I've put this off long enough...

There's a theme amongst the blog world these days.. It's called 4 Simple Goals
So I guess it's my turn now. The reason for just having 4 goals is because the deadline for completion is the end of the year... so I have roughly 4 months to:
Go healthy! I've never been much of a healthy eater, but for some reason I crave it now. The craving started last month when we took a trip to see my in laws in Arkansas over the 4th. We don't eat very much fast food and that trip we ate it for breakfast lunch and dinner the way there and at least once on the way back... I was miserable! It was the most disgusting feeling ever and I haven't had any kind of fast food since. No, I take that back, we ordered a pizza before E left. But I keep the fridge stocked with Veggies and little willpower to make them. So part of this is a cooking challenge and part of it is the actual eating challenge. Its super hard to cook right now for just myself and the girlie, but what better time to start when, lets face it, she's not going to judge me if I make something and it's gross, we'll just regroup and eat something else that meal. I've been doing a lot of reading on different ways of eating healthy, and some of my conclusions are, pasteurized dairy= BAD, so cutting WAAAAY back on our cheese consumption. The only other dairy we use would be sour cream, and its pretty infrequent. Another find is bad carbs like breads and pasta= BAD, like fake energy. We're just not active enough to benefit from a diet with lots of carbs. So we wont be cutting out carbs completely because we do still want to enjoy eating, we'll be cutting WAAAAy back on those too. Those would be the two biggest ones, but there's also the obvious eat more fresh veggies, (and veggies in general). Moving onto the next goal:
Be Creatively Inspiring: I recently started an "inspiration journal". *recently as in yesterday* And I've really enjoyed exploring what inspires me. And when I talk about being inspired I'm talking about being inspired to create. not just make stuff, but Create! Its things like flowers that I'd like to grown in a garden one day, or a specific color that just really makes me want to paint it all over the walls because it embodies what my spirit is going through. Anyway, I want this to be something I can continually add to. Its like an inspirational dream book. And one day I'll have a big studio room in our house with endless opportunities to create.
Next is to Give! This has been kind of an on going discussion for Eric and I the last few months. We really feel led to give more, well give in general. He and I have different passions and ideas for how we should utilize our new found "tug on the heart strings" but I am really excited to start changing lives. This is only the beginning. We've been disussing how we want to be an example for our kiddos and that one day when we have endless resources and time, we will be teaching our children to put together and entire charity event. They'll choose the charity they want to support and will plan an event to either raise awareness for their charity or raise funds for it. But the bottom line is that it starts with us, right now. So freeing up the money we want to give means cutting back on a lot of things. We keep saying we're going to cut the cable and just do our netflix, so there's some extra $$money there, like I said this is just the beginning. It'll be a work in progress, but I can't wait to see lives changed because of our family and its legacy.
And the last goal is to Make a daily schedule and follow it. Notice how I left the "follow it" part un-bold.. Well that part isn't as important as the making part. I'm not a regimented person.. at ALL.. but I do know that we would benefit from some kind of schedule, some kind of routine. Charlotte starts pre-school soon and I'm looking forward to this because it forces a schedule on us. I want to be able to plan things out better so I know whats going on and can get things done better.
And I'm going to add a fifth just because I'm a little stubborn and have to be different: :)
Read a personal development book. I used to really enjoy these types of books and read them all the time, but now, after having kids, I can barely concentrate on them. It takes me a really long time just to read over a sentence and have it fully sink in. So It may take me a while but I just want to read one staring out. I'm going to start with How to Win Friends and Influence People.

So there are my Four Simple Goals before 2011. Hope this inspires you to do the same and then post a link back to the original blog