For Just One Week Update/ Free Point

For more info on For Just One Week, see Ice Cream's blog.

So, I didn't post an update last week because I hadn't achieved my goal of taking care of 5 things that I have been procrastinating. The problem is, I just kept on procrastinating those things, finding that I'd much rather blog, read or pick my toenails than I would file for the AFLAC payment from an injury Kimball had two plus years ago. I guess that's why it's been over 2 years. Sigh.

I do intend to get to the AFLAC thing as well as a tax thingy I've been putting off, but my official goal this week is something entirely different. We had stake conference this past weekend. I'm pretty sure that all of our participants are LDS and know what this means, but just in case I have some lurkers here, it's just a fancy word for a meeting of all of the members of LDS community. On Saturday evening, there is a meeting for the adults, then on Sunday morning there is a meeting for the entire family. Needless to say, as a mother of four young, energetic chidlren, I get a lot more out of the Saturday evening session!

One of the speakers on Saturday night said some things that triggered ideas and thoughts for me. I'm not sure that he actually talked about how prayer can help us become the people whom we want to become, but that's what I took away. And I set a little goal to myself for this week to schedule real, sincere, on-my-knees, prayers several times throughout the day when I know I'll need extra strength. I have been struggling more since I got pregnant with energy levels and shortness of temper, and I really want my children's homeschool experience (and mine) to be a positive one. So I set the goal this week to pray daily at the following times: 6:30 am, 8:45 am (right before we officially start the school day), at Bronwen's naptime, and around 4:30 pm, or just when I'm getting ready to start making dinner. And of course at bedtime. I know that it might be silly to schedule prayers, but I really want to call on the powers of heaven this week to make me stronger than I am by myself (and stronger than I am with a prayer in the morning and night). I want help to not get cross at my children, to see them as Heavenly Father sees them, to not crab at my husband, and to teach my children each day in the way that He would have me teach them. So there's my goal. I will definitely report back to you on how it goes.

Now, regarding the free point (I know that I tricked many of you into reading just to find out about it,) I'm actually talking about last week's. I'm wondering who would rather have an additional point as opposed to having a dollar shaved off their penalty. Leave a comment and let me know, preferably also sharing with us how the week went for you. I hope you were able to think outside the box on your exercise and try something new.

Gotta go--the baby just woke up from her nap.

For Just One Week Update--Procrastination

Well, it is obvious that one thing I've been procrastinating is this post! You may remember that one of my goals for last week was to take care of one thing I was procrastinating every day. I was excited about the goal, but found that it wasn't realistic for every day--even every day in a week. My Mondays are absolutely swamped, and my list of things I was putting off partly had to do with taking care of things during business hours--thus, things that can't be done after the kids are in bed, after I've done my walk, and before I go to bed early! To make up for it, I tried to do more than one thing on the days when I could actually make time to check things off my list. Here are some things that I had procrastinated and that I accomplished this past week:

• Filled out appropriate labels, packaged up, and dropped off at the UPS store some GapMaternity returns (they have to go back via mail if you bought them online.) If you know me at all, you know that I am postally challenged. These items had been waiting around to be sent back for at least 6 weeks.
• Called Countrywide to check in on my mortgage, which is set to adjust this spring. Breathed a sigh of relief that it isn't changing.
• Renewed my Ensign and Friend magazine subscriptions, which had expired in September. I have been reading them online, but it's not the same. Shocking that I let it go so long, I know.
• Conquered my ironing pile. This may not have been paperwork related, but it was surely procrastinated. Now everything is ironed and hanging in someone's closet.
• Got QuickBooks all caught up and reconciled for my husband's business.
• Submitted a rebate.
• Cleaned out my purse.
• Made sand dough for our Roman Aquaduct project (I'd been planning that for three weeks.) Sadly, I still procrastinated making the archways for another three days and the dough was too crumbly to produce sturdy archways. Sigh.

My other goal was to stay off the computer until noon and until I had studied the scriptures. You'll notice on the spreadsheet that I read all 7 days--I couldn't bear to miss out on computer time. I did complete this goal, and am going to try to carry over the spirit of this goal without actually setting it again this week. We'll see how I do.

In this coming week, I will check off five things that I have been procrastinating for way too long. I will not procrastinate doing this until Saturday!:) I will also spend more time in the afternoons and/or Friday doing school things. We have been getting all the basics in, but I want to be sure that we are getting enrichment studies in as well. We will do at least one Valentine's Day craft, we will make those elusive Roman Aquaducts, and we will go birdwatching (weather permitting). And I will get in my five days of exercise--I only hit 4 last week.

How are your goals coming? I am really struggling to get in my exercise on the weekends (Friday-Sunday), even if I only need to exercise one of those days. Any suggestions on what's working for you?

For Just One Week Update

Well, another week has come and gone. Life passes us by so quickly, and if we don't write down our goals and commit to them, it's easy to grow older without growing any better. I, for one, don't mind my advancing age as long as I'm improving along the way, like an expensive wine or aged cheese. It's only when I stop to realize how long it's been since I've been talking about accomplishing something--without making any progress--that I begin to get discouraged.

The Book of Mormon tells us that "the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors." In other words, we don't get a do-over in the next life. We need to make this one count.

That's one reason that I am enjoying not only our exercise and scripture study 10-week challenge, but also Ice Cream's For Just One Week challenge. I can accomplish some of my smaller goals, or those that I'm just not ready for a long term commitment with, and try them on for size.

I had two goals for this past week: the first was to stay off the computer for non-school reasons until at least noon on school days. On the weekend, I was to be off the computer until I had exercised and read my scriptures. The second goal was to get more out of my workouts.

Well, I did accomplish my goals on school days, which was the most important to me. As I expected, it made a big difference in my ability to keep our school morning on schedule, to give my children my full attention, and to generally be more productive. On the weekend I did manage to stay off the computer until noon, but as for getting in my workout and scripture study first . . . well, that didn't happen. But I did get them in. The weekends can be pretty crazy around here, and I finally decided to just drop that part. Lame, perhaps, but I feel like I accomplished the PURPOSE of my goal--to spend less of my productive time on the computer.

In terms of getting more out of my exercise, I definitely did that this week. Most days I got in an hour instead of the minimum 30 minutes. I went walking several evenings with a good friend and we cruised around the track at top speed, clocking in over 3 miles each time, while gabbing away without the interruptions of kids. I got to my early morning spin class on Thursday, which is always a fantastic workout. Whatever I did, I pushed myself harder than I have been in previous weeks and it felt great.

This week, I want to adjust my goal for computer use a bit. It is: no computer (except school related) before noon AND before I've done my scripture study. I noticed that last week, I had several days when I was reading at bedtime and I just don't get as much out of it then as I do earlier in the day. I am not going to have exercise be a part of this, as some nights I like to exercise in the evenings and don't want that to penalize my computer time.

Additionally, every day I am going to take care of one paperwork-or-phone-call-related chore that I have been procrastinating. I have a stack of things by my computer, and sadly, at least one of them has been procrastinated for over a year. Yikes!

How are your goals coming along? Care to set an extra one for just one week? Leave a comment here or post about it on your blog and link back to Ice Cream's post. Don't let another week of your life pass you by without doing something to age well!

For Just One Week Update and Challenge Housekeeping

How is it going, girls? If you haven't updated the last two weeks to reflect your exercise and scripture study, please do so right away. I am going to start assessing the fines so that we can stay on top of it (as the last challenge with fines got away from me.) Even if you don't pay your fines right now, let's have them all figured out. Also, you'll notice that on my exercise for last week, there is an orange comment notation in the corner, indicating that I took one of my sick days. If you want to do the same, just right click on your square, then choose "insert comment". You can write in there if you want to take one or more of your sick days so that you won't get fined.

Now, I want to report on my For Just One Week goal. Go on over to My Ice Cream Diary if you'd like to join in the fun of blogging about a personal goal.


Last week, my personal goal was to teach at least 3 math lessons to all three boys. For those of you who don't know, I homeschool our kids. Since Christmas, we had been struggling to have formal math lessons and I knew that I needed to get back into the groove of doing math daily. We took a minimum day on Monday to have a friend over (since everyone else had a holiday) and we didn't do math then. Tuesday we watched the inauguration, then ran from doctor's appointments to karate to the library and didn't do math again. Wednesday and Thursday we had formal math lessons with all three kids. On Friday, I don't usually do math, but I told myself that on Friday or Saturday we needed to in order to meet my goal. Well, Saturday evening rolled around and I realized that we hadn't had our lessons. I had just picked up the kids from a friend's house and had promised them that we'd make cookies and dinner. How was I going to fit in math--three separate lessons usually take at least 90 minutes?

I did some quick thinking and decided to turn the cookies into a math lesson. Henry & I talked all about measurements, fractions, and how to follow a recipe. Kimball got busy figuring out how to double and half the recipe. Ian was only interested in nabbing chocolate chips, so I guess he didn't really have math that day, but I knew that Kimball and Henry got something out of it besides the cookies and I felt good about counting it. And as of today (Tuesday,) we've already had 2 good math lessons with 2 more to go this week.

My goal for this week is to stay off of the computer for non-school reasons until noon each school day. On the weekend, I must stay off the computer until I've exercised and read the scriptures. That means no email, facebook, blogging, shopping, etc. It will be tough, but I also know that it is key to my success if I want to get back into a good routine with my kids. It might sound ridiculously easy, but it will require self-control on my part.

My other goal last week was to get more out of my workouts. I don't felt like I acheived that one, partly because I continued to feel sick and overtired a lot of the time, so I'm going to carry it over again this week.

How are your goals coming? How does it feel to be competing in this challenge?

For Just One Week Update

"Is that the alarm? It can't possibly be time to get up already!"--Michal, every morning last week.

So here I am, reporting on my personal goal. You can participate in this program as well by going to Liz's blog (My Ice Cream Diary) and joining the fun. We set goals for one week at a time, trying to see what is achievable and reasonable in our efforts to self-improve. Liz is blowing me away with the goals she is setting and meeting. I have been less than stellar and am ashamed of myself. I'll try to set more realistic goals this week--and to be less flaky!

My carry-over goal of getting up before 6:00 am Monday through Thursday and by 7:00 on Friday just plain did not happen this week. My cold got worse, my kids got sicker, and I flaked out. On Monday I peeled myself out of bed right at 6:00. On Tuesday, when my alarm went off, I felt like crying. Jared said, "So you got up at 6:00. Now go back to bed." I guiltily did just that. Thursday was the only day I made it, and that was because my ride comes at 5:20 to take me to spin class and I don't have a good way to call her and cancel at such a ridiculous hour.

I've decided that this get up early thing is a great goal for me when I'm not sick, pregnant, and dealing with sick kids who think they need their mother in the middle of the night. Go ahead, call me wimpy. I can take it!

My new goal this week (besides the exercise and scripture study that we're working towards on this blog) was to clean my room every night before bed. I did it Monday-Thursday. Friday I felt like I deserved a medal for getting out of bed, let alone baking bread, wearing makeup to the doctor's office, and doing the grocery shopping after dinner. The two baskets of clean laundry that needed to be folded and put away? They got put on the floor to "take care of tomorrow." But it felt really good to take care of things on a nightly basis and I found that if I did that, it never got to be a big mess. Which is nice, because my room always seems to be the last priority in the house. I'm not going to officially carry this over as a goal next week, but I'll be keeping it in mind.

My goal this week is to get up by 6:00 on mornings when I actually got to sleep the night before AND to teach my kids at least 3 math lessons EACH this week (as we took a semi-holiday today, I'm not aiming for 4). A game of Triominoes does not count as a math lesson. I have been procrastinating and avoiding math like a 3rd grader since Christmas. Perhaps because my 3rd grader procrastinates and avoids math and I don't want to deal with it. But I need to for their sakes. And I think it will help me get my needed groove back when it comes to morning routines and homeschool.

And along with that, I'll be trying to get more out of my daily exercise. I am loving the daily scripture study, but the exercise could use some improvement in terms of effort, output, and sweat.

How are your goals coming along? Leave a comment, be a dear!

Just One Week -- My Personal Goal

Here is my weekly update on my participation in My Ice Cream Diary's For Just One Week goal program. If you would like to join us and set a personal goal to work on for just one week, go here.

My goal last week was to get out of bed before 6:00 am Monday through Thursday and before 7:00 am on Friday. I have always found that my day is better when I rise early, and yet over the holidays I really got lazy about that and found myself crawling out of bed when my kids did--or later. I knew that coming with the following week would be my exercise and scripture study goals, so I thought that easing in a little by getting up at a more reasonable hour would help. It did.

I made it out of bed before 6:00 Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday I decided to smother my goals with my pillow-- Ian had been up roughly 37 times in the night and I hadn't gotten more than three or four hours of sleep by 6:00 am. I stayed in bed until Bronwen got up at 8:00, letting my boys trash the house while I slumbered. (Ian had no problem getting up at his usual time, around 6:45. Kids!)

On the days that I did rise early, I was able to use this time to shower, dress, and spend at least 30 minutes with my gospel study in peace and quiet. It was heavenly and I really noticed a difference. In fact, the days that I did this, I found in the evening that I hadn't yelled at my children all day. Thursday I actually got up at 5:00 and made it to the early morning spin class that I'd missed for about 5 weeks in a row. I wanted a nap by 9:30, but it felt great!

Fridays are a little closer to the weekend around here, since my husband's office is closed, so I set my goal for 7:00 am and pulled it off. It gave me plenty of time to do my scripture study, feed the kids breakfast, and get ready for my hair appointment, and to let my husband sleep in a bit longer. Then he returned the favor on Saturday, the sweetie.

Anyway, in spite of not meeting my goal on Wednesday, I feel good about what I accomplished. This week, I am focusing on the same thing, plus adding in the daily exercise as part of our HH challenge. Additionally, I am going to do something that Lizzy at MICD is working on this week--cleaning my room every day. Somehow, it's always the last one to get done, which means it often doesn't. My kids aren't allowed to go to bed with a messy room, so I'm going to hold myself to that for just one week and see how it goes. Now I need to get to work on it before my early bedtime! Goodnight!