Looking ahead in 2009

Wow! I can hardly believe that another year has flown by. It seems like just yesterday Sarah was a newborn and now we have a third little blessing on the way! I remember when we were planning on Sarah's arrival I felt so unprepared. I had heard that the transition from one child to two was the hardest and I certainly did not feel organized enough to keep up with two children. So I took some steps like stocking the refrigerator and trying to get our home on a nice schedule. And for a while it worked. But now after all of the holiday hoopla, sickness filled mornings and the exhaustion I've dealt with over the last few months, I'm feeling rather overwhelmed again. So I took some time to look back on the past year and evaluate how I did and to list some areas that I need to improve. I've come up with a list of some things I need to work on so that I can get our home up and running smoothly again before the addition of our new little one in July.

1. Discipline ~ I am not very good at setting a schedule and sticking to it. Especially in the evenings. I'm a big sucker for a good TV show and truth be told there really isn't anything out there worth watching and it's a complete waste of time, AND it pushes back my bedtime. I need to commit to my daily schedule, especially a set bedtime.

2. Priorities~ Looking back over the past year I noticed that some of my priorities were out of line. I need to make sure that the Lord comes first, then my husband, then my children, then my home, then whatever else, and then things like the Internet/facebook/blogging, etc. There were definitely days where the house went unclean but yet I spent an hour or so on the computer. Definitely not a productive use of time.

3. Organization~ I need to be better at finding a place for everything and putting everything back in it's place. I have a habit of just stashing a new item someplace rather than creating a specific place for a new item. And also, when I do have designated places for items, sometimes I neglect to put that item away once it's been used. I need to personally do better at this and also train my children to do the same.

So, here's my attack plan for number one. I'm going to just get back to basics on our schedule for a while so that I can get back into the habit of a good routine. Biggest thing I'll be working on is making sure I am in bed no later than 10PM and getting up with my alarm at 630AM to do devotions and get showered. I'm also going to take Crystal's advice over at Biblical Womanhood and do my least favorite chore first thing in the morning so that it's out of the way. I'm going to continue to blog about my progress. I have a lot of inner organizing to do and a lot of planning (including meal planning) to do to get ready for baby number three. We've also just put our house up for sale so there will be that adding to the chaos!