than the present. If you love historical fiction, than you will love this book.

I've read 3 books in March.  That brings my total up to 16 books for the year.  I'm well on my way to reaching my 40 book goal.  See all the books I've read on my Pinterest page.

February Books

These are the books that I've read in February, my "other" books.  Feel free to read the list of 12 books that I'm planning to read in 2013.  You can also see all the books I've read this year and find links to their reviews on my Pinterest page.

6 Ways to Keep the Little in Your Girl

My wonderful husband gave me this book and the one below as Christmas gifts.

Synopsis:  Written for mothers of tween-aged girls (ages 8 - 12), Six Ways helps mothers of girls navigate all the tricky things in her girl's life.  It tells clearly how to tell your daughter about puberty and how to keep her from becoming too boy-crazy too young.  Gresh speaks about modesty, appropriate clothing and toys as well as appropriate media that your young daughter should and should not be exposed to.  

My Thoughts:  This is a must read for every mother with an 8-12 year old daughter!  There are so many things that scare me about this world for my daughter.  I want my her to have every chance to be pure and innocent for as long as she possibly can.  I want her to love pretending and reading books and playing with her doll right now instead of thinking about clothes or makeup or boys.  This book gives very practical advice on how to keep your little girl a little girl.  I love Dannah's easy to read, conversational style and I love how current the book is (talks specifically about celebrities such as Mylie Cyrus and Lady Gaga).  You can bet this will be kept and used as a resource in our house for a quite a while.

8 Great Dates for Moms and Daughters

Synopsis:  Written as a companion book to the Six Ways book (listed above), 8 Great Dates lists out 8 places to take your tween daughter and 8 things to teach her on those dates.  Studies have shown that a daughter's relationship with her mother is the single most important relationship that she has in her tween and teenage years.  Gresh gives 8 ways to keep the conversation open with your child while affirming her individuality and teaching her about the beauty that God created in her.

My Thoughts:  Another great book by Dannah Gresh.  Finding ways to connect to your tween daughter and finding great, unique ways to teach her how beautiful she is, is very hard.  Luckily Dannah created a cheat-sheet for us moms.  The dates listed in the book include visiting an art museum to learn how men look at women's bodies and subsequently, why we should dress modestly; getting a facial done at a local spa to learn how lovely and unique every human face is; and going on a special, fancy date with both mom and dad to learn how important purity is.  I think Julie is a little to young to appreciate these dates right now, but I will be coming back to this book in a year or so and following every word.  (Both Dannah Gresh books correspond with her SecretKeeperGirl website.  Feel free to go there for more information.)

When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away
This book is so old, it's not currently being sold on Amazon and there is no picture of the cover.  This was a recommendation from Honey for a Women's Heart in the biography section.  I checked it out of our local library.

Synopsis:  This memoir by Eric Newby follows him through his imprisonment in a POW camp in Italy in WWII and his journey through Italy for 4 months, after his release.  Throughout the story, Eric is helped numerous times by the Italian people in the countryside, people he had formerly thought of as his enemy.

My Thoughts:  This was a very unique book.  I learned so many things about WWII that I didn't know.  I never realized that Allied POW's in Italy were released at the time of the Italian surrender in Sept 1943.  However, no one came to get them because Germans were swarming the country.  So those prisoners had to either survive in Italy and hide from the Germans (or those loyal to the Germans), escape over the mountains to Switzerland or make their way through Italy to the south and cross the battle lines to where the Allied forces were fighting.  Newby does a great job of helping the reader realize that the Italian people were not really the enemy.  Their government was the enemy, but, like everyone around the world, the Italian peasants just wanted the war to end and for their sons to come home.

While the subject matter and storyline were unique, reading the book was a little tedious.  There were a lot of descriptions of mountains and trees and ridges.  There is a map at the beginning of the book which helps as you're reading, but it still took a while to wade through the imagery.  That being said, I still wanted to keep reading.  I still wanted the story to go on.  And I still enjoyed it.

The following are all short e-books that I got free on Amazon.  The titles pretty much give a good description of the books, so I won't include a synopsis on these.  They really only take an hour or so each to read.  If you are looking for free Kindle books like these, visit ereadergirl.com.  She lists all the best of the free fiction, nonfiction and kids books for the day.

Real Clever Solutions and Ideas

If you could see all the bookmarks that I saved from this book on my Kindle, you would know that there really are clever solutions and ideas in this book.  I found great ways to remove soap scum and to make nontoxic drain cleaner.  This is a very useful little book.  (Look for it to pop up free again on Amazon or pay the $0.99 for it.  It's worth it.)

55 Things to do for $5

Don't waste your money on this.  I thought there would be good, cheap entertainment ideas in here.  But no, the ideas were things like people watch, exercise or do your gardening.  I really don't consider those things entertainment.  From the title, I thought it was going to be more creative.

25 money making businesses you can start in your spare time

This e-book lists 25 ideas for online business.  Each chapter includes a few paragraphs about what the business is and how much it costs to get started.  Then there are a bunch of websites listed that you can visit for more information on the subject.  If you are really wanting to start an online business and have no clue of the business choices out there, then this book would be helpful.  If you are aware of the business options out there, then this book won't help you much.

How to become a successful work at home mom

This one was just OK.  It was aimed at someone who formerly had an outside job and wanted to transition that job to home.  It's not really for a mom trying to start up a home business.  Also, the author is based in the UK so some of the things she wrote about did not apply to Americans.

The Makings of a Young Entrepreneur

Written by a 5th grader - a 5th grader! - who has a successful online jewelry business, this book is very impressive.  Aimed at children, I found Gabrielle Williams to be very well spoken and very relevant.  She talks about not only the fun part of a business but about the hard work involved in starting and running one.   Not only is she a successful businesswoman at such a young age (she started her company when she was 7), she is a sought after motivational speaker.  This is a great book for any child who has ideas of becoming an entrepreneur.

Making Money on the Internet - 197 Ways to Increase your Income from Home in your Spare Time

I thought this was one of the worst books I've ever read.  I almost didn't include it on the list because I so disliked it, but I figured bad reviews are just as important as good ones.  It looks like this book is long and might have good info, but no, really the author just uses really big fonts for the chapter titles.  There is hardly any real information in any of the chapters.  Pretty much it's just a list of websites to visit, those that promise you money for one reason or another.  Most of the chapters end with the author admitting that he hasn't visited that site and doesn't know much about it and that you should do your research.  Really?  I could have figured all this out with one Google search and a little common sense.  The crowning jewel in this bad review was when the author mentioned writing an e-book for money.  He says to be sure to check and double check the book for errors.  Then he has both a spelling mistake and a grammatical error in the next chapter.  Guess he doesn't practice what he preaches.  Don't bother with this book...ever.  (Hmm... I can't find this on Amazon anymore.  Just know if you do see it out there, don't get it.)

Fearlessly Frugal: How to Save Money on Your Laundry

I help measure how useful a non-fiction book is to me by how many bookmarks I save.  This book had a lot compared to the length of the book (which wasn't very long).  The author divides the book up into washing, drying and removing stains.  Then tells you ideas on 3 levels, depending on how frugal you really want to be. I like the choices she offers and I like her organization.  It makes it easy to go back and reference.  If you need some help saving money in the area of laundry, pick this up today.  It's totally worth $0.99.

I read 4 full-length books in February (3 listed on this post as well as Echoes) and 7 shorter e-books.  That brings my total up to 13 books for the year (I didn't count the e-books).  I'm well on my way to reaching my 40 book goal.  See all the books I've read on my Pinterest page.

2013 Goals

In January of last year, I wrote about my 2012 goals.  There were only two of them - blog once a week and finish 2 digital scrapbook pages a week.

Guess what?

I didn't keep either of them.
But I didn't do horrible at them either.

I digitally scrapbooked once a week for about half a year.  And I know this isn't an excuse, but...I got a new computer this year...and my scrapbooking program is still on the old computer...and it's really annoying to change it because it involves calling the company and getting new pin code thingies...and using it on the old computer is sooooo slowwww ...I'm sure you understand why I couldn't keep that one.

As for blogging, I think I did pretty well.  There were a few weeks in there where I didn't post, then others where I blogged and posted a lot.  I blogged in clumps.  We aren't pharisees here so I'm sure that's good enough to count.

All that begs the question...what will I make as my goals in 2013?  Something as lofty as those oh-so-hard-to-reach 2012 goals (note the sarcasm)?

Lofty?  Maybe.  But not as time specific.  I know, I know, goals are supposed to be specific, that's how we keep them.  Make them measurable, attainable and specific...blah, blah, blah.  I'm making them my way.

For Me:

Start a walking program again and work up to 1 mile 3 times a week.  Back in the summer and early fall, I had been walking 1 mile 3 times a week every week.  But when my arm started hurting, it hurt to walk because my arm would swing.  And I would have to walk holding my arm, so I just stopped.  And while one mile doesn't seem like a lot to most people, it's really a huge milestone for me.  My body cannot physically take more than walking at this time and slow walking, at that.  So I'm setting an attainable goal for me.  When will I get up to 1 mile 3 times a week?  Who knows?  Hopefully, sometime this year.

Increase water intake and research diet and supplement options.  Over the last year, while I've been in pain, I've been on quite a few medications.  I've been to two different physical therapists, not to mention a host of doctors.  But the one thing I haven't really touched is what I eat and drink.  I have been reading recently about foods that inflame and should be avoided.  I hope to do more research on that.  And everything I read talks about getting adequate water to keep muscles, fascia and joints hydrated.  I definitely don't drink adequate water right now, so I'm slowly trying to increase that as well.

Read 40 books.  You can see a post all about that here.

For Tim:

Go on more date nights.  Will that be monthly?  That would be great, but we'll just see what I can handle and how I feel.

Use words to affirm him more often.  Including telling him how thankful I am for all the things he does around here and for how hard he works during his workweek.

For Julie and David:

Read 1 book aloud to them every month.  We used to do this all the time, but we have gotten out of the habit.  This activity is something I can do with the kids that doesn't involve any movement or pain on my part.

Listen to 8 audio books this year.  We love to listen to books on CD while we are driving to and from places.  And, better yet, we borrow them for free from the library.  This is a great way to increase their "reading" without much effort.

Go on a date with one child each month.  Once again, this was something we have done in the past, but just fell out of the habit of doing.  Julie has requested that we start up again and I think it's a great idea.

Use positive words to affirm more than negative words to correct.  This one will be the hardest, I'm sure.  Not that I love to be negative with my kids.  It's just that they need so much correction, it's hard to remember to affirm the good things they are doing as well.  So my goal is to try to affirm them and tell them the things they are doing right more often than the things they are doing wrong.

As you can see, the goals involving my family are all about my relationship with them and how I can help build that up.  These may be broader goals than in years past, but I've tried to make them flexible.  I've written goals that, except for the walking one, don't require much physical effort from me.  In other words, goals that I can manage at this point in my life and health.

I'd love to do a "goal check-up" post every quarter or so.  Will you help keep me accountable for that?  I love to hear if you made goals this year.  Drop me a comment with your goals or a link to your post on them.  I promise I will read them all.

24 Books I Plan to read in 2012

One of my favorite bloggers is Money Saving Mom.  Not only does she tell us about deals in stores and online, but she also has excellent posts on setting goals.

One of her goals is to read 24 books in 2012.
I decided this would be an excellent thing for me to do as well.
While I normally do read a lot, I still have loads of books at my house that I have never read.

So, my reading goal for the year is to read one fiction book and one non-fiction book each month that I already own.  I will still be reading and doing book reviews for Booksneeze, Blogging for Books, NetGalley and Tyndale throughout the year.  But I am going to make reading my books a priority too.

Here's "the list":

January - Crazy Love by Chan
               Unlocked by Kingsbury
               Read reviews here.

February - Simplify Your Time by Ramsland
                 While We're Far Apart by Austin
                 Read reviews here.

March - Different Children, Different Needs by Boyd
             Face of Betrayal by Wiehl
             Read reviews here.

April - Love Life for Every Married Couple by Wheat
           Her Mother's Hope by Rivers
           Read reviews here.

May - The Power of a Praying Parent - OMartian
           On Every Side - Kingsbury
           Read reviews here.

June - Bringing up Boys - Dobson
          Rebecca - du Maurier
          Read reviews here.

July - Life Management for Busy Women - George
         Never Let You Go by Healy
         Reading these books was postponed.  Look for them in next year's list.

August - Too Busy Not to Pray by Hybels
              Betrayal in Paris by Fell
              Read reviews here.

September - Sacred Parenting by Thomas
                    Sadie's Song by Hall

October - Rocking the Roles by Hendricks
                Where the River Ends by Martin

November - Captivating by Eldredge
                    Burn by Healy

December - Wild at Heart by Eldredge
                   No One You Know by Richmond

I really wanted to put Mere Christianity by CS Lewis on there but it's an intense book.  I don't think I can just sit down and read it all at once.  So instead, I'm going to try to read one chapter a month.  Even at that, I won't finish it in a year.  But that's OK.  I think I'll need to think about each chapter for a while before I move on.

So there you have it.  My 2012 goals may not be that intense, but I am going to be adding to them with things like this little by little.  And now that I've posted this out there in cyberspace for all to see, then I'll be more likely to do it :).

2012 Goals

When I opened up my Google Reader this week, I was met with every blogger I know (well, almost everyone) posting their 2012 goals for the year.  So I figured, what the heck, I'll join the crowd.

Last year I posted some pretty lofty goals in everything from personal growth to finances.  Even though I did accomplish most of those goals, I've decided to set lower expectations for myself this year.  Maybe "lower" isn't the right word.  Maybe "more realistic" is better terminology.

Between my busy schedule (and, therefore, my high stress level) and my abdominal pain that won't go away, I just can't handle too much right now.  I might make some more goals for myself in a couple of months when I (hopefully) get this pain thing figured out.  But for now, this will be enough.

So, ta-da!  Here are my goals:
1) Write one blog post a week.
2)  Finish one 2-page scrapbook layout a week.

Yup, that's it.  Pretty big goals, huh?

OK, all you perfect women out there with the spotless houses, up-to-date scrapbooks and loads of energy, you can stop laughing at me now.  If I accomplish those 2 goals all year long, I will feel good.

And, since this is the first week in January and this is a blog post, then I have my first week 50% done.  Yay, me!!!  Now, to do that layout....

February Goal Checkup

Remember those New Year's Goals we made?  We started working on them in January.  Now it's time for our February checkup.

Personal Growth
Spiritual - After reading about this idea on several of my favorite blogger's sites, I decided to try an email accountability group.  Two other wonderful, Christian women and myself are now electronically accountable to each other.  The first one of us to do our quiet time emails the other two.  Then when the others finish, they just "reply to all" to that message.  It's working out very well.  We are able to encourage each other, tell each other some new insights we are learning as well as the main goal - to remind each other to do our quiet time.  So, with this new method in place (and God's guidance leading me to it), I'm able to say I have been very consistent with my quiet time over the last 2 weeks.

Blog - I have kept up with my blog schedule for the most part.  I have also been learning a lot about monetizing a blog (and have been sharing it with you).  I'm starting to implement some things I've learned but it is coming slowly.  I have also been trying to blog on the weekends and schedule my posts ahead.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Mommy jobs - I'm coming up with a chore chart.  I haven't got it all worked out yet.  I'll let you know when I do.

Physical Health
Exercise - I'm 3 weeks into my 8 week challenge for the art of weightlifting website.  I'm eating much better, thanks to Taylor's guidance.  I've also gone 3 weeks doing 3 weight workouts a week (biggie for me).  Only 5 weeks to go!!

Food - We still haven't added a new veggie. According to our goals, we have until the end of Feb to do this.  Any suggestions??

Marriage and Family Life
Marriage - We did not have a date night this month, so we are overdue.  However, we did have 2 date lunches and my wonderful hubby took today off to be with me at a doctor's appointment.  So we did get to spend some good time together.

Family - We are still having our nightly Bible readings with our kids as well as devotionals in the mornings before school.  We had one family night in January where we watched the Lion King.  Our poor, deprived kids had never seen it. (I'm trying to show them all the good classic Disney movies before our big trip to Orlando in May.)  We also had our monthly dates with the kids.  Tim and Julie had a date sponsored by the letter M: Mexican, milkshakes and movie.  David and I weren't so alliterate, but more economical: pizza, ice cream (free with coupon), games at home.  For Feb, I'll be taking Julie out and Tim will get David.

Children
We are still working eating more veggies.  David is doing pretty well with reading. He reads us 3-4 stories a week.  We'd like to get this up to 1 story a day, just so he feels more confident in his reading. Julie has been much better behavior-wise, whether that is just because we are phenomenal parents or because it was a phase that has passed, I don't know.  I just hope it doesn't come back.

Financial
- Fully save for Disney trip - DONE!!!
- Begin saving for Disney cruise - We're on our way and the first $200 has been saved! Yay!
- Fully fund our Roth IRA - We've calculated out how much we need to save from each paycheck (every 2 weeks) to fully fund our accounts.  So far, we've been able to save that amount every time but once.  I feel confident we can "recover" that amount we missed and get them funded by the end of the year.
- Up our amount in our Emergency Fund - Well...unfortunately with a refrigerator repair, and a plumbing repair, we did have to spend some out of our Fund.  But we have already reimbursed it.  And we have a plan for adding the rest of the amount we need.  That should be complete by the end of March.
- Give to missions through our church - This is ongoing.  We are taking up a special offering on Sunday and we plan on giving to that.

Thanks for listening.  And, please, if you have any great veggie recipes that you'd like to share, I'm all ears!!

January Goal Checkup

Alright, I've gone out on a limb and told you my New Years Goals.

Since we are now halfway through January, it's time for a checkup (to my credit, it took about 10 days to make the goals, so it's only been 5 days since then).

I won't go through each one individually, just the ones I've worked on.  And I hope to do this at the beginning of every month to keep me on track this year.

Personal Growth
- Blog - I decided to keep me motivated and always with something to write, I would come up with a blog schedule.  As you have seen if you read my blog much, I am not very consistent.  So I thought I'd start small with 3 scheduled days a week - all in the middle of the week.  Then, if it goes well, I'll schedule the other 2 days.  So here's what I've got so far.

Tues - All About Me (You may be groaning right now because, really, do you want to know ALL about me??  But, in order for me to remember what I was like at this time in my life, I thought I'd include this.)

Wed - What I'm Learning - One of my goals in blogging this year is to learn more about blogging for a business.  In my mind that means reading other blogs that talk about it, learning the basics of HTML to update my blog and make it the coolest, and figuring out how to bring traffic over here.  Since I'm one of those people who learns best when I write things down, I thought I'd write it down on here and share my new knowledge with you.

Thurs - Product or Book Review - I'll let you in one what I've been reading recently as well as my favorite products. 

If you have any ideas about what you'd like to see on here, please feel free to let me know.

Physical Health
Exercise - It's official!  I have signed my contest contract at the Art of Weightlifting.  I am entered into the New Years contest.  My task is to consistently workout over the next 8 weeks using only workouts from the Art of Weightlifting as well as to keep a daily food journal on my profile page on the site. I have to show improvement in my diet and that I am trying to eat healthier.  Also involved are 3 update pictures - one now, one in the middle of Feb and one at the end. (By the way, you, too, can join the site for $9.95 a month and get Taylor Ryan as your online personal trainer as well - I get NO kickbacks from this.  I just think it's awesome!)

Marriage and Family Life
Family - We have started nightly Bible readings with the kids.  I found an online Bible Reading plan for children that sticks with age appropriate material (no Judges 19 for them) but gets them through the Bible in a year.  Both of my children have the Adventure Bible in the NIrV (New International Readers Version), which is an easier to read version of the Bible, one on a 3rd grade level.  (One that in Genesis 4 starts out with "Adam made love to his wife, Eve."  Yeah, good thing I was reading that night instead of Julie and gracefully skipped over that verse.  That would have sparked LOTS of questions!)

We're still working on getting our monthly date night on the calendar as well as scheduling our dates with the kids.

Children
Growth -  I had a goal to limit screen time and came up with this great idea of DSi hours.  The kids could play their new DSi's every day form 4:45 - 5:30, if they have done their homework and Julie has practiced piano.  It would give them an incentive to finish homework early and it would give me a chance to make dinner in peace.  It was going great...for the 2 days they were in school last week.  Then they were out of school for 4 days for bad weather and all that kind of flew out the window.  But it's back on this week - nice weather, in school, DSi hours.

We're still coming up with ideas on teaching Julie to respect her parents more.  If you have any, I'd love to hear them.

Financial
- We have gone through and made a more detailed budget for our Disney trip in May.  After doing that and adding up the numbers - We already have enough saved for our whole trip!!!
- Our money per paycheck that we were saving for our Disney vacation will now start going in a Disney Cruise fund.
- We have been steadily putting money from each paycheck into our Roth IRA's.  They are no where near fully funded but they are better than they were a year ago!

Well, it's not perfect yet, but we have made some progress.  Look for my first All About Me post tomorrow.

My New Years Goals

I've kind of dreaded this post.  You see, if I write my goals for all the blogosphere to see, then I really have to follow through with it.  But then again, that's why I DO want to write it - accountability.

I'm not usually one for resolutions, but goals I like.  In fact, I'm a very goal-oriented person.  I really like Money Saving Mom's ideas on goals.  She took each area of her life and made goals for the year.  She also provided links to helpful worksheets on setting goals.  I took all this to heart, printed out some worksheets and together with Tim, made some goals for the year.  Some are broad, some are specific.  My plan is to update you on these goals once a month.

Personal Growth:
Spiritual - reinstitute a daily time to read the Bible and pray.  This includes time when I do my BSF homework.

Blog- Make a blog schedule.  Learn more about blogging for a business.

Mommy jobs- Come up with solutions for chores I don't like: cleaning, coming up with dinner ideas, discipline of children

Physical Health:
Exercise - Start AND FINISH challenge on the art of weightlifting site (my online personal trainer).

Food - Add a new veggie every 2 months (gotta start small here). Eat more whole grains and less white grains.

Marriage and Family Life:
Marriage - Have once a month date nights.  Have once a month date lunches.

Family - Have devotionals at breakfast or dinner.  Assist kids with nightly Bible reading.  Have Family Night 2x a month (games or movie).  Have once a month date with a child (switch children every month).

Children Goals:
Growth - Eat more veggies. Daily time with God. Reading with David.  Working on respect with Julie.  Limit screen time.  

Financial:
- Fully pay for Disney trip with cash.
- Begin saving for Disney cruise.
- Fully fund Roth IRA.
- Up our amount in our emergency fund.
- Give to missions through our church.
    
I'll update you on January tomorrow.  Help me be accountable for keeping these.

What about you?  What are some of your goals for the year?

Scheduling Future Vacations

How far in advance do you schedule vacations?  5 years? 1 year?  A month? 

Several years ago I was reading a book by Jill Savage and in it she talked about a very different way to plan family vacations.  It is somewhat revolutionary but I really liked the concept and Tim and I decided to adopt it for our family.

What Jill and her husband did was list every destination that they wanted to visit on vacation with their kids.  Then they decided what the optimal ages of their kids would be for each destination (for instance, you would probably want your kids to be older to visit Washington, DC then you would for Disney World).  Then they planned all the future vacations for their family from now until their kids graduated from college, taking into account things like the time needed to save up for those trips.

This concept is right up our alley.  Tim and I are huge planners.  We also believe in paying for our trips in full with cash, not credit.  Meaning we need to plan our vacation far enough in advance to save up all the money for it.  So, we followed the same steps that Jill family did and now have a list of our future vacations (in a spreadsheet of course).

These are our plans:

2011 - Next year it's Disney - Ages almost 6 and 8 (all potty-trained and no naps needed)
2012 - Beach
2013 - Beach
2014 - Cruise - Ages 9 and 12 (hopefully don't have to worry about them falling off the boat at those ages)
2015 - Beach
2016 - Disney again - Ages 11 and 13 (older and will enjoy different things then the first time they went)
2017 - Washington, DC - Ages 12 and 14 (old enough to know enough American history to appreciate it, but hopefully still young enough to not think it's all stupid)
2018 - Beach
2019 - Cruise - Ages 14 and 16
2020 - Beach
2021 - New York - Ages 16 and 18 (the age when they will really enjoy the city, not complain as much about all the walking and, hopefully, LOVE Broadway shows)
2022 - Beach

By that point Julie will have graduated from high school and David will be close.  Do I think we're going to stick to those plans exactly?  Probably not, but it gives us a good starting point and a plan for saving our money.  It also helps us define what places we want to go with our kids instead of looking back on their childhood and thinking "I wish we had taken them there."

So what do you think?  Too structured or a good idea?  How do you decide where to go on family vacations?