New Year Purpose

I want to live my life on purpose. It is so easy to just glide through, doing what is easy or at least not thinking and planning and doing. New Years Resolutions just don't seem to stick for me. So I am trying to strengthen poor habits and add a few new good one. All the while keeping up with the few good habits I do have. As the mother of a large family, there is a lot to do and while I don't do all of it, I do manage almost all of it. Here are some things that work for me and habits I am working on adding.

Rising early...I have my quiet time with God in the morning. It is what sustains me through the day and keeps me going, as well as being a much kinder person. I like to get a head start on the morning before anyone gets up. If I arise late I feel behind the whole day. But that starts with going to bed early which I am going to have to work much harder at.

A schedule... things flow so much smoother with a schedule. Children know what to expect and they really do like it. We get much more done, both the necessary stuff, school, housework, meals, and laundry. As well as the fun stuff, baking, scrap booking, working in the garage.

I need to add in exercise on a daily basis. I have a tendency to jump in and do too much and them none at all. I need to start slow and keep it a steady pace.

Homekeeping... I have already written about Motivated Moms. http://keepingahome.blogspot.com/2009/01/getting-it-mostly-done.html
I also like http://www.flylady.net/ for helpful information for keeping up your home. I need to be consist ant with this. It makes me feel so much better to have a clean house and I know it blesses my husband.

Child training... This has to be a priority before anything else. It is so easy to get busy and not want to stop in the middle of what I am doing to train a child and think it takes to much time. But it actually takes less time when they are young than to inter grain bad habits in them that are later much harder to break.

Meals- I am very good at shopping and stocking my pantry with all the sales but less so at making menus. I need to get into an every week habit of doing this. I am also this year going to keep track of how much money I actually save using coupons.

Laundry is so easy to keep up since we added a second washer. This was a huge blessing. We still only have one washer but it takes longer than the dryer and I have a clothesline also, although I am not good about using it in the winter. Now if I could just keep up with the socks.