I love the fresh start of a new year. The month of December I often find myself thinking about things I want to be intentional about starting in the new year. I though I would share some of my goals for the year and thought it might be a good way to involve a little accountability. Keep in mind that these goals are things I hope to do over the course of the year and not all right away.
Spiritual
I want to be intentional about memorizing more of God's word this year. I find that when life gets hard or my thoughts start to wander on the wrong things having passages memorized that I can recall in a moments notice helps me change my thinking or my attitude. Beth Moore is once again doing a scripture memory team on her blog. Her challenge is to memorize two passages a month. Seems doable for me and I like the community and accountability that comes from doing it via her blog. If you want to join us, you can read about it here.
The other area I want to grow in is my prayer life, especially in praying for Lyla and Adam daily. I have both Power of a Praying Wife and Power of a Praying Parent and plan on using them daily during my prayer time.
Physical
In the weeks to come I hope to share some of the ways we have incorporated nourishing foods into our lives through the research of the Weston A. Price foundation. Last year we made a lot of changes because of some minor health things both Adam and I had. We both noticed a lot of changes in how we felt eating this way. However between pregnancy, having a newborn, and the holidays we have kind of gotten off track in our eating. My goal is to go back to some of the nourishing principles we incorporating last year. Soaking some of our grains, making bone broths regularly, eating grass fed beef/poultry/dairy, and limiting the sugar and processed foods in our diets. To help me get back on track I've decided to do the Maker's Diet for Weight Loss again. I agree with most of his principles and have found it a great way to get back on track and lose some weight. I'm hoping it will help me lose the extra baby weight I have. I'll be sharing more about this in the future.
Photography
I've already shared about my one photo a day project called 365 home.
The other goal I have is to learn how to shoot in manual mode on my digital SLR. I have grown a lot in my photography skills but am finding there are certain lighting situations where it would be helpful to shoot in manual mode.
I have also signed up for one of Jessica Sprague's digital photography classes in hopes it will help me get more creative with my photoshop skills.
Simple Living
This will have to be a longer post another time but my goal is to go through our home and get rid of all the things that we don't use or that doesn't add meaning or value to our home. This will include going through all of our closets, books, kitchen etc. I'll be sure to share more with you as I go.
These are the goals I'm going to be focusing on for now. I'm sure the list with be edited and change as the year goes on but this is where I will start.
How about you? What are some of your goals for the New Year?
Hi Hanni,What a wonderful thing you've started here for 2011! I wish you all the best in your endeavor. Cliff and I completely changed our diet in March last year to all organic and all natural. We watched the movie Food, Inc. and read 'Food Rules,' both by Michael Pollan. What a blessing it was for us to come upon this information. We now do all our shopping at the Mississippi Market. It's so easy to find good food there. I think the bottom line for me is that this change in our diet has given me the best excuse ever to become an even better home cook and do lots more scratch cooking...and of course to explore eating seasonally and locally...but that is a challenge for another day right now.I also love your comment about ensuring everything in your home adds value (brings joy) or has a purpose. I am such a believer in that too. It feels almost zen like to have just what you need and nothing more. I'm hoping to find some time in the next few weeks to go through our home again for things we don't need (that others could) and will keep your saying in my head!Congrats on your beautiful daughter,Sarah
ReplyDeleteSarah,Thanks for your comment. Fun to know someone is reading my blog. : )Adam and I watched food inc, read Michael Pollen's book in defense of food and Real food by Nina Planck. I also read some of Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and incorporated some of those things. We shop at the Wedge and Trader Joes mostly and we cook more from scratch. Seems we've been on similar paths.Happy New Year,Hanni
ReplyDeleteI took an online class from Jessica Sprague last year and really enjoyed it. I signed up for the free class she offered in December, but didn't have time to go through it. Any class you register for stays available in your account though, so I'm hoping to go through the information this winter.
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