2012 was not very nice to me. Nothing catastrophic or genuinely bad happened last year, I just felt like I was barely keeping my head above drowning. All. Year. Mothering, spousing (yep, I just made up a word), managing my household, homeschooling, not to mention my own well being. All were just overwhelming.
So, good riddance, I say! On to a new year! This year, I choose to make it a good year. I choose to see joy and thanksgiving in the daily. I choose to have self discipline and routine. I choose to believe that I am blessed!
That sounds lovely, right? So here’s what I’m doing to that end:
1. I am going to read the bible through. Again. This time, I am using youversion.com and the ESV Study Bible reading plan. You can also print it in PDF here. Each day’s reading is a passage from Psalms and Wisdom, History of Israel, Chronicles and Prophets, and Gospels and Epistles. This is a nice slow reading so I don’t have to rush and I don’t have to be overwhelmed.
2. Memorizing the Mount. Memorize Matthew chapters 5-7. Every verse. I’ll be taking a year to do it, and I have friends who are on the journey with me, but it still will be a huge challenge. 
Just think, though, if you have all those Blesseds in your brain, all the time. Wouldn’t it be hard not to remember how blessed we really are?
3. The Joy Dare. I choose to see my blessings, the graces in my life, and be thankful for them. The joy dare is a follow up to the book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp, which I read last year and really enjoyed, as I’ve posted about before. The challenge now is to think of other things besides the obvious. This is where the Joy Dare jumps in to save the day. Each day for the whole year, she has three graces to look for, to write down. I plan to tweet these as well as writing them down. By the end of the year, I’ll be at 1000!!
3. A Year of Date nights. A few friends of mine were doing this, so I jumped in with them. Each month, there is a large manilla envelope with instructions and supplies for a fun and out of the ordinary date night. We got most of the ideas from here but redid a few to meet our needs better. I gave them to him for Christmas with a few rules attached. We successfully executed our first one last week: we went bowling, but first we stopped at the thrift store and picked out shirts for each other to wear. We then wrote on the back with a sharpie our “bowling names” for each other.
Yep, I won :-) Both games, I might add. Can’t wait for next month’s date!
4. I will be starting a new book study with my fellowship team. It just came out an
d looks amazing! Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. I may not feel desperate all the time, but having three kids certainly can push me there quick fast in a hurry. If you don’t have a local group to study with, try GranolaMom4God, she is starting an online study of the book with another blogger and would LOVE for you to join them.
5. Funny that I would be reading Desperate with my girlfriends, because I’m also going to go through Sarah Mae’s other book, 31 Days to Clean - Having a Martha House the Mary Way. I have a bad attitude about cleaning, and I don’t want to any more. But I decided I needed outside help with that, so I purchased this book on my kindle with Christmas money (it’s all of $5). I will be starting this next Monday.
6. I have a revamped routine and renewed vigor for school this semester. I’ll share the routine and how I designed it a bit later. We also purchased All About Spelling and All About Reading, which I am SOOO excited to start using! They just came in the mail today, yippee! 
We’ll be doing the first lesson tomorrow at the appointed time in our routine :-) Kahlen is excited too, she got to help me get it all set up today. (definitely my daughter! Had more fun than should be allowed just separating the cards and applying the magnets)
7. Running. I will be RUNNING the Warrior Dash this year. I had some not so great experiences with it last year, but that about sums up the whole year. Next week, I am going to get at least one run in, and more as the weather comes up above freezing. You know that routine I just mentioned? Yep, my runs are scheduled in there. Twice a week anyway. I’m hoping for more once it’s warmer and easier for me to run outside. For now, I plan to head to the senior center and run on the track there.
8. The Lord’s Table. Two years ago, I did this eating plan along with the book A Woman of Moderation by Dee Brestin. I loved it at the time, felt great, lost a bunch of weight, then immediately got pregnant (guess he liked it too, heehee). I haven’t wanted to or been able to get back on an eating plan until now, but Shane is about done with me, so now’s a good time to start. I’ll be starting this in February, giving me time to settle into some of these other things first. I think I have some friends who will join me in this too, which makes it so much easier!
Seems like a lot, but having a plan is so much better for me than not. I also want to share some ways I’m helping myself keep track of all this, but this post is already long and I need to head to bed (trying to get over a head cold, boo). Tomorrow I’m hoping to post more about our routine and my new brain book (aka household notebook, aka day planner). See you then!
~S
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