Plans for the new year, or at least 2nd Semester

You would think I was in school by the title of this post. I'm not, but truth is, when your kids are in school, your reference of time is related to the school calendar, isn't it?  Our first semester was hectic. Honestly, I don't like life like that. Both girls were in cheerleading and acro. T also did Competition Cheer. The first semester is a very time-intensive  part of my PTO responsiblities with tshirt sales, fundraisers, and special events. Plus, when the kids go back to school I always ramp up my hours at the office (my husband owns the companies I work for, so my hours are VERY flexible, BUT the work still has to get done). Plus First Semester always entails Christmas and all its inherent activities, plus additional ones associated with school and the office (making tons of goodies for the kids and employees, as well as coming up with gifts for partners and teachers). Then we wrap that all up with the additional 'year end' duties at the office to prepare the companies' files, bookkeeping, and computer for the new year switch over.
Therefore, once all this stuff is done, I go into January with a giant sigh of relief and plans to take it slower. (Now January does entail extra work at the office with tax preparation and w-2 and 1099's to issue, but once I get past that, in my mind it is 'mellow street').

So that is my mentality for 'second semester (and the summer to follow, until first semester starts again with its rigorous activity load).
Neither of my girls are in any team sports for this semester so we have no more practices or games, which is a great relief to both us and them (they appreciate the almost lost art of 'down time'. In today's society we have become so 'busy' with activities for our kids that we run them from this practice to that practice to this event and then to that event that they never get to have true 'down time' to just be creative and come up with their own ways to entertain themselves. Its something we and our parents and grandparents did with much gusto, because it was all they had  {ever hear of kick the can? have your kids ever played it? I bet your grandparents did!}  All this to say , that when an option comes up they might like I ask them if they want to sign up for it, but both of them have said  "no, I just want to take some time off and come home from school and not have to rush from practice to practice every night")
Amen to that!  I ask once, if they say no, I'm totally fine with it. Because as much as I enjoy cheering on my kids in their pursuits, I also enjoy NOT being so overbooked on our calendar that its no longer fun.

W IS still going to do her acro classes but that is just one night a week and her best friend does it too, so her parents and I can probably rotate weeks driving them to practice so its not super bad time-wise.

W also is going to take 4 guitar lessons. After that trial she will decide what she wants to do.

But even with these 2 activities we will be MUCH less busy than we were first semester. I am glad.
In fact, I have two goals.
(I don't really like the word resolutions, because it sort of has a connotation of 'broken new year's resolutions' and being a gym member for years and years u can always tell the new year's resolutioners because the gym gets busy for 4 months from jan-april, then gets back to normal after that. So I don't call any goal or hope or plan I have a resolution. Its just something I want to work towards and hopefully master.

My first goal is to STAY HOME EVERY THURSDAY.
Sounds silly, but I book my calendar so full that every single day of the work week I am running to town to either go the the office, the gym, or run errands. Or all three! When I DO in fact stay home (or at least stay in my small town), I get so many 'projects' that I have at my house actually done! I like that. I like to finish stuff instead of constantly adding to my list of things I would like to do and then never getting them done but they are sitting in little piles all around my house. If I atually WRITE on my calendar to STAY HOME on thursday then I am more apt to not see it as an 'open' day and schedule something there. I had to do this same thing when I first quit working after T was born. I was so busy planning fun stuff for her and I to do together (Little Gym, play dates, zoo, park, lunch, shopping, etc) that I literally would write on my calendar one day a month STAY HOME so that I wouldn't see it as an 'available day' and book something. My husband joked during this time that I "may not be working anymore, but I'm certainly NOT a stay-at-home Mom!"   LOL  it was very true. Its still pretty true, but not quite as bad as it was then. However, it seems to still be 'busier' than I would like, so I am going to try to have a stay home day. In the beginning I will be finishing up stuff on my project list. but I would like for that day to someday become an actual 'slow' day. Maybe a day that I can walk the dog with no schedule to rush back to, read a book, and just chill out till the girls get out of school. To someone without kids it seems like SO MUCH TIME. But in truth when the kids are at school and you are home, the hours fly by. After picking up the house, tossing in a load or two of laundry, doing dishes, getting a workout in , and showering there is only about 2-3 hrs left till the kids get home and if u have a project to do, that time is gone in no time. So I am hoping to get some projects done...
mine include:
compiling tax papers and charity items for accountant.
balance checkbooks.
balancing our construction checkbook from our house we just built.
making a photo book of the new house.
making a photo book of pictures of my dad who just passed away.
weeding the flower beds.
taking down outdoor christmas decor.
READING!
blogging a bit more regularily
coming up with some new, easy, healthy dinner recipes
re-paint front porch rail.
go through closets and get rid of clothes I'm not wearing (I'm such a pack rat, this is hard to do, because I always think "well I MIGHT wear that").
visiting my girls for lunch.
walking the dog.
framing and hanging up the photos we spent a fortune on for our anniversary.

My list grows the longer I sit and write stuff because I constantly think of more 'projects' I could do. I actually just completed several this weekend, I am so excited, it was such a productive weekend! But of course, as is always the case, I made my to-do list longer than is humanly possible to attain, so it took me 2 days instead of 1 to get it all done, (and truth is, I still have one more thing to do on it, plus I moved all that banking and tax stuff to my new list ha ha)

But back to my focus. I am taking a day to stay home so I can acccomplish these projects I create for myself and I am also hoping to enjoy some down time in the process.

My second goal goes along with the Lifetime Fitness Commitment Day Movement. It was a 5k on new years day, but more than that, it is a movement to get people committed to their goals. whatever those goals might be. I am sort of sick of weight loss/fitness goals. And actually sick of listening to other people talk about them as well (if u read my fitness blog, u will see that several years ago I talked about this. I just don't want every conversation with another female to in some way revert to weightloss. There are more important things to be concerned with. I'm not against being healthy, I'm just against that being our ONLY focus and nothing else takes priority except how many calories that sandwich had in it, you know what I mean? )
So anyway (I say that alot don't I?) I like the idea of the Commitment Day movement, but I didn't want to do a 'gym thing'. So I signed up (mainly just for the cool tshirt since I was going to be out of town during the run, and the money goes to charity so that's good), but in my goodie bag, besides the tshirt was this neat Commitment day journal to track your progress through the year. Of course there are lots of quotes and hints in there that are fitness related ( it IS sponsored by a GYM), but its also a neat way to keep track of MY goal. My goal isn't fitness related (although I will be stepping up my game, since I've had about 2 months off now).
My goal is to ...
Spend more quality time with my kids and hubby.
I chose to quit working for ERAC in December of 2004 to stay home with my kids. (I DO work now at my husband's office doing all the bookkeeping, payroll, payables, etc, but like I said its very flexible. I don't have to put in 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week (or 70 hours a week like I used to before I had kids!), so I am able to attend all my kids school events and be their homeroom mom and volunteer at their schools and actively be involved in their schools and our community (which I love by the way!) But with those activities and normal household responsibilities, and my 'projects' I create for myself essentially, sometimes I feel like I am doing these things instead of sitting and reading a book with W, or doing a craft or bible lesson with T. So my goal is to try to spend more quality time with my girls and be a better mom because of it. Of course to be a better mom, you've got to be a better wife too, so Dan gets more quality time too ;) And now that our house is done being built, hopefully he will be home more weekends so we can have some date-night time with just the two of us. Maybe we should leave our phones at the hostess stand so we aren't tempted to look at them during dinner on our date , but yet if our kids call we still have the phone lol 
I tell ya, as much as we use our phones these days (and especially people like my husband who use it for work---a typical day has him fielding 80 phone calls on his cell alone!), they are also a dinner drag when someone pulls out their phone to play a game, peruse FB or the internet or the news, instead of talking to the people sitting right in front of them at dinner. I understand when work items come through they need to be handled, but idle phone/internet browsing is not beneficial to facetime with people. So we should take a date and drop our phones off as we get seated :)

That's my plan. Ideally this thursday staying home thing will help with my more important goal of being a better mom and wife by spending more quality time.

Because you know what? We just got back from our 2week Christmas vacation that I just posted about last week and I had grand plans for that vacation...
since there were no 'projects' at that house to sidetrack me from family time, I had full intensions of playing games every day, taking long trail hikes, doing crafts, baking cookies, and watching movies with my family. I brought a whole boxful of games and we had bought a whole basketful of crafts and games at our school fundraiser the week before we left.
Now we DID play hot potatoe, yahtzee, Don't tip the cows, and the girls did lots of crafts (and I joined them for one), we went to the dog park a couple times, we played in the snow, the girls played in their teepee, and we DID watch several family movies together. But we didn't do it NEARLY as much as I had envisioned. I thought we'd just be all snuggled up in our winter pj's chilling out in our beautiful new house and relaxing. But even with no 'projects' (except 2 small ones because I did bring my computer so I worked on a photo book and compiled all my tax notes from LAST year in a concise manner so that this year's tax planning would be easier), we STILL didn't have this 100% family time adventure that I envisioned we'd have. Don't get me wrong. It was great and we all loved it, but I just had thought we'd sit around playing games ALL DAY LONG, and we didn't. But we still had a good time together as a family and I will cherish the memories we did make together.
I just want to make MORE. So my plan is to try!