2015 Resolutions

Now that we're one week into 2015, I thought I should post my resolutions for this year. I thought about only making one (the first one), and keeping quiet about it, so that I might actually have a chance to focus on it, but somehow, having all my resolutions out there for you to see, keeps me somewhat accountable. So feel free to keep me accountable this year :)

1) Read the Bible and my devotional book. Since I didn't keep up with this one last year, it feels like I still have a fresh devotional book waiting for me to dig into. sigh. One small change I have made this year is that I have set aside a specific time each day to accomplish this goal. I'm hoping it will help.

2) Continue my Canadian continuing education. Last summer I started a series on my blog called "Traversing Canada Tuesdays." I enjoyed writing it as it helped me to learn more about Canada. I want to keep up with this series this year. After all, I still have six five provinces, three territories, and some general Canadian history to write about.

3) Write a monthly book review post. In 2014 I wanted to expand my reading repertoire. After four years of parenting young children I tended to reach for old favourites or easy reads and I wanted more. I used to read hundreds of books each year, before kids. I managed to read a much larger variety of books last year, mostly through suggestions from other bloggers. So I want to return the favour. I want to share some of the books I read with you. I don't want to selfishly horde all your suggestions without giving back some of my own.

4) Participate in three two 5K runs. Dave has run a couple of 5Ks. I have completed one already this year. (Go me!) Running is free, easy to access (just step outside of our house!), and a good way to keep in shape. If I have this as a new year's resolution, hopefully it will inspire me to keep it up. There are some fun runs happening in our area this year and Dave and I are already fighting about negotiating how we will coordinate our events.

5) Clean our entire house every two weeks. I was finally able to clean our room over the Christmas break and it was a little depressing how many generations of dust bunnies I had to kill. I find cleaning our house really hard right now, mostly because I have a little shadow (I'm looking at you Rachel!) who likes to be right by my side. Cleaning the toilet is hard enough without having to keep someone from sticking their hand in it "to help." (Gross.) Cleaning our house doesn't take that long, I just have to do it. (I'm going to mark house cleaning days on my calendar to keep me accountable. Yep, things have gotten that bad around here.)

6) Cook a new meal every month. I menu plan but coming up with a full list of meals every month is complicated. If I can introduce one new meal each month, by the end of the year we could have almost a full two weeks of meals in our rotation. Yum!

Also, I've decided that this year I am going to try and implement "theme nights" as it were, to help with menu planning. Thus far I've come up with "Mexican Mondays," "Soup on Tuesdays," "Pasta Wednesdays," and, if we don't have LOGOS, "Rice and Lentils Thursdays." This way I don't have to worry about if we're having pasta three times one week and rice four times the next week. I'm hoping it will take some of the headache out of menu planning.

7) Give blood on a regular basis. Again, this is something I've been trying to do, but sadly, I haven't been very regular about it. If I put it out here on the blog, maybe it will help keep me accountable.

8) Bake buns once a month. When my mom was here over Christmas, she baked two batches of buns. After the second batch, I announced that she needed to teach me how to do it. Now I just need to put my learning into practice. Maybe I'll make bun baking day coincide with house cleaning and soup making day. Because nothing goes with fresh buns like hot soup :)

9) Drink more water. I don't drink enough water. I'm setting myself a daily goal of two litres a day, which isn't all that much. I think once I get used to it, I'll actually want to drink water. Maybe I'll start putting sparkly stars on my calendar like Erika does. That should help inspire me :)

10) Make Sam's lunch at night. I know our mornings flow more smoothly when we're not trying to make Sam's lunch at the same time. It would also take less time to make at night since I wouldn't be tripping over anyone in the kitchen.

I think that's enough resolutions for one year. One thing I've noticed is that my resolutions are mostly self focused. Maybe that's something I'll work on for next year!