Seize the day

photo credit

Seize the day, seize whatever you can

'Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand

Seize the day, pray for grace from God's hand

Then nothing will stand in your way

Seize the day...
"Seize the Day" by Carolyn Arends

Do you have goals? Things in your life you want to accomplish? Daily goals, monthly goals, yearly goals?

I'm taking an online class by Blogelina about improving your blogging skills. After the first class, we're asked to go through a list of questions about the goals we have for our blogs. They're pretty basic questions, such as What are you going to blog about? Do you want to teach or entertain? Will your blog be purely recreational, or would you like to make money at some point? Who is your target reader? How much work are you willing to put into your blog?

I think I've finally found a groove in the frequency of my blogging. From 2007-2009, I wrote 16 times. In 2010 I wrote 44 times. And so far in 2011, I've written 68 times. Since June, I've written at least every other day. And I'm enjoying it! I do love to write. I might not have many "followers" based on the sidebar over there <--------- , but I am hoping to increase those numbers.

And so all this talk and thoughts about goals has me wondering: Do I keep writing as I've been writing, about lots of different things, keeping this a basic "mom blog" (which seems to be a very popular trend)? Or do I shift my focus to one specific niche, be that parenting or books or music or gardening or something? Or do I start another, separate blog about one of those niches? 

I think once I firm up the ideas in my head of what my focus is for this blog, I'll be able to look more closely at setting goals for things like traffic, content, making money, community, networking, and time...

Any thoughts? What do you like to hear me write about?

Dave Ramsey would be proud

Well I'm finally taking the time to do it. I used to be so good at keeping up with our finances, tracking where our money went. Then life got busy, and we were doing fine financially, so the tracking got pushed to the backburner.

Then I started buying gift cards through the TRIP program at the school I work for. And I made a new year's resolution to start keeping track again. But the gift cards made things tricky. Would I record when I bought the cards, or when I used them to purchase things, or both? How would that filter through my nifty Excel formulas to tell me how we spent our money? So the tracking stayed on the backburner.

Well today I got inspired. I don't like not knowing where our money is going. If every dollar has a name, I'm less likely to spend it somewhere else under another name. So I made a brand new spreadsheet:

I totaled up the gift cards I have, ones I've bought from TRIP and ones we've gotten as gifts over the years... holy cow we've got a lot of $$ in gift cards waiting to be used! That's encouraging! So we'll see how things go. If I just force myself to take the time to do this, it WILL happen. We WILL find extra money to save for Abby or finish the basement. We WILL pay off our house early. I just need to put my organizing-perfectionist-beaver-type personality into it!

What about you? Do you live on a budget? How do you track where your money goes?

Women in the Word Wednesdays

You may remember one of my New Year's resolutions was to be in the Word every day. Wow, looking back it was #1 on my list. And I haven't been doing too well. As time has gone on, I've chosen to spend my mornings after Rocky leaves "relaxing" with Facebook and reading the bunch of blogs I have in my Google Reader. Well that's gonna change!! I found out about a website/blog called Good Morning Girls. I joined up with a group of ladies in Michigan who are sharing emails every couple of days, keeping each other accountable for being in the Word. GMG has provided a reading schedule of a verse a day for the next 12 weeks. So here are a few thoughts I've had from what we've read this week...

Monday 5/16: Psalm 127:1
God needs to be the builder of my home -- involved in the laying of every piece, not just the foundation, but all the other little bricks in our live too.

Tuesday 5/17: John 15:4-5
No branch can bear fruit on it's own. It has to be connected to a source. I can't serve and fully bear God's fruit for others to enjoy by myself.

Wednesday 5/18: Matthew 6:33
From my Life Application Bible notes: "...turn to God first for help, fill your thoughts with his desires, take his character for your pattern... What is really important to you? ["these things" = v. 31: what shall we eat? drink? wear?] ...Any of these can quickly become most important to you if you don't actively choose to give God first place in every area of your life." (italics and brackets mine)


Starting next week we will also be doing a book study on Sally Clarkson's The Ministry of Motherhood. (the book picture on Amazon doesn't match the actual cover of the book...) Be on the lookout for this book to be featured in the next few weeks in my Book Talk Tuesday/Thursday! :)

Book Talk Tuesday: Ten Little Ladybugs

Ten Little Ladybugs by Melanie Gerth has quickly become one of Abby's favorites books. I'm not sure if it's because of the cute 3-dimensional ladybugs on each page, or the lulling rhyme, or the colorful pages, but she settles right in on my lap when I read it to her (most of the time...). The boardbook format also makes it possible for her to turn the pages herself. "...along came a butterfly, and then there were..." and I lightly hold up the page for her to grab and turn.

I have to admit, the very first time I read the book, I wondered what the heck was going on when all these creatures were appearing and the ladybugs were disappearing... This is a kids book, they're not getting eaten, are they?!

Another of Abby's favorites with a similar concept is Eight Silly Monkeys by Steve Haskamp. We received both of these books as shower gifts, and I think they will be part of our library for a long time. I can just imagine Abby reading along and learning to count backward!

When we were at Frederick Meijer Gardens last week visiting the butterfly exhibit, I was in the gift shop and wanted something for Abby to "remember" her first trip there. Lo and behold, I found another of Melanie Gerth's books, called Good Night Sweet Butterflies! Perfect! This one was all about colors, and while Abby does enjoy looking at the pictures now, I think she'll really like it in a couple years when she starts learning her colors.

One of my New Year's resolutions has been to read to Abby every day -- these books sure are helping me accomplish that goal!!

One month in...

Ok so one month into our new year's resolutions... how have we done??

1. Daily Devotions - C - This one started out well, but slowly I started doing other things at the beginning of my day instead of being in the Word (aka Facebook...). I'm on a roll this week though, both yesterday and today I started out with some of my "homework" for the Esther Bible study I'm doing with some gals at church.

2. Exercise every day - B - I actually haven't been doing too bad with this one. I found out about the 100 pushups challenge and started working on it a few weeks ago. And I've been trying to do some situps/ab exercises every day. I'd like to do more with this one, but most will have to wait until it warms up outside enough to take Abby out for walks. In the meantime, I'm just trying to stay consistent with doing something - especially since Abby really likes watching me and laughing at me doing pushups and situps. :)

3. Read to Abby every day - A - This is probably the one I've done the best at. There has rarely been a day all month that I did not read to Abby. Sometimes we'll read in the mornings, sometimes in the afternoon before a nap, sometimes it's a bedtime story. She likes to try and close the book on me before I'm done. But at least we're making an effort.

4. Meal plan - B+ - Not too bad. Some weeks have been better than others. Some weeks are much easier to plan than others. I'm working on meal planning over the weekend so I can grocery shop accordingly on Saturday mornings or Monday evenings.

5. Keep track of finances - I - (that's an I for Incomplete...) With trying to organize my schedule into a routine and work on all of my other resolutions, this one got put on the back-burner. And I'm ok with that. Two days ago I put in the time to create a new Excel file to track our income and out-go, so this resolution is really starting in February.


So there we go. Definite room for improvement, but it's only been one month. I realized I did NOT make a resolution to blog every day (and I thought I had!) so that's a relief... since in the past 31 days I've blogged 8 times. Sheesh. 

Musical Mondays: Ancient Words

We sang this song in church yesterday. I'd never heard it before coming to Oakwood, and now it's one of my favorites. I love the piano arrangement, and the violin pieces, and the catchy tune (I have a thing for 6/8 time :) ), and the great lyrics.

The sermon yesterday was about God's Word, and desiring to read it. I have to admit, when Pastor Ron was finished, I wanted to just sit and read my Bible the rest of the day! It is definitely a part of my life that's lacking. I'm doing a Bible study with some other gals from church on the book of Esther, and we take a week at a time to go through one chapter (although we're meeting every other week, so we really have 2 weeks to accomplish 5 days of study :) ). It's amazing the things I'm learning when I slow down and dig deep into a few verses at a time! It's something that I have a desire to do, I just don't do it...

I just struggle with doing it every day. I'm such a lists-schedule-task-oriented person, I need to carve out a schedule that says I'm going to do it at xx:xx time every day... so I can focus on those "Ancient words, ever true, changing me and changing you. They resound with God's own heart, oh let the ancient words impart!"

I am a Penelope

I'm a dork. Let me just put that out there. I get excited about silly little stuff. Like the idea of organizing my week on an Excel spreadsheet. Yesterday as I was thinking about my resolution to do better at meal planning, did I simply pull out a piece of paper and write down what we would eat this week? No. I had to search online for "free meal planner" and came across a few templates that someone has already created to help people like me. Once I get my list completed of the meals I normally prepare (and the ones I'd like to try), this spreadsheet is going to be amazing...

You might have noticed the little picture on the right -------> that says I'm a Penelope. You should click on it (after you've finished reading this post of course). I don't remember how I came across the site, Penelope Loves Lists, but it was created by a girl after my own heart. Check out the "About" page. Those first couple of paragraphs are all about me (even though I didn't write them). I used to love back-to-school shopping -- not for new clothes, but for new notebooks, pens, etc... OfficeMax is still one of my favorite stores. Am I a little weird? Maybe. But at least I know there are other Penelopes out there who understand me. :)

Happy New Year

Ahh, New Year's resolutions. Something to be made every year, and broken a few weeks later... Everyone always starts out with such good intentions and valiant goals. I've read anywhere from 75-92% of people actually keep their new year's resolutions. So why even try? The odds are against me. It's a whole lot harder to actually do something than to just say I will.

Well I'm actually going to try. I've been making a couple of lists of things to do weekly and things to do daily. Most of the weekly stuff involves cleaning, etc. around the house, and most of the daily stuff is for my own personal fulfillment. So I'm going to list a few things here, and hope that by blogging about them I can keep up with them!

1. Daily devotions. Even if it's just reading a short page from a devotional book, I want to be in the Word every day. A former pastor of mine just launched a new video devotional called 30God, which I think will be a great jump-start to helping me think about God every day.

2. Exercise every day. I'm sure this is the most-often-named new year's resolution. Ok, maybe "lose weight" is the MOST common, but I'm more interested in just being healthy. It will be so much easier once spring comes and Abby and I can get out and walk again, but in the meantime I want to make a conscious effort to do something every day - even if it's just some sit-ups.

3. Read to Abby every day. I love books, and I want to encourage Abby to love to read too.

4. Meal plan. Ideally this will be something I'll do once a week, and plan what we're going to have for dinner every night for the next week. Then I can plan my grocery shopping accordingly, and not get to 6:00 at night and wonder hmm, what am I going to do for dinner? I at least want to have that day's dinner planned by noon so I can get any prep work out of the way or meat out of the freezer etc.

5. Keep track of finances. I've done well with this off and on, keeping track of what we spend and such, but never for a whole year. We've always been ok with our spending, etc. and I've never truly created a budget to work from each month, but I know the simple task of recording where our money goes does help us not spend as much.

So there we go. Five things, all very doable. Some daily, some weekly (I won't bore you with all the weekly cleaning tasks I want to accomplish). Can I stick with it? Be part of the 8-25% who actually stick with their resolutions? We'll see...

Do you have any resolutions for the new year?