Welcome 2010 (pronounced 'Twenty Ten')

For accountability’s sake, I first discussed my goals with my husband a while back. I plan to post my goals somewhere around our home so that I actually see them and am reminded of my commitment on a daily basis. I also went into further detail this year so you can hold me accountable. The Lord has been speaking to me about transparency- as in, it's a good thing.

So, without further ado:

Become a faithful member of the 5 am club. If you're not familiar with this concept, check out GirlTalk's explanation. These lovely ladies also discuss the club in their book Shopping for Time. I was a member on random occasions in 2009, but I truly want to be a faithful member. Five in the morning may seem a bit early, but if I start my day at that time, I will be able to spend some good time in the Word, go for a run or workout, do whatever prep work is necessary for dinner that evening, and pray with my husband before I head out the door to work. This semester, Isaac has a class at 7:00 in the morning most days, so he might be joining me in this journey as well.

Memorize 52 verses. That averages out to one a week. Isaac introduced me to the verse pack concept, but a few months ago, I came across this system. I liked it because of the focus on memorizing Scripture as a family, and so I decided to implement this method in addition to using my verse pack. I'm going to go over the verses at breakfast (and yes, when we are blessed with children, I'll go over these verses with them) and then also carry my verse pack with me throughout the day. Isaac encourages me to learn Scripture together with him as a family; we feel that making it a point to learn Scripture together as a family is important.

Memorize (the first half of) the book of James. This is in addition to the 52 verses; some people may think that it's overkill, but really James is chalk full of good things! Last September, Mrs. Mohler quoted the entire first chapter to us at one of Pendergraph's meetings. She had it down. I've wanted to do something like this for a while- I've just never had the courage to be held accountable for it...so here you go, feel free to ask me at any point during 2010 (and for years after that) how my memorization of James is going. Isaac agreed to do this with me.

Continue in the SWI program. This is kind of a no-brainer because I love this program. The courses are six weeks in length and cover a variety of topics. I just completed Discipleship I and II with Mrs. Moore. Next term, I am taking Leadership I and II; most of the girls who were in my Discipleship class are taking it as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone in class on Thursday nights and learning not only from the teacher, but from the other students as well. And oh, in case you were wondering, our discipleship group is the best group ever. I'm obsessed with them.

Read through the entire Bible. Honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever accomplished this in a single year.  I've read through the Bible a few times in my life, but as to how long it took me to accomplish this task, I have no idea.  It's a good goal to have, right?

Continue to think through our family traditions. Over the past few years, we've developed quite a bit of family traditions; we are trying to be intentional about our traditions. When we have children, we want our traditions to be meaningful and to especially point our family toward the Gospel. I feel like we have excellent traditions at Christmas and are developing good ones for Easter. I'd like to incorporate the Jewish holidays into some things as well. I've done Passover Seders before and would love to host one in 2010. What are some of your family traditions- not just for holidays- that you might suggest?

Communicate with our family (and friends) more. A few months ago, we started sending out updates to our family via email. I've moved around a lot, and so have our friends, so our dear ones are scattered near and far. I've done a pretty good job of emailing family and friends on a fairly consistent basis, but I am going to begin calling my grandparents once a week. I'm also thinking about calling other family members on some sort of rotating schedule (in addition to spontaneous phone calls I'm known for). Family is incredibly important to me, and it's important to communicate with them.

Build up our emergency fund. We know the importance of having an emergency fund, because we lived off of ours when we first moved to Louisville. We are making conscious decisions to live well below our means in order to pay down our loans (student loans and a car loan-see below) as well as pay for Isaac's seminary tuition without taking out anymore loans. We cut back on other expenditures, such as going out to eat or to the movies. We still try to have a date night once a week, but that often involves free things, such as me making homemade pizza, playing board games, going on walks, or getting a movie from either the library or from redbox (usually free with a promotional code- and if no code works, it's only a dollar! Oh, how I love thee, redbox). And oh yeah, we're going to try something pretty intense very soon. More to come on that...

Make a huge dent in our car loan. We've always paid more than the minimum, but we decided to pay the loan off as early as possible. We're not naive enough to think we can do this by December 2010, but our goal is no later than June 2011 (our original loan maturity date was April 2013).

Cut our grocery bill. I only just started using coupons a few months ago. My method is a little different from other 'couponistas' because I try to avoid going to the store as much as possible. Whereas they go to multiple stores and save money, I know that just by going into a store, I'm more likely to spend money. I'm trying to simply do one big shopping trip once a month (or less than once a month, since I'm not a big fan of grocery shopping unless it's only for things like cookies and chocolates) and then supplement the once-a-month-trip with either weekly or bi-weekly trips to our local Kroger or Aldi's for milk and produce. If anyone had any ideas, please...help me.

Develop a consistent and workable cleaning schedule. Seriously. I am horrible about this. If our house isn't completely perfect, then its one huge disaster or vice versa. I think I will try the 'clean one room a day' method and see how that goes. Again, if you have any ideas, feel free to offer advice. I just don't want to spend every single Saturday cleaning all morning...

Read 30 books (with at least 7 being from my list of 100). Yes, I know I overshot my goal with this number last year, but I am planning on spending some of my typical reading time pursuing other activities (namely, Scripture memory) and feel that 30 is a good number for which to shoot. I want to be able to enjoy the books at my leisure, not have to feel this pressure to read, read, read...okay, I don't think it's very possible for me to feel pressured into reading because it's one of my all-time favorite activities, but you get the idea.

Scrapbook. I have so many projects going on right now, it's ridiculous. I did manage to complete quite a few scrapbooks this year, but the vast majority of them were for Christmas presents. While I love creating scrapbooks and other crafts to give as our Christmas presents, I also need to be more consistent in keeping up-to-date with our family scrapbooks. Here is what I'm shooting for this year: 2008 and 2009, our wedding and honeymoon (um...I told you I was little behind), and a special Christmas scrapbook. Those are ones I want to finish, and I also want to stay up to date with 2010. I think it's a rather lofty goal, but we'll see what happens. I am considering implementing 'Scrapbook Saturdays' once a month; if you'd like to join me, feel free.

Continue blogging and expand my blogging repertoire. This is one where I need your help: what do you want to see me blogging about? I plan to continue reviewing books and sharing our focus of the month, but I need some ideas from you all. Maybe I should do what Erin did and have an "Ask Me Anything" day?

I don't think my list is too long for 2010. Most of these things are not very time-consuming if I would carve out a little bit of time each day, week, or month to complete the task. Some of these goals may also seem rather small, perhaps not even worth mentioning, but I've found that if I just make a mental note of something I'm planning to do, rarely does it get accomplished.