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.

Mommy Makeover 2014- It's an all new year

It's a new year and I'm ready for some new goals. My #1 goal is to blog everyday. That's right, everyday. I have found out over the last few years that the best way to accomplish a goal is to remind yourself what those goals are on a daily basis. Hence the daily blog. I will forewarn you that a daily blog means that not every post will be some spiritual serious long-winded enlightened lightbulb moment. Sometimes it will simply be an acknowledgement that there are days that suck. Because we all know that there are days where nothing goes according to plan and we end up looking/feeling like we've been caught in a blender on high speed and splattered against the wall when someone opens the lid.

Now onto more specific goals for the year:

Home:Finish all home renovation projects while getting/keeping home organized and clean
       How to: I have a list of what needs to be accomplished. Each pay period I will take a set amount to accomplish at least ONE item on the list. Some times it's a simple new doorknob while other times it's new flooring for the basement. As for clean and organized, I am spending all of January decluttering and organizing my home as well as creating routines to keep it clean and to deep clean once a month.


Spiritual: Continue to search out a deeper connection to spirit and RELEASE MY FEAR of not being enough, not being able to accomplish enough and not being able to show my children the people they should be
       How to: Spend 20 minutes a day meditating/reading spiritual books

Financial: Debt free
      How to: Cut grocery budget and restaurant meals and use this money to pay on debt.


Health:  Lose 50 lbs. by becoming a stronger, healthier me
         How to: Start working the eating and exercise program that worked for me years ago. Each month I will make small but reasonable changes in my eating and exercise patterns.

Marriage: Continue working on our marriage (we're getting closer but would love to reach the next level)
        How to: Read marriage books and apply their principles. Schedule monthly date nights.

Children: Spend more time as a family and teach them a spirit of kindness, compassion AND responsibility and striving for excellence
         How to: Help kids to follow house rules (which were posted this month), spend more time together as a family (game night, movie night, family activity once a month, have them help with home renovations), have them do one act of kindness a month/week/day.


Career:  This is multi-faceted--embrace my role as homemaker fully, continue writing to establish a complete series, start a hot dog cart to work towards a family business(hubby and I will work this together).
          How to: Do all of my homemaking duties first. Designate time daily to write. Spend a certain amount of time working on business plan and fundraising efforts for hot dog cart. Launch hot dog cart by March/April. 


***Keep everything in balance. I must take care of my health in order to take care of my home and my family. Spending even a small amount of time a day on each goal will get me to the end game. 

** Family vacation--I will have to bring in extra money in order to pay for this. Money avenues will include the hot dog cart, selling stuff I declutter on Craigslist or yard sale, making clothes and other things from my fabric stash and selling online. 

What are your goals this year? Do you have an action plan? Without a plan you don't have goals, you have wishes or dreams. Dreams are great but where will you be at the end of the year?

Mommy Makeover Reboot

It's been a while since I've written for this site but I thought it would be a good time to check in and start over.  When I started this blog a few years ago my goals were:

Annual goals: Deadline December 21, 2010

Home: new house

Spiritual: a sense of peace and spiritual understanding

Financial: debt free except for one car and home

Health: lose 50 lbs. eat only foods that are good for me

Marriage: renewed relationship with my husband

Children: better relationship with kids, they are more responsible and treat each other better

Career:  having released 6 books, earning $4000 per month

I have checked off a few of those. We have a new house. We have only one car payment and about half of our debt is paid down. More would be gone but we have been detoured with braces and surgery bills. So all in all we are doing pretty awesome in that department.

My spiritual life is still a work in progress. My weight is still here. My marriage is quite a bit better than it was and we're still working on it. My children get along better and I am learning to adjust from the little years to the teen and pre-teen years. It's weird to transition from conversations with a teen to a 6 year old so that's something new.

The career thing has it's ups and downs. I currently have six books out in varying genres but I'm not quite pulling in that $4000 a month. 

I tell you all of this to tell you that it's okay to fall down. It's okay to fail. The key is to get back up, dust yourself off and move forward. That's what this blog is for. 

New goals for September 2013-September 2014:

Home: refinished inside and landscaping outside (while very livable upstairs the house needs paint and new carpet or hardwood to replace the 30+ year old carpet, the basement needs to bed finished off)

Spiritual: continue searching for a spiritual connection

Financial: press towards being debt free so that we can have the freedom to vacation and do more as a family

Health: better health and 50-60 lbs smaller

Marriage: to get back my best friend

Children: teaching them to be productive citizens while showing them unconditional love

Career: publish 6-12 books and begin earning $4000-$8000 a month

I will confess that I am much more productive than I was a few years ago. I don't let the cleaning go forever and I am able to make decent meals most of the time. Some days get away from me but learning what I was doing with my time and how much I was letting go really hit me hard. I must confess that I feel guilty about the way life was when my kids were smaller. They are still small but the oldest is almost 15 and I feel as if I have soooo screwed her up because of my depression and the constant chaos during the first half of her life. My goal this year is to truly reconnect with her and to forgive myself of the guilt that sometimes threatens to overwhelm me. 

What are your goals?