Saturday, January 3, 2009

The "Resolutions" Post

On New Year's Eve I heard part of an ad that was saying, "...breaking resolutions since 1980...." It cracked me up. I thought, That's the way to go! Usually I don't stress too much about resolutions because they overwhelm me, & make me feel guilty and discouraged at the little progress I've made thus far in life (See the first part of Stephanie's blog & think ditto for me). Plus, it's tempting to try to change everything at once, which usually lasts about a week.

But, despite my poo-pooing things like this, I really do want to try to be better. If I did make a goal in the past, it's usually one goal, usually the goal to be nicer to my husband. Or the 'go to bed earlier' resolution (And this year I have been successful a small handful of times, yay me! Especially when I made it to bed [as in, going to sleep, done w/ bedtime routine] for one entire week!*)

Anyway, here are my goals this year, except the first one is a goal I started several months ago and has been helping me immensely:

Goal #1, made about July/Aug 2008, will continue in 2009:
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT beat myself up
for all the times I fail at goals or ambitions or even mundane tasks like laundry and meals (i.e. be a Realistic Idealist!). I started a "success" journal where I jotted down my successes (even if it was "got dressed today," "ran carpools," etc) instead of dwelling on my failures. I will be continuing the journal this year. It reduces guilt and the stress and helps my self-worth so I'm not so critical of myself.

Ok, now for the new goals:
1. Make meals consistently for my family. Plan a routine to decide on meals and decide when to prepare them since the 3-6 pm time is my least motivated time of day.
2. Flylady—GET off my franny! One load of dishes a day, one laundry a day, and 15 min. declutter a day
3. Scriptures & personal prayer daily (you'd think I'd all have this down by now, yet the days continue to get away from me and I didn't put the scripture reading/prayer first, even though it completely strengthens my day and my perspective when I do, and makes me a lot less mean and ornery to others, especially to my spouse and kids)
4. Early bedtime; Going to bed bed by 10 pm.
5. Humility. I've been so grouchy lately, which is when I tend to hold grudges and not feel very forgiving of others who are being just as imperfect as I am.
6. Saying NO to “me” time that is at the expense of my family.
7. Make school lunches the night before.
8. Exercise--twice a week walking, try to make a mile or two. *Maybe* try to walk to school w/ Rob and kids, which gets me up early and gets my exercise overwith. Exercise is another thing that helps me handle the day so much better, yet I often procrastinate doing it.
9. Say NO to me when I psychologically crave food/sweets, but am not hungry/full. And take in candy/chocolate in smaller amounts, a little after a meal, but not the entire peanut butter M&M bag.... Maybe just 2-3 handfulls. I'm being realistic here.

Wish me luck! (Really. Really wish me luck. I NEED it.)


*Well, ok, this really good week was only 5 days, but I'm extremely proud of my progress that week. From Sunday-Thursday night, I was in bed with eyes closed, at least attempting to sleep, by 10 pm. (We won't mention the part where Friday and Saturday night I ended up being up til midnight--I praise the successful days, and stopped beating myself up for my "bad" days. See goal #1. It rocks.)

6 comments:

Stacy said...

It looks like you got home safely from your trip! We loved seeing you.
It looks like you have some good goals. I know you can do it!
I used to be very gung-ho about goals, but Jake's not a fan. He thinks they're just a reason to beat yourself up, like you said. So, I haven't really done them much by myself. I think they're good though, because how do you become better if you don't figure out how you need to be better?
I'm with you on make meals. Ever since I started writing my program to help plan out meals, I've cooked maybe once a week. Every other day it gets to be 5:30 and I think, oh, what can I make for dinner in 15 minutes? So then we end up with bacon and eggs, ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, garlic noodles, spaghetti, fish sticks... the same old unhealthy stuff.
I just bought this book called Accountable Kids from Deseret Book. It has a pegboard where you keep track of their chores and tasks they have to do during the day. Then they get tickets to buy privileges during the day. Hopefully that will help me out with the house a bit more and keep down their TV time.
I miss you! I wish I was your near neighbor again so we could help each other out more.

Kimbooly said...

Ooh ooh ooh! I want a picture of your pegboard!

Oh, and ditto on the dinners; I do the same things for dinner, except we don't do the garlic noodles, spaghetti, & fish sticks, but we do a lot of the cheese & crackers and peanut butter on apple slices. : ) And bagels. And of course the ramen, eggs, & macaroni.

I wish we were by each other, too! You would love to see what my mom made my kids this year; individualized car "kits" that fold down into a laptop-like position and are filled with pockets in which they keep pipe cleaners, markers, pencils, pens, stickers, coloring books, etc.

Stacy said...

You should send me a picture of the present your mom made.

Kimbooly said...

Oh! And I forgot the quesadillas--they're a dinner staple of ours! If we want to dress them up a little we add canned chicken & salsa. Very quick.

I will post pics. : ) Eventually!

Brian Burtenshaw said...

Good job Kimberly! I'm impressed that you have such neat goals. Many of mine are similar. Hmmm look at the time (10:45) but I'm getting better too. Isn't it nice to progress even just a little. ;) (This is really from Kristy Lynne)

Kimbooly said...

Well, Kristy, yesterday afternoon I ended up eating some sweets (Rob shouldn't have made cookies, AND I had a chocolate orange!), watching some online TV, letting Rob make ham/cheese sandwiches for dinner, and didn't get to bed until 10:30.

But.

I DID do a load of laundry, a load of dishes, 15 minutes decluttering, and I sat and did 'preschool' with Nathan (he learned how to write the letter N very well).

Plus I took care of some mail & email, straightened the van, had snacks ready for my kids when I picked them up from school, and plugged in to make sure they did homework and reading, AND chores.

PLUS, we had FHE, and before it I sat and read to the boys.

So, rather than beat myself up, I consider yesterday a pretty productive day.