New Year’s Resolutions 2017

I might stop doing these New Year’s Resolution posts because my Passion Planner has a place to write down things like this.  Before, I felt like my blog was the only place to write things down.  I don’t know.  We’ll see.  Blogging keeps changing.  Anyway.  I started brain-storming things I wanted to do this year.  Things that would bring more happiness in my life that I wasn’t doing now (or could do better at).  While I was writing all these ideas down in my Passion Planner, it says to pick one thing to work on.  It’s called your game changer.  And I realized that my game changer that would fulfill almost all my goals was this:

Have a daily routine

I wanted to do things like: read more, lost weight, spend time with my family, write in my journal, do yoga, read my scriptures etc.

So here’s my routine where I’ve put in all the things I want to do on a daily basis (I bolded the ones that were my New Year’s Resolutions):

6:30-7:30 am: Get toddler out of bed.  Change him, bring him to my bed and read my scriptures while he jumps on my husband’s head or wakes up everyone else.

8 am: Eat healthy breakfast to help lose weight while I read an actual, physical copy of The Wall Street Journal.  After the election and all the fake news, I want to be well-informed with credible news.

8:30 am: Make lunches and help the kids get off to school.

9 am: Do 15 minutes of yoga.  I try to distract my toddler with TV so he won’t come sit on my head while I do yoga.  It doesn’t always work.  And dad’s left for work by now so mine is the only head he can sit on.

9:15 am: Pray after I’m done with yoga.  I feel so relaxed and meditative after I do yoga that I felt like it was the perfect time to pray.

10-11 am: Do chores.  Depending on the day I will pay bills, put away laundry, go grocery shopping, tidy, run errands, make phone calls, or do the dishes.

11:00 am: Eat lunch and put my toddler down for a nap.

12:00 pm: Shower.

12:30 pm: Read for an hour.  Post to Instagram.  Write a book review.  Whatever I feel like until naptime is over.

2:30 pm: Play with my toddler after he’s woken up from a nap.  Keep phone and TV off and just be present.

4 pm: Listen to the kid’s stories when they get home from school and get them a snack.

5 pm: Make dinner and tidy the kitchen if it needs it (it always needs it).

6 pm: Eat dinner as a family

6:30 pm: I teach piano lessons, go to scouts or we have family home evening. If it’s Friday it’s my day off!!  I spend 2-3 hours on Friday blogging and relaxing while all the boys have a boys night out and girls are definitely not allowed (I am the only girl in this house).  Aw darn I can’t come lol.  Looks like mom will have to spend some time alone upstairs.  Heck yes I lock the door.

8 pm: Nag the kids to get ready for bed.  If I’m not totally exhausted by this point, I try to turn it into a game of who can get ready before mom does?!  I’m usually tired though and just nag them to get their pajamas on and brush their teeth.

8:30 pm: Read to my kids.  We read Harry Potter and then read scriptures and have a family prayer and then do a family cheer afterwards.  The cheer helps them look forward to the prayer :)

9 pm: Write in my journal for 20 minutes while I burn a lovely scented candle.

9:30 pm: Listen to music while I get ready for bed.

10 pm: Read.  I like that I have a back up time to read during the day.  Sometimes nap time gets cut short or there were extra chores I had to do that day and I don’t always get a chance to read in the afternoon.

10:30 pm: Pass out.  Oh I mean go to bed.

I know I know.  When I first wrote this schedule, I thought that it was crazy.  How could I possibly want to do all those things?  But I do.  To maintain my physical, spiritual and mental health and those of my family, I need to do all those things.  (Ok sometimes I skip showering. But nothing else is skippable! And showering technically isn’t either, but some days something’s gotta go).

Having done this schedule for a few weeks now, the things I’m most tempted to skip are the ones that relax me – doing yoga, writing in my journal, and reading.  And when I skip those I am so done at the end of the day.  So so done.  But the days that I’ve left them in, I’m still tired but not exhausted at the end of the day.  Even though it seems like it would be less stressful to not follow this demanding schedule, I’ve found the opposite to be true.

One thing that has helped me get through this schedule is to not worry about the time.  Sometimes I don’t get done reading the paper and eating breakfast til 9:30 am.  Whatever.  Sometimes I don’t start doing my chores until later and it pushes back my toddler’s nap.  No big deal.  I focus more on doing one thing after the other and only worry about doing one thing at a time.  I take my time reading the paper.  I pray for as long as I want.  The minute I start thinking about how many things are left on my schedule for the day, I get overwhelmed and stressed again.

The Rest of My Resolutions

These are the resolutions that didn’t fit in my daily routine.

Exercise – I don’t even know where to fit this in.  Maybe some days I could skip chores and go to the gym instead??? Who needs clean laundry anyway!  I found a new app today called Fitstar that has short 15 minute workouts that I will try doing after yoga.  But I’m pretty sure that going to the gym is just plain out.

Start decorating the house – I finished my kitchen last year and I’m excited to finish the rest of the house.

Cleaning schedule for me and the kids and teach the kids more chores – I don’t know if you know this but only one hour of cleaning every day leaves out little things like cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, mopping, sweeping, taking out the garbage, and changing the sheets.  Unless I want to spend hours on Saturday doing all that stuff, my kids are going to have to help.

Finish our yard and get swing set – we still need to plant things, put in a drip system for those plants, and put in garden boxes to grow vegetables and stuff.

Go on one-on-one outings with my kids – The hard part has been fitting these in, but our kids love going to the movies or the arcade and getting all the attention from mom or dad.

Go on two dates a month – I’m trading teaching piano for babysitting which will make going on dates a lot easier.

Get out of debt – I had this goal last year and even though we aren’t totally out of debt, we did manage to pay off $5000 which I’m really proud of.

Plan vacations – Hawaii and Harry Potter world are on our bucket list.  The sooner we get out of debt, the sooner we can save to do those things :)

What are your New Year’s Resolutions?