Happy New Year!

I normally don't do new year resolutions.  I am the type of person that loves goals and charts and schedules and routines, so when the new year rolls around, I already have goals in place, so I don't really have a need for special resolutions.  Right now, though, I've gotten out of habit on things, and there are definitely some goals I need to put into place to get my life back on track.

1. Read the Book of Mormon twice
I have not been doing well with scripture study.  I try, but it just doesn't happen.  So I'm setting up a pretty big goal.  I know, you're probably thinking, "If you're not reading your scriptures now, why don't you just try to read it once instead of twice?"  My thinking is that I get more out of the scriptures when I read in larger blocks, so if I have to read two or three chapters each day to finish by a certain time, it at least will be more beneficial than reading just one chapter a day, so hopefully it will be easier to keep up.  My plan is to read (maybe even out loud) while I put Rebecca down for her morning nap each day.

Our stake president, President Andelin, gave us all a challenge at church today to read from the Book of Mormon every single day this year.  So not only do I have my personal goal for scripture study, but our family has decided to have family scripture study every day as well.  We used to be really good at family scripture study, but we've gotten off track lately, and we need to do better.  I printed off a chart that has the chapters in the Book of Mormon in it for Alyssa to fill out, a 2012 calendar for Ethan to cross off the days, and I got out a mason jar for Marcus to put marbles, so each of the kids will have a job that keeps track of our progress.  Plus, we're going to start having scripture study in the quiet room again, with everyone holding their scriptures. 

2. Go to the temple every month
This is one that Brian and I were trying to do last year, but it got messed up with me getting pregnant.  Rebecca is now old enough to leave with a grandma for a couple of hours, so we're going to start going more often.

3. Work on emergency preparedness
We have some food storage in the garage, and a couple of tubs with our 72 hour kits, but there is still so much that we need to do.  I'd like to do one thing each month to help with our emergency preparedness.  This month we're going to set up an emergency station in the garage.  We need to go through and update our 72 hour kit, and I'd like to purchase a Costco pack of water bottles for each family member, then stack it all in its own special spot in the garage.  For February I think I'd like to get the pantry stocked with canned food.  I reorganized our pantry on Saturday, and there's a lot of canned food spots that are empty.  After that I guess we'll get going on making sure we have the big things - like buying a bunch of flour one month, wheat another, sugar, etc.

4. Run a 10k
It has been over a year since I've been running.   I miss it!  The last time I ran was the Turkey Trot last Thanksgiving.  That was the first day that I woke up with morning sickness.  I faked being healthy pretty well for the run, but I wasn't able to go out after that.  When I was running before I was only doing 5k's, but my brother asked me if I wanted to try for a 10k in the fall.  Looks like I need to get training.  So the small goal for this is to run a 5k each month, starting in March, then switching to a 10k when I think I'm ready.

So there you have it.  I was going to put "finish my book" on the list, but I really don't know if that's going to happen.  I only have one page written of the rough draft.  With Rebecca still being small, and Marcus still at home needing attention, I just don't have time each day to sit down and work on it, and it's something that I don't want to sacrifice being a good mom for.  I think about it all the time, and I still want to work on it, but it might take me longer than I originally planned.