Focuses...NOT Resolutions

Hey. Happy Christmas and New Year! We had a great holiday season but it's been very nice to get back into the daily routine. So as is common with the New Year we've all decided on a few things we would like to work on. Not so much resolutions, just things to continually focus on. The boys have their little goals, one of which will earn them a big prize if completed. If Nate turns in every single piece of schoolwork for the next 2 months he will get be enroll in Football and if Ty can go 2 more months (he's at 4 months so far) of not having nighttime accidents he will get a Coby tablet. We haven't decided on a goal/reward for Ry yet. As a family, we've decided to do the following:

1. Make it to school by 8:30 am
2. Brush teeth/read scriptures and books/say family prayer every night no matter what (i.e. nighttime routine)
3. Be more active (more sports)
4. Get out of the house and do stuff together more often
5. Eat dinner at the table every day
6. Save for a vacation
6 1/2. Go on said vacation :)

I think all are manageable and so far we are doing really well with most of them. I made personal items I want to work on this year as well.

1. Manage my money better
2. Do 52 week save challenge (put money equal to the number of week it is away each week, i.e. week 1 would be $1, week 2 = $2, week 3 = $3) and by week 52 you'll have $1500ish saved.
3. Plan and cook meals - try new recipes
4. Ditch the negative vices holding me down
5. Learn a new skill
6. Re-dedicate to Weight Watchers
7. Be more consistent in my parenting/stop yelling
8. Plan for vacation
9. Pass my Loan Originator Licensing Exam
10. Get more sleep
11.Spend less time on phone/in front of TV/on electronics

I'm off to a good start so far for the year I think. I haven't eaten out all week, not even for lunch which is amazing and have cooked things I haven't cooked in a long time. I also have a mini-goal to reach my 10% token in Weight Watchers and have about 9 lbs to go until I reach that, so that is my January goal. It's going to be tough but I can do it. So far I'm doing well.

Have ya'll heard about the article going viral about divorcing phones? It's at this LINK if you want to read it. The bishop talked to us about how some studies he'd read stated that people who spend 2+ hours either watching TV/playing games/etc (anything to do with electronics) start having their frontal lobe shut down. The frontal lobe is the part that controls creativity, emotions, etc. Which makes sense as to why people who spend too much time doing this stuff can get aggressive after awhile (my boys do....and me too sadly). So between knowing I'm knocking my frontal lobe out of place AND knowing I'm missing important stuff all around me when I spend too much time on my phone....I made that last goal. I would encourage you to read up on this stuff too, it's pretty fascinating and scary. Makes you think twice about what you choose to spend your time doing.

AND...my phone apparently didn't believe I could accomplish that last goal because it took things upon itself to 'divorce' me. And it won't come back no matter what I try. Since you have to buy phones with Straight Talk outright (no discounts), I've just decided to wait until I do my yearly payment next month. My dad has lent me his cell phone so they have a way to get a hold of me and his is not a smart phone which has been interesting. There is no texting or internet, no apps, no nothing. And I kinda like it. I haven't had to charge it one time since Sunday and the dang thing still has a full battery. I do miss being able to check my bank acct any time I want and texting people I care about whenever I want, however it has literally forced me into focusing more on my kids and what they are doing and it's kind of nice.

A weird outcome from this lack of phone deal is that I haven't had any desire to sit on my laptop all night and play Facebook games either. This has helped me get back into good sleeping habits this week which has helped us all get to bed earlier and wake up earlier so we are earlier to school. I also 'feel like' exercising more because I'm not consumed with FB games (those things are addicting). Crazy how that works huh? For some reason all of this combined has also helped me be able to kick some nasty vices I'd been holding on to as well which I know will help in the Weight Watchers side of things. So I have decided one good lifestyle change can have quite the snowball effect. Granted this is just the first week. Or second actually. But still....I have high high hopes.

I'm thinking 2014 is going to be a good year. I'm looking forward to it. I hope ya'll have made some good focuses for 2014 and wish you all the success in accomplishing what you set out to do.