13 in 2013

I am not one to make traditional New Year's resolutions, but after hearing my sister-in-law talk about some of the things she did in the last year and her plans for this coming year, I thought it would be helpful for me to live a little more intentionally and make some goals for myself. I all too often get caught up in the day-to-day busyness- meals to cook, kids to change, floors to vacuum (ha!), that when it comes time to relax at the end of the day, I find myself wanting to do nothing but watch TV. To quote my pastor "do not hear what I am not saying-" I have nothing, nothing, nothing at all against watching TV. But unless I have some real goals, I find it a little too easy to not accomplish anything. Call me lazy or maybe "just" a busy mom, but I want to stop making excuses and start getting things done. So here we go- 13 goals for 2013 (in no particular order):

1. Read 10 books. Since I am starting at my current zero complete reads from last year, I think 10 is totally appropriate.
2. Spend 60 minutes of uninterrupted time with each child, each day. Now, I am pretty sure the fact that I even have to set that as a goal makes me a pretty bad mom, but I find myself easily distracted these days- by text messages, laundry, dishes, etc. So I mean totally uninterrupted minutes. Just pure playing. That's all.
3. Tell Nelson what I am actually feeling right away. This is big for me because I tend to give him the silent treatment. Or the "I will talk to you but I am really just mad at you still from last night" treatment. Cause, you know, I need to teach him a lesson. And that has worked real well...
4. Pray continually, about everything. I tend to be a "big thing" prayer. I think I just made that term up. In case you do not speak fluent "Emilyese" that means that I pray for the big things in life and am done. I am pretty sure that is not the way prayer is meant to work. Hence goal #4.
5. Run four times a week. 3 days during the week, 1 on the weekend. That's doable and reasonable. Second part of that goal- give myself grace for weeks when that just can not happen.
6. Run ten races. I am already signed up for two in February, so I am already off to a good start on that one.
7. Clean the house weekly. Seriously, who needs a goal for this? Apparently I do. As witnessed by the fact that there are piles of dust along every floorboard in this house. And the hand prints/milk stains/dried crusties all over the cabinets, fridge and dishwasher. Since I can not justify a maid in the budget, I think I will have to start doing some of those chores myself.
8. Get a dog. Cause some goals should be fun, right?
9. Eat dessert. Cause some goals should be easy to accomplish, right?
10. Never wear my sweatpants/pajama pants out in public. Again, probably sad that I even have to set a goal for this. Thankfully Nelson got me a really cute pair of black, work-out pants that instead of using to work out in, I will use them as my "not pajamas but just as comfortable" pants. And then I can go out in public. Thanks babe! :)

And as I was writing, I decided it would be a good ideal to stop at 10. Cause I realized that if I keep up with this goal-writing business, next year I would have to 14, the following year 15, etc. And that would be too much work. So 10 each year seems good to me.