More Than Just the Home

I realize over the last few days I have been focusing on what is or is not getting accomplished on the home front and not in the overall picture of my life. That was not the intention of this makeover challenge. Today I sat down and evaluated where I am slacking in finding that balance.

The areas that can always be enhanced upon are:

• home
• spiritual connection
• marriage
• family
• relationship with each individual kid
• health
• finances
• career

So I will incorporate at least three things from each category throughout the week. I sat down and marked every appointment in my planner that is coming up next week so that I know what amount of time I have to work with. (Yes, I still have an old fashioned paper planner. While I do have a planning/to-do app on my smartphone, I seem to remember things so much easier when I write them by hand.)

Every night, before bed, I will set aside fifteen minutes to write out the plan for the next day. A new tactic I'm going to try is called time-blocking. Here's a great explanation of time-blocking.

So what are my goals for this year?

• Home: clean, organized, welcoming to all and completely finished with renovations
• Spiritual connection: to embrace prayer and meditation and grow closer to my creator
• Marriage: establish a monthly or bi-monthly date night while learning to have fun together again
• Family: create a closer knit family and teach my kids about becoming productive people with good character and a strong work ethic
• Relationship with each kid: learn more about what they like and dislike and dig more in-depth about what they want to do in life-more one-on-one time
• Health: to lose a total of 50 pounds, become stronger and help my kids to make healthier choices
• Finances: to finally pay off all debt and build a strong savings account
• Career: continue writing and developing my children's series while studying about the restaurant business for a future endeavor

I realize that these are all lofty goals even when you are addressing them individually and to tackle them all is very ambitious. That's where I always think "shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars". I will be thirty-nine this year and I don't want to be where I am today at the same time next year.

This will be the year where I make real and lasting changes. What about you? Do you have goals you want to achieve? Are you happy where you are or are you simply comfortable? I've been whining about my weight for close to a decade (which is really freaking depressing when you think about it) but today I did something about it. I am no longer a victim of circumstances. This isn't just about goals. This year, 2015, is about looking at what I don't like about my life as a set of challenges that I will meet head on.

What's on the schedule this weekend?


Due to most of my family being gone tomorrow and Sunday I will be doing a major cleaning, writing and laundry boost. Somewhere in there I will play a few games with my youngest and maybe take him to the local bouncy house place. They have wi-fi so I can write while he jumps.