2010: The year of the resolutions that I may or may not keep because I'm typically not that good at keeping resolutions.

At the beginning of each new year, I embark on a journey. I make a resolution and blah, blah, blah. At the end of each said year, I end up feeling like crap because I failed to keep my resolutions. It's the same old story.

This year, I vowed to be different. This year I said I'd make no resolutions. Why set myself up for disappointment? That's a justification I use all the time. Just ask my husband, the eternal optimist. He sets himself up for disappointment quite a bit, and many times he faces disappointment. But you know what? He's a happy guy. If you've followed my personal blog in the past or you follow me on facebook, I'm sure you see me plastering pictures like this up all the time:












My husband is a happy guy! Have you ever seen someone so excited to shovel snow? Sure, he gets sad when the weather man says we're going to get eight inches of snow and we only end up with half an inch. But his excitement and happiness over the possible snow outweighs the little bit of disappointment. And he's just...happy. Have I mentioned that? So I decided to take a cue from him this year. Why is the risk of disappointment more important to me than the joy of living life positively? So, having said all that, here is my list of resolutions. I'd say that I'm dead serious about keeping every single one of them but in all honesty, I'll falter somewhere. What I will say is that I am going to try my hardest, because these are a list of things that I very much want to accomplish this year (in no particular order).

1. Grow my marriage.

My mom bought Tim and I a series of parenting books by John Rosemond for Christmas. I already knew that I agreed with a lot of his principles after reading several of his columns so I was really excited to begin reading his books! Though his ideas are seen as a little harsh these days, I can't help but agree with him that parents of former generations had it mostly figured out. It's kids nowadays that are having more and more serious issues. It's time to "believe in yesterday", as he puts it. One point he likes to drive home is to leave your baby. Go on dates, go on extended weekend trips, take your baby to church daycare, etc. He stresses a once-a-week date night; dinner, movie or both. While I don't think that's financially feasible for our family, I'm going to set a goal of twice a month dates. My marriage to my husband should be the most important thing in my life. As Rosemond says, your marriage is (generally) there before the child and (should be) there after the child leaves home. The most important thing you can give a child is an example of a happy and fulfilled marriage. If a child has that, he feels secure and is likely to emulate the same thing in his own marriage.

Oh, and I highly recommend his books!

2. Grow my relationship with God.

It's not really a secret that my relationship with God isn't where it should be. I didn't grow up in the church. We joined in high school, where I became quite active, but I found myself growing farther and farther away from Him in the past few years. This isn't how I want to raise my child(ren) and it's not how I want to live, either. When I'm at Church, I feel at peace and I feel my happiest. I'm joining MOPS at a local church in a few weeks and we've found a Church we really love that we plan to become members of. In addition, I'd really like to join a parenting group at our Church with Tim.


3. Set a budget & switch to an envelope system.

I like to pretend that we try our best to live as frugally as possible, but that really isn't the truth. We buy Starbucks (we as in I), we stop by Cinnabon at least once a week (we as in Tim), we go out too eat too often and we don't follow a strict budget. How can we say we're living frugally? Sure, I cut coupons and scour the internet for the best deals, but is that enough? I say no. I've been reluctant to fall into the "Dave Ramsey Trap," as I like to call it, but the more I learn about his system, the more I'm starting to get it. My mom taught me the envelope system years ago and now we're re-implementing it! Beginning...well...now, we're switching to a mostly cash system. We'll sit down right before payday and readjust our budget for the following month based on whatever necessary factors there are. Then we'll pay all the bills we have to pay out of our checking account before we head to the bank to get some cold hard cash. Ramsey says it's harder to spend cash than chuck over your debit card. It makes sense, so let's see if that's the case with us. I'm most excited about realizing my limits. When the cash in the grocery fund envelopes is gone, it's gone. I'd like to pay down our (as in my) debt and start making bigger car and house payments.

4. Get organized for real.

You might remember my Minimalism posts that ran several months ago. I really made some headway in getting our new house in order, but there's a lot left to do. This year I want to accomplish two things: get organized and stay organized. The stay part is the tough one for me. My once gleaming closets are already a little embarrassing. I haven't decided how I'll accomplish that yet, but suggestions are more than welcome! :) I'll be posting along the way!


5. Get in shape for good.



I had a baby in 2008. They say, "It takes nine months to put on, expect nine months to take it off!" They are, indeed, correct. They didn't mention that for some of us less fortunate souls, nine months can turn into 12. Sadly, it took a whopping 12 months to hit that magical pre-pregnancy number on the scale. But even when I hit it, I was two sizes up from pre-pregnancy. Still am, actually. I can squeeze myself into my old clothes, but it ain't a pretty sight! So I'd like to spend 2010 not only losing another ten pounds, but getting toned. I've got the Shred loaded in my DVD player and I'm ready to do it five days a week. The hubs has finally agreed with me that we need a treadmill, but it's kind of conflicting with resolution number three.

So there you have it! Now I'll print this out, hang it on my mirror and pound it all into my head on the daily. I suppose resolution six could be to keep my resolutions for once!