Goals for the Coming Year

Well, the holidays came and went and totally wiped me out.  Thankfully though, I was totally prepared (it was the kids that wiped me out!).  Following Household Management 101's Stress Free Holiday Series helped tremendously.  I was able to relax and get everything done at a reasonable pace.  No last minute rushing out to buy anything and I was able to avoid stores for the few days before Christmas.  Ah, simple.

Now if I can just keep up that level of preparedness through the next year.  A very good reason to follow Home Storage Solutions 101's 52 Weeks to an Organized Home.  The weekly challenges are great and you can hop in at any time.

I want very much to continue our family's simplicity challenge well into the next year.  We're doing ok and we've made some changes, but there's much more room for improvement.  I really want this to change our lives.  I want there to be a constant state of simplicity in our home.  Not an ebb and flow like it seems to be lately.  So now's the time to set goals for the coming year.  I'm sure I'll adjust these as needed, but here's what I'm leaning towards as the end of 2011 approaches:

• Sleep schedules will be a high priority.  Bedtime rules are going to be more fully enforced, for both kids AND adults.  There will be no staying awake until the wee hours and we will eliminate the rush to get ready in the morning.  We did ok with this for a little while, but it's probably the most difficult thing for us as a family.  It needs to be adjusted.  Getting enough sleep and starting our day off right sets the tone for the entire day, and quite possibly the entire week.
• We will continue our household purge.  If we want to bring something new into the house, that probably means it's time for something else to be donated or thrown away.
• Exercise will be important to us.  We all know that we feel better when we've been working out consistently.  It will be scheduled into weekly activities just like an appointment would be.
• We will eliminate areas of stress as much as possible.  This one is tricky - yes, parenting is stressful, work is stressful, but those are things that can't be eliminated.  But everyone has something in their life that doesn't need to be there and can be eliminated.  Think about it.  What stresses you out and can easily be changed?  For me, it's our pets.  I love animals and so do the kids, but they have become a huge source of stress for me.  Right now, the plan is to give away our guinea pigs and help our indoor cats become indoor/outdoor cats.  Our cats have made it quite clear that they are no longer happy with being kept indoors and I refuse to live in the filth that they are creating because of it.  I love our cats, but I will love them even more if I'm not constantly smelling cat urine in a closet or bathroom, or finding cat feces hidden in various places in my laundry room.

As it stands, I'm going back to school in a few weeks.  Keeping our lives simple yet fulfilling is going to be very important as I adjust to having homework and needing study time.  I'm excited for this next year, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't nervous.  I'm nervous about doing well, about the financial side of it, and about keeping our home life from falling into pieces.  My husband told me that he has noticed that I have such a big fear about failing that I either hide from things or massively over-do it.  Personally, I guess my New Year's Resolution is to take life one step at a time and build personal confidence while doing it.

2012 is going to be a big year for us.  I can feel it.  As a family, I know we can get to where we want to be lifestyle-wise if we just keep working at it.  I invite you to join us.  If you've been craving simplicity in your own life, now is the time.  No need to jump in and drastically change your lifestyle.  Just take some time to really assess your life and what you want from it.  Now how do you think you can get there?  What little changes can you make that will make your life easier?  Don't worry about the big changes yet.  Just take it one step at a time and let the change happen naturally.  If something isn't working, try something else.  There's always a way to make your life better.  Let's have 2012 be a happy and fulfilling year, shall we?

Frugality

Part of our journey to simplicity includes our finances.  We're approaching this by learning how to be frugal.  Not really because we NEED to in order to feed our family, but because it's the smart thing to do (hey congress, you might want to take note here).  We do have debt that includes a mortgage, student loans, and credit cards - just like most people.  We want to pay those off and we want to be able to be prepared financially for any emergencies that arise, like a layoff.  We went through that before and having me work full time retail was not fun (although I am grateful that my employer at that time had enough hours available to bump me from very part time to full time right away).  Being frugal is a way to make our financial life simple: No stressing about emergencies, knowing exactly what we can afford, and having funds for our future (retirement, vacations, etc).  We're certainly still learning the ins and outs of frugality and we are learning from our mistakes.  WiseBread has a great article on frugality today and I'd like to share it with you:

WiseBread: A Beginners Guide to Frugal Living

Christmas Simplicity

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I've been fighting a horrible cold since we returned from our trip and it's zapped most of my energy and motivation.  I'm ready to be able to fully breathe again and not have my asthmatic lungs hurt.

Over the past week, I've been thinking about how I've made this holiday season simple for us.  I'm sure it's not as simple as it could be (hey, I'm still pretty new to this), but I am pleased with the changes we've made.  It wasn't very difficult and I definitely had help in the form of Household Management 101's Stress Free Holiday Series.  Seriously LOVE IT.

Normally, we'd cram all decorating into one day and by the end of the day, everyone would be crabby and tired of decorating.  This year, we spread it out over one week.  I gradually got out the interior decorations (there aren't many because we have little kids who like to touch things), then we put up the outdoor decorations, and then finally got our tree and decorated that.  The only complicated thing ended up being the size of the tree.  I went BIG this year - although honestly, we could have gone a full foot taller - and while that wouldn't have been a problem, we now have a treadmill in our living room right where the tree went last year. So we had to rearrange the living room.  On the bright side, we think we like the new quirky layout a lot better.  Once the tree is gone after Christmas, we're going to try it out without a tree in the way and see what we think.

Now, what about Christmas shopping?  This has to be THE most stressful thing about the holidays.  And usually, I'd wait until December 1 to start.  This year, I started around Halloween and am done as of yesterday, when the last present arrived in the mail.  I did most of my shopping online because quite honestly, I hate stores at Christmas.  I now get to sit back and enjoy the season.  How beautifully simple!

I am now trying to continue getting stuff out of my house, since we'll be bringing more in once presents are opened.  This has turned into me rearranging various rooms to make things flow as naturally as possible.  I'm beginning to think this will always be a work in progress.  Every time I reach an organized point, I find a way that I can improve upon it.  Which is great, but might annoy my family slightly because their things have suddenly been moved.  Again.

So far, I'm pleased with how our Christmas flow has changed.  I am happy to be able to relax and I've been able to be much more crafty this year because I actually have the time.  We've made some fun new decorations, and we're doing some homemade gifts for a Secret Santa exchange.  I'm super excited to see how they turn out.  The big challenge will come right after Christmas when we have loads of new toys to find places for - but that just means we'll get rid of more things to make room.