Happy New Year!!! 2013

"How few there are who have courage enough to face their own their faults, or resolutions enough to mend them!"
 ~ Benjamin Franklin

Over the past few weeks, I have been reflecting over the year 2012. This time of reflection is, on one hand, a little bit depressing, or maybe embarrassing is a better word, while on the other hand, it is extremely motivating to me. I look back on where we have been compared to where we want to be. It seems like every year we miss the mark. Without fail. I seem to start out the new year with such great ideas and plans, but I usually fail to see them through. This year may or may not be the same way. I am praying to the Lord and trusting that we can make some changes this year, though.

Here are some areas we are eager to see changes in our life:

Eating out: We have a habit...a really bad habit. I won't even begin to tell you how much money we have spent eating out this year because, well, it is embarrassing. This has been such a weak area for us and we try every year to make changes. We sat down last night and I presented to my DH the amount of money I calculated, from our bank statements, that we spent eating out. It was not pretty. This year, we decided things were not going to change unless we had a strategy. So here it is:

GOAL: Eat out no more than two times per month while ultimately aiming at only one time per month.
 
WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOAL:

• Put it on the calendar and schedule it
• Have food ready for dinner [which is our worst time]
• Don't tempt each other, and when we are tempted, stop and pray with each other.

We have come to the realization that we are teaching the kids many bad habits with our eating out. It is time for some reversal of these bad habits! So far, in January, we have scheduled wo times we are going to eat out. My friend and I got back excellent results from our diabetes check-ups and we promised each other a couples night out to dinner when we did, so we are going out tis Saturday. I also have family coming to visit and we have scheduled one time to eat out while they are here. We have already scheduled a February date and a March date for eating out. I will keep you updated on how we are doing. Please pray for us!
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Menu Planning and Grocery Shopping: I love to menu plan. Have I ever mentioned that? In 2011 I tried a specific challenge and planned all of our dinners for the whole year. I realized many things in this venture. While it was neat to do this, it was not practical and it became boring. So, I won't be doing that again. But, it is a proven fact that people who menu plan and make grocery lists, and shop from their lists, save money for their family.

GOAL: Menu plan, Make Grocery Lists and go shopping only 1 time per week

WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOAL:

• Spend Thursdays menu planning, spend Fridays grocery shopping
• Be thorough, ask the family what items they really want and "need" that they can't seem to do without this week. Try to be accommodating but reasonable.
• Don't be a Nazi about it. You can make more than one trip to the store, it's no going to kill you. The point is, stop making every day trips to the store as this is a money waster! [Yeah, I counted 274 trips to KROGER with our debit card in 2012]

We have yet again come to the realization that our habits are playing a bad role in our kids lives. I really feel like we are teaching our kids not to be content and not to appreciate what they already have, so we are really striving to make these changes.
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So, the last goal I want to share is in the spiritual realm of things. We feel it very important to teach our children from the Word of God, but we sometimes become a little lackadaisical in our day to day walk. At dinner time, we go over memory verses and we sometimes read from the Bible story book, but we want more and we want to give the kids more, even though they may not understand of appreciate it now.

GOALS:

• Spend time in the Word of God daily with the children
• Continue to work on Scripture Memorization
• Spend alone time in the Word of God, preparing my own heart
• Pray with the children and take time to Count our MANY Blessings

WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOALS:

• I have started reading in the Proverbs with the kids every morning at breakfast. [I have already missed a day this week!]
• Continue after dinner devotions where we write notes for our "Count Your Blessings" Jar and work on our memory verses.
• I will read my Bible in the mornings as well.

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So, here you have it. Just a few things going on in our families and how we are trying to change our lives for the better and for a closer walk with the Lord and a more glorifying walk.

What are you doing differently in 2013? I would love to hear from you!