Here's how I did in January:
- Read the Bible every day, first thing and last thing. I had wanted to make a goal of reading the Bible through this year, but I never accomplish that, always getting stuck before I get out of the Pentateuch. So I'm not being as hard on myself, and this year I am simply planning to read a bit of the Bible every day. In January, I didn't keep up well with the "first thing in the morning and last thing at night" - it usually happens in the middle of the day. I'm trying to read the Proverbs chapter that correlates with the day's date, and a few chapters of Psalms every day, and then selected reading from elsewhere in Scripture as well. I haven't kept up every day, but about 2/3 of the time I do get some reading in. I hope to improve that.
- Pray out loud or in prayer journal every day. I'm not as good with prayer as I am with Scripture reading, but I have tried to pray out loud almost every day, usually a simple prayer with Asher.
- Bring up faith with nominal and lost friends, family, and acquaintances. Didn't really happen this month.
Reading
- Read 2 books per month. Nope. I have three books going right now: Emma by Jane Austen (on my Kindle app on iPhone), Follow Me by David Platt (physical book), and Embracing Obscurity by Anonymous (on the Kindle Fire). I didn't make much progress on any of them in January.
.jpg)
- Beat Brandon in reading challenge (read more pages than him in physical books by June). I haven't done well with reading, but I've done better than Brandon ;). That is only because this is a visual reading challenge, and he has listened to several audiobooks this month. He is more of an audio/video kind of learner than a reader, and I am more of a reader.
Parenting
- Set and stick with a rough routine for our days at home. I told you it was laughable. I have planned out a routine, but never follow it.
- Limit Asher's screen time to an hour per day, maximum. Some days are better than others. Some days he doesn't even watch anything, but others... can be pretty bad (although most kids whose families have cable probably watch more every day than he does on our "bad" days).
Take Asher to the movies once.Yay! Something to check off! We went to see "Frozen", and I loved it. Brandon thought it was ok, and I think Asher enjoyed it, but he was too antsy to sit still the whole time. Going to the movies is not something we will do regularly yet.Bimonthly play dates with cousins, and frequent visits with [the boy around Asher's age whose grandmother babysits him and is our neighbor].This didn't happen quite the way I imagined, but we did see all the cousins twice in January - once at Asher's birthday party, then saw some cousins at Kassidy's birthday party, and we saw Westin for about an hour and a half one day when we watched him at our house. It's been too cold to go out much, so we haven't seen the little boy down the road probably at all in January.Continue weekly story time at the library.This is an ongoing goal, but one we did keep up with in January. If nothing else, it helps us get out of the house.- [New goal] Get Asher out of our bed by the time baby comes in April. Currently, we have Asher's toddler bed pushed up against the side of our bed, and he likes sitting in it sometimes, but doesn't like sleeping in it. He did fine with it with Brandon when I was out of town one night, but when I'm home he climbs on either side of me multiple times throughout each night. I don't like it. Brandon is going to put him to bed and sleep with him the next few nights while I sleep in another room. So I believe we are making a bit of progress here.
Homemaking
- Get into a cleaning schedule/routine and stick with it. Laughable, I tell you.
- Continue meal-planning each week, stay within grocery budget, track spending. I didn't do as well in January I have the previous several months, because a few times it was too cold and/or snowy and/or icy to go grocery shopping on our shopping day, which messes up my routine of shopping on Mondays, and I'm just not as motivated to do it well if it's not on the right day. I'm weird, I know.
- Eat out less, once per week max. I think we have mostly kept pretty well to eating at home. One week we ate out too much, but other than that I think we did well.
Marriage
- Read 2 marriage books. Not yet.
- Go on a weekend date without Asher before baby is born. I'm hoping this can happen, but we are getting closer and closer to due date with no plans yet.
Financial
- Reach savings goal by June. We are on track with this.
- Pay for baby's birth in cash, right away. We are on track with this.
