I found out earlier this week that September is Self-Improvement month so I’ve been thinking about what self-improvement goals I have for myself. While thinking about my goals I tried to be realistic and set goals that are easy to … Continue reading
In 2012 I plan to:
1) Take one day off of blogging and working per week so I can spend more time with my children.
2) Have “mommy” time at least once a week because I deserve it.
3) Purge unused items in my home because I am tired of piles of clutter.
4) Save money by cutting our spending by 5% because we need a larger emergency fund than the one we have.
5) Learn more about Autism so I can be a better advocate for my children
6) Take more pictures using a decent camera because the pictures taken with my cell phone camera print out horrible.
7) Have date night at least twice a month to rekindle our romance.
8) Make healthier snack choices because I want to love my body.
9) Spend more time with family and friends because I don’t spend enough time with them.
10) Work towards my bigger goals at least once a week because if I don’t I will never reach my life goals.
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This post is linked to Oh Amanda’s Top 10 Tuesday.
I am excited about 2011 and everything that the new year will bring. I have made goals for myself and decided to focus on 3 goals in each area of my life. I am sharing them with you all in hopes that you will keep me accountable because I will updating my progress through the year :)
PERSONAL GOALS- Focus on the positive, spend 30 minutes a day relaxing away from the computer, read one book a month
MOMMY GOALS- Potty train both boys, take more pictures and scrapbook at least four pages a month, write in a memory journal for the boys
RELATIONSHIP GOALS- Date night once a week, do one nice deed for each other daily, more positive comments
SPIRITUAL GOALS- Devotions daily, return to regular Church attendance, read the whole Bible
BLOG GOALS- Include more “life” posts, get better at replying to comments, have two weeks of posts scheduled ahead
WORK GOALS- Full-time position by the end of the year, at least three SM marketing accounts a month, run one blogger review program a month
HEALTH GOALS- Limit pop to one a day, eat healthier, 30 minutes of activity five times a week
HOME GOALS- Keep house “company ready”, finish unpacking and organizing, stick to my cleaning routine
FINANCIAL GOALS- Set up an emergency fund, pay all bills on time, make and follow a budget monthly
HOMESCHOOLING GOALS- Do Tot School four times a week, make a lesson plan weekly and post it, decide between homeschooling Jake or putting him in preschool (or doing a combination of both)
FAMILY GOALS- Spend time with family weekly, call family more often, get to know extended family better
FRIENDSHIP GOALS- Spend time with friends weekly, attend a mom’s night once a month, call or email a friend once a week
GIVING GOALS- Donate/tithe monthly, volunteer four hours a month, do an act of service for a friend or loved one a month
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Have you written your goals down? I’d love for you to share them in the comments below or if you blog enter you post in the linky below! (To view the linky click on the link below)
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This week I joined the “Frumpy to Fab” challenge over at ‘A Proverbs Wife’.
Since I was pregnant with Jacob in 2008 I have pretty much lived in sweats and t-shirts (when I wasn’t working). I wanted to focus on six things this week (in regards to my appearance):
1) I wanted to not wear sweats at all unless I was cleaning
2) I wanted to wear some actual pajamas to bed at least two nights instead of the extra large, keep-me-warm sweats I normally wear
3) I wanted to paint my toenails since it was getting nicer out and I would be wearing sandals
4) I wanted to wear jewelry at least half the days
5) I wanted to wear a full face of makeup everyday
6) I wanted to keep my legs hairless all week. Yes, that would mean shaving which is (embarrassingly) something that is pretty rare for me to do in the winter now that I am a mom.
The challenge technically ended today (which is why I am posting today) but I plan on continuing this through Sunday. I am on track to meet all of these appearance goals and I have to admit, it feels great taking care of myself again!
I am joining the “Blog the Weight Away” challenge by Lauren at 4BabyAndMom. I am so excited about this. Today is my introduction post.
Alicia in 2005- Weight 120 pounds
Alicia in 2010- Weight 179.8 pounds
My goals throughout this journey:
1) Lose 50 pounds
2) Go to the gym at least 4 days a week
3) Eat healthier
My rewards for achieving my goals:
1) One dessert a week for every week I go to the gym 4 days
2) One new item of clothing for every 10 pounds lost
3) A new wardrobe when I lose 50 pounds
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I believe in myself. I know that I can meet my goals.
I also believe in all the other women that have committed to this challenge because if a woman is willing to put her weight online you know she is serious about succeeding. I do have three teammates that I will introduce you to next week.
I want to thank my friends and family ahead of time for supporting me through this journey :)
Click here to enter your link and view the entire list of entered links…
I am very excited to start this new year. I’m looking forward to my best year ever! (ok, I keep hearing that from everyone but it’s true!) I’m a very goal-oriented person so I always keep a goal list that I update a few times a year. Kind of like my bucket list , I guess. Since I have hundreds of goals on that list I decided to focus on a select number of them in 2010.
Goal #1- Read the whole Bible in 90 days. To find out more about this program you can go here or here. This challenge is listed first because it starts today. I am very excited to do this but am also nervous because it is a big task. I’ve never read the Bible all the way through, let alone in 90 days. I think it is an achievable goal this year because of two main things: 1) I’m doing it with other moms who will hold me accountable and 2) it’s only about 12 pages a day! Wow. Reading the Bible had always seemed like such a huge task and I would have guessed it would take 30-40 pages a day to read it in just 90 days, but 12? That’s easy. Ok, well maybe not easy, but manageable with two kids and a career. (Update: My sister just read the first day’s reading as I was typing this post and it took her less than 20 minutes…)
Goal #2- Save half of our income. This will probably be the hardest goal that I have set for myself. I have always been a “shopaholic” who can’t resist a good “deal” (check out my dad’s blog post about me) but I have decided that is going to change this year. Part of why we moved in with my dad was to save for a house and in the past six months we have only saved about $500. In my defense we did have to fix our two cars, but in reality we had an extra income these past few months so those repairs should have come from that. I am still working on a budget and hoping there is some spending money but if not I will just have to learn to live with less.
Goal #3- Keep my house “company ready” (though really it needs to get to that point before I can keep it there). It doesn’t have to be spotless but it would be nice to know that if someone happened to stop by my home I wouldn’t be embarrassed to let them in the door. And it would be even better if they could look in my closets, cupboards, etc and they would be organized, too. The first step towards this goal is to finish unpacking from our August move. Our two car garage is so filled with boxes that only one car can barely fit in. Eventually I would like to have a weekly cleaning list, too.
Goal #4- Work on my relationships. With Sinisa I would like to make couple time a priority since it’s rare we are both home without the boys being awake. With my mom I would like to work on communication. With my friends I would like to focus on seeing them once a week whether it’s at playdates or mom’s nights.
Goal #5- Become a “better” blogger. This includes blogging more often than I have in the past (I am aiming for 3-5 times a week), building relationships with other bloggers, reading and commenting on other blogs, and looking into how I can improve the look of my blog.
Goal #6- Do something for myself daily. This “something” could be as little as taking a nice, hot relaxing shower to getting a pedicure to scrapbooking. Just a daily thing to remind myself that I am special :)
What are your goals for 2010?
Ok so I haven’t posted anything in months… since March to be exact. Wow a lot has happened since then… Just some short updates- I had my second child, lost my (step)mom, my family moved in with my father and little sister, and I went back to work full time.
My second child is a little boy, Lucas, and he turned six months old on Christmas day. Amazing how fast the time flies! He is absolutely adorable and Jacob is a great big brother. Jacob is 18 months now and growing smarter everyday. I am in awe of these boys.
My mom passed away in June overnight. It was extremely hard for me. One day I was over at her house spending the day with her and then early the next morning I find out she had passed away the night before (probably due to a seizure- she had epilepsy). The worst part was that Jake was in the room when she passed and I just pray he doesn’t remember any of it. The best part- I know my mom is in Heaven and during the wake and funeral we found out just how many lives she had touched.
In August, the boys, Sinisa, and I moved in with my dad and sister. It’s been such a blessing to us and I believe to my father and sister as well. It’s hard after living by myself for so long but it is best for our family right now.
In November, I returned back to work full time. This had never been my intention as I had always planned to be a stay at home mom. To my surprise I love working and I love my job. I promote my dad’s company through social media mainly and it is an awesome job. Seriously, I spend most of my day on twitter, facebook, linked in, blogs, etc. The best part is that I get to come home and have lunch with my boys everyday and if I need time off it’s no problem.
Ok, so enough excuses of where I have been these past months… I am back and more excited than ever to start blogging again :) Starting in the New Year expect to see new posts 3-5 times a week. I will include updates on my goals, insights into my life, and am looking forward to doing a lot of linkups with daily themes. This is going to be awesome and I hope you will join me as I journey through motherhood and not only strive to be a great mother, but a great woman as well :)
I failed. I did not get everything done on my list. I did, however, succeed. How do you fail and succeed at the same time you might ask. Well I might not have accomplished everything on my list but the fact that I even finished one project, instead of sitting around watching TV and playing on the computer, shows growth in this procrastinator. I ran some errands, washed and put away all Jacob’s laundry, cleaned up the nursery, almost finished setting up my scrapbook area, cleaned out a file cabinet, organized all of S’s paperwork, vacuumed, and put the rest of Jacob’s older clothes in bins by size. I also spent time with my son, my fiance, my sister in law, my nephew, and my mom. I guess looking back I did do quite a lot. I think that I make unrealistic expectations as to what I can get done each day. I always wish each day had even just one more hour. Why can’t we have 25 hour days? Then again if we had 25 hour days I would want 26 hour days.
Today’s challenge: Look at your to-do list… Are you planning for a 24 hour day or a 25 hour one?
I’ve been trying to spend less time on the computer and more time with my family and working towards my goals. Up until now I have been thinking of maternity leave as a vacation, knowing I would have to return to work. Recently though, I realized that my maternity leave may become my life for the next few years. It’s looking more and more like I am going to be a stay at home mom because my part-time availability won’t work for my job. I will find out for sure tomorrow. It will be sad to leave all of the wonderful people that I work with but it will be wonderful to watch my son grow up. I decided that if I’m staying at home I need to come up with daily plans for myself so that I don’t just waste the days away. I want to find new ways to entertain Jacob and continue to learn more about childcare and best practices for things like learning two languages, potty training, and any other topics that may come up as he grows. I want to spend more time with my family than I have in the past. I hope to keep busy and enrich my personal life with mom’s groups, hobbies (writing, reading, scrapbooking), fall tv shows (so many I can’t even begin to list my faves), and achieving all of my goals. I think this will be a positive experience for me. Please understand if I don’t post everyday. I am still trying to figure out how this all will work but am excited about sharing my journey with everyone.
Looking back at my post yesterday I realized I did not share the biggest news of the day…. my son was two months old!!! (bad mommy!) I can’t believe that I gave birth to him that long ago. I wrote him a letter last night telling him all of the new things he had started doing over the past month (smiling, noticing toys, and um, headbutting). I am so proud of him each day like I guess all parents are. OH and you will never believe what I did today… I hurt my child! Physically hurt him! It was an accident and I ended up crying more than he did. See he woke up this morning with a huge scratch right in between his eyes because his nails were long because someone (that would be me) is afraid that I will get some of his skin in the clippers. So I decided I could not wait any longer because he was getting his picture taken today and I didn’t want him to scratch up his face even more. I clipped one nail, then two, then three, then four and ahhhhhhhh!!!! clipped some of his skin. His face, the look was what made me feel the worst. It was like “how could you do this to me mommy?” And then the blood. Just the tiniest bit but I had made my child bleed. He’s fine now thank God. I know he won’t remember the time when mommy got his skin in the nail clippers but I still felt bad.
Tonight I went on a date with my wonderful fiance ( I actually got to use one of my 50 million cute purses). I had received a gift card to Chilis for my birthday (thanks to my mil) so we decided to use it. The food was so good. It was nice spending time with him. In other relationship news, we are starting the “21 Day Complaint Free Marriage Experiment” (www.simplemarriage.net -sorry I’m new to blogging and don’t know how to make this clickable so you are just going to need to copy and paste). As much as my fiance does for me I know I still find things to complain about so hopefully this experiment will remind me to keep my words positive.
Other than starting that experiment, today was my first day of my competition with my sister in law to see who can lose the most weight in three months. I had debated about putting my weight on here for everyone to see but screw it… please keep in mind I just had a baby… and don’t laugh when I tell you… 173.8. Wow I can’t believe I just wrote this down and am going to publish this. Anways, back to what I was saying. Yes, that’s how much I weigh and I haven’t yet determined how much I want to lose per week. I don’t even know what’s healthy and realistic to lose. I think I started today off ok. I didn’t exercise because I wanted to spend as much time with my family as possible (my man works two jobs and it’s been over a month since he’d had a day off). Today I have had: ham sandwich with mustard and cheese, crispy chicken salad, two rootbeers, one strawberry daiquri (yum), and a cup of chocolate skim milk. Oh and I had half a scoop of vanilla ice cream, almost forgot that. My food choices weren’t the best but on the positive side, I didn’t snack on anything.
Today’s challenge: Remind your partner of one thing that makes them fantastic. If you are single then tell a family member/roommate one thing that makes them great. :) Have a wonderful day!
So I am a week into my quest to improve myself and am doing great with my list of goals. I have completed two items so far (play the lottery and go out for ice cream). They are little but it feels great to cross them off. I have started many of the other items. I am reviewing my list each evening to see what I have done that day and to come up with some ideas of what I would like to do the next day. This method is working quite well for me. I would like to point out that, while I made this list in a couple days, I have given myself three years to complete it. I will not change overnight nor will I fully develop in the next three years. I am a work in progress and I hope everyone will give me the opportunity to grow and evolve into the person I’d like to be.
I’m so excited to be starting towards one of my bigger goals tomorrow. I set a goal to lose 50 pounds in three years. I recently had a child and I put on 50 pounds during this pregnancy. I have already lost about 25 through having the baby, breastfeeding, and being in the hospital (twice) where the food was not appetizing. I figure if I lose 50 more pounds I will be around the size I was when I left college. This past week has been filled with many bad food choices (among them-oreos) and only one trip to the gym. I hope to improve my eating habits and go to the gym 3/4 times a week. All this being said, I’m starting towards the goal tomorrow because my sister-in-law and I are having a contest to see who can lose the most weight in the next three months. There is no prize except for the satisfaction of competition and winning. I think this is what we both need to motivate ourselves and move us towards our fitness goals. We start in the morning when we will each weigh ourselves. I have yet to decide how I will update my progress because y’all know I am not going to put my weight up here. It’s downright embarrassing that I’ve gained all this weight and the fact that I am going to lose it does not change the fact that it’s here now.
Oooh and I’ve also decided that I’m going to have a daily goal for everyone to complete. Today’s goal is think of ten things that you are thankful for and list them in the comment section.
My ten:
1) family
2) friends
3) oreos
4) lists
5) candles during a storm
6) my digital camera (thanks mom and Jen!)
7) my son’s smile
8) the internet
9) cute stationary to write letters on
10) anyone who reads this blog!!!
I spent a whole day thinking about what I wanted to do in regards to my work situation. I weighed the pros and cons and looked into multiple different options. At first I was discouraged and worried but now I have comfort in knowing I’ve made the right choice for my family. What is that choice you ask? For now it’s a secret but you will know within the week.
Other than that large decision and a bunch of smaller ones that you don’t want to read about (ie. I am going to switch car insurance and what my cleaning schedule looks like) not much happened. I have decided that I am going to start another blog based on “home” related topics like organization and frugal living. This will be up within the next couple weeks and I will provide a link to it.
As for my goals, I am working hard to make sure I do something that is on my list at least a couple times a day. This list holds me responsible because when I update it every evening people can see if I am slacking or not. I’ve said this before but I highly recommend lists if you aren’t as productive as you would like to be.
For the past couple of years I had been living day to day with no purpose. I went to work but other than that I did not have a drive to really do anything. I stopped hanging out with friends, stopped pursuing activities that were important to me, and basically lost part of what made me who I was. I assumed that I had just “changed” and did not find these things important anymore. I have found out recently that yes, I’ve changed, but I still have a longing for parts of the old me back. What made me think about these things were various websites I’ve found online in the past few weeks that talk about goal setting, communication, organization, and topics of similar nature. I started thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in the next three years and realized that I had many of the same dreams as before. While writing my goals I realized that I could make them reality if I made a conscious effort to do so. So far I have completed a couple of small goals and started working towards bigger ones. Some of them are just for fun (ie. go out for ice cream), some are good for my health (ie. go to the gym), and some are vital to my wellbeing (ie. love myself). I am proud of myself for working to find the old me and changing myself for my new life as a mom.
Since I have yet to decide if I can commit to writing in two blogs I am just going to write about everything in this one right now. I really want to do a separate blog for my life as a mom and then maybe one on a baby website for Jacob but I don’t know if I will have the energy or time to take those things on. I am still deciding what I’m going to do once my maternity leave is over. Sometimes I think that I’d like to be a stay at home mom and then other times I think that I might like to go back to work, even if only part-time. Anyways, about today… I took Jacob to a children’s waterpark with my mom, my sister in law, her mom, and my nephew. There was also a playground area and Jacob played in the sand for the first time. Ok, well really I just covered his feet with sand but that counts right? He was full of smiles so I think he had lots of fun. As far as the list goes, I wrote my very first thank you card from my baby shower. I’m a little late (it was at the beginning of April) but I figure better late then never. I also still need to do Jacob’s birth announcements from the beginning of June. I am such a procrasinator. Well, it’s now the 28th and it should be noted that I am now 25 years old. The past few years have flown by me yet it doesn’t seem like much has been accomplished. I worked, had a baby, spent time with family but other than that did a whole lot of nothing. I decided the other day that I am not going to let another few years go by without any great personal growth. By July 28, 2011 I will be a better me. But right now that means ending this post and getting some much needed sleep.
I visited the site http://triplux.com/dayzero/ where they encourage people to do 101 goals in 1001 days. I liked the idea but I changed it a bit for myself because I wanted to include many small things in my list. I was wanting to start on Monday which is my 25th birthday but I started two of the items early. Here’s my list-
300 THINGS IN 3 YEARS
JUST FOR ME
HEALTH
LOVE
JACOB
FAMILY
SOCIAL
HOUSEHOLD
FINANCIAL
LEARNING
CAREER
TRAVEL
ENTERTAINMENT
WRITING/READING
CREATIVE ENDEAVORS
GIVING BACK
SPIRITUAL
FUN
ONLINE/COMPUTER
JUST BECAUSE I NEED TO
Making Time For Mommy 