2015 Mid-Point

Crazy to think that this is almost halfway through the year already. I'm not counting chickens before they hatch or anything but really, in just a few weeks we will be at the halfway mark for the year.
It is insane how fast it's gone.

Feeling like not much has been accomplished this first half of the year, I was actually looking to include some things. To feel more productive, you know. Fortunately, I decided to check myself and see what I'd accomplished in the areas I'd intended to accomplish.

At the start of the year I set some goals I hope to meet, more in the spiritual aspect than the physical, perhaps. Just a recap the areas were: Bible reading and verse memorization, outreach, contentedness, and health. The 'outreach' area was rather vague and I'm still not exactly sure what I hoped for there.

I did a reevaluation of my goals in February, which possibly was too soon. Now we are six months into the year, I'll reevaluate.

Bible reading/verse memorization- This is somewhat at a stall. I still do both but not as consistently as I need to.

Outreach- Again, what am I getting at here? I probably haven't done any Russian or ASL since the last posted update. However, I take consolation that we {the whole family} were baptized and became members of our church. I am also, along with Fox, going through a class at church for being better prepared to reach others with the Gospel.

The little piece of paper I'd torn out of the city's newsletter did not have a result that I can see. I contacted the suggested individual about helping in some way with the women's house, but received no reply.

Charlotte Mason! Now this, this is something I am seeing some fruit from my reaching out. I have formed a group on Facebook called "Charlotte Mason Educators of Northeast Ohio" and have gone ahead and set a date and place for a book discussion. The first meeting will be June 24th at the Brecksville Public Library, from 12-2pm. It will move locations to suit the members of the group.

I am super excited about that right there. Can hardly contain myself as I type it.

I also attended the Spring Awakening in MN at the end of May and was blessed by that trip. I visited Joy of Embracing the Fullness of Life, and Melisa in WI. I need to do a post about the Awakening, I think.

Contentedness- It's hard to say if I am doing well here but I'll be honest and say I've noticed the kids are growing restless in this area. If I see it in them, that means it is definitely evident in me as well. Often a trait I am not too happy with in my kids is a reflection of myself.

With that reflection, I'm trying to see where/why I'm discontent so that I can root that out. One area that I am aware of not being content is having books. Yes...books. I seem to buy more and more. I tell myself no more for this month, and what do you know- there's a book in my cart!

To me this means that I also am not being a good steward of my money as I carelessly spend it at times. {On books, yes.} Must work on this area.

Health- I finally bought the physical copy of Trim Healthy Mama. What a difference! I am super busy with other things {like writing on my blog apparently} so have not had the time yet to re-read the book. I fully intend to do so. I need to reassess what we are eating and why.

Otherwise we have been getting outside more often for walks. The kids, especially Fox, have been riding their bikes more since he has to ride to work.

That is my update for the midpoint of 2015. Still a work in progress, with more effort needed in some areas for sure. 

My New Year Update

Did you make resolutions this year? To Grow & Strengthen in 2015 are the words I specifically chose for me and my family.

In that post I set out some things I'd like to work on: Bible reading, outreach, contentedness, and health. This post will just touch on how those aspects are coming along.

It has only been a little over a month since that post was written so in that time, how much can have been accomplished? If I were a more dedicated individual, probably quite a bit! I'm more of a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race kinda gal so it's been slow going.

Bible reading: Personally, I have joined with a small group of ladies wanting to read the Bible everyday. We don't have a singular plan that we follow. We are utilizing various means of reading the Bible. For me it is YouVersion and the small Facebook group we have. The YV app makes it very convenient to read, as I have my phone with me a lot of the time. Sometimes I do want the physical pages to turn and just find the day's reading on the app but read it in my book. I missed a day at one point and while I said to the group I felt guilty, it was more that I felt sad because it's become something to look forward to. There are days that I am so engrossed in the reading I read more than the day's set passages. That hasn't happened a lot but it's nice when it does.

Along with the reading, I've made a renewed effort to memorize verses. I'm fairly sure I mentioned our church's memorization group. I am paired with a lady at church who is memorizing the same verses as I am; we get together every other Sunday to recite them to each other. It is very helpful to have the accountability. I'm actually using ScriptureTyper now for this. I resisted for so long but it is actually a very helpful app.

The next step to work on is thinking deeper about what I read and memorize. Why does God want me to think on this? What application can it have in my life? One lady in our group has been doing a narration on her readings each day and it has been a blessing to read them in our FB group.

Outreach This is not going much of anywhere at the moment. I'm honestly not exactly sure what I need to do- definitely know my prayers need to include this, as they haven't really lately. I did come across a little blurb from a local newsletter for a "home [that] will be a place of refuge and transformation for women who need to be coached towards re-adjustment into society" due to various reasons. I'd torn it out of the newsletter months ago, before thinking of my words for the year, and it practically fell in my lap right after I'd started this post to update. I don't necessarily believe in coincidence.

Otherwise, I have not been doing well with foreign language or sign language studies. That needs to be more of a focus for me personally. I've started to put it in my bullet journal each day (it is included with other things I wish to do daily: Bible reading, prayer, verses, exercise, thankful entry, Russian, and nature journal entry). It's a little check the box type system that I include next to each day's date. So far I've been able to check off at least a couple of the boxes. Need to work more diligently on that, for sure.

Another part of this is church membership: We've been going through a class in Sunday school to discuss church membership. I think we have just a couple more to go, which are actually catch-up for a couple who came into the class late, and then we move onto to baptism class (as none of us are baptized).

In the area of outreach, for me, is being involved with other like-minded people. Specifically I'm referring to Charlotte Mason homeschoolers educators. Outreach is not just me helping others, because I can hardly help myself!; but allowing myself to be helped by others. Reading online and conversing in forums and FB are ways to connect, but there's definitely something missing in these formats. I would love to start a CM type book group, co-op, nature group, or something. But I lack the follow-through. I lack the drive to continue on with whatever I want to start. Besides, there are already groups like these that are somewhat close that I could become part of; I don't need to start something new. Although closer would be nice.

Contentedness I think I am doing alright in this area but occasionally I am caught off guard. As I mentioned in the other post, we got a new car right before the end of the year. We haven't even been able to drive it much because we've had a lot of snow this winter (my latest nature journal entry shows a pile of snow over 5 ft tall! in our front yard). As this adds a car payment to the budget, it lessens the money we have each month for other things. I won't say I'm terrible with money but suffice it to say, if there's money there, I'll probably spend it. The little things here and there are having to be curtailed, and that's a little harder than I thought it'd be.

I need to add in prayer here, I think. When we pray we are more content through our day. We try to start our mornings in prayer together but way too often it doesn't happen.

Health I do 'think' we are doing better, or at least okay, in this area. We've cut back to our usual sugary consumption amount (on Friday-Sunday, in limited amounts), and even hubby has resolved to not buy sodas when he picks up snacky stuff at the store. This week, menu-wise, has been a little strange because the weather was bad and I didn't get to the store like I planned. But as we have fairly healthy food on hand, it's not like we've had to resort to junk.

We haven't been sick yet this winter although many around us have had the flu and respiratory issues. We've been healthy.

Exercise...this week has been off but usually we (the kids and I) exercise at least 3 times a week. I know that doesn't seem like much but when you don't do any to start with, even 1 time a week is an improvement. This week has been a no school week so things are all wonky. Next week I intend to be back at it, and possibly even bump it to 4 times a week. When it snows, the kids get plenty of exercise from shoveling. *smile*

Fox and I did get outside a few days ago, even though it was cold. It was rather nice, too. It's been in the single digits lately and that's too cold for me.

Those are my updates. Hopefully the next update will include more advances. 

New Year! Time to Grow & Strengthen

A new year. In some ways it doesn't really feel different than any other year's new beginning. But it's going to be a different year, that's for sure (of course!). 

I've only done the 'word of the year' (or whatever it's called) once, maybe twice, but this year I need something to keep me focused. Personally, there is one thing I want for our family this year: Strength. Or maybe it's better written Growth. But whichever word is chosen, it means that we will look to God for our strength and grow in our knowledge and closeness to him. While we do that, it will help us to be stronger individually and as a family, also as a member of our church and the community.

In this post I will refer to "we" but it is almost always going to be directly "me" because I know these are the areas that I need to work on.

First area that we need to strengthen is our Bible reading and memorization. Each of us follows a Bible reading in a year schedule, but they are all different. Mine and ds' are chronological; dd's is reading one chapter from the OT and the NT each day. For memorizing we each have something different as well. At church we are participating in the verse memorization 'club', where we have been partnered with someone who is memorizing as we are. I am going through a little book called Treasure Path, that has 5 verses each assignment. Ds is memorizing the book of James and dd is picking and choosing various verses to memorize. So while we have a plan, we are not exactly excelling at our endeavor. We need to be in the Word more so that we can gain strength needed to deal with our daily encounters (2 Timothy 3:14-17; Proverbs 1:7; 3:5-7).

Next is the area of outreach. I am not exactly sure what I mean by this but something along the lines of being able to speak to more people than we do currently. For me this means getting over my 'cat-got-your-tongue' problem when I am presented with the opportunity to speak with someone I don't know, don't know well, or even know fairly well. For the rest of us, perhaps it is the same situation. But also I would like for us to be able to speak different languages. Lee is working on Japanese (again) and I am starting Russian (heehee, again). Fox is learning German. I would like to get back to ASL as well. At church, tomorrow actually, we are going to have a missionary couple to Nepal who use sign language, Akin and Snowy Devkota. Akin is deaf and doesn't speak at all, his wife translates for him. I am really looking forward to their visit. I'd like us to be stronger in our ability to speak to others (2 Timothy 4:2).

Finally, another area we need to grow in is being content. I won't say that we are grumbly people but we've got some issues with not feeling that things are 'fair'. Personally I am so grateful that life isn't 'fair', otherwise I would have gotten what I deserved long ago! God is gracious and merciful; He forgives again and again because He loves us. I want us to be stronger in our contentment. Last year dh and I had talked of getting a new car this year because our other car is getting a little sketchy. It's not bad yet and it still has plenty of life (I hope) in it. I was content to wait until at least after taxes to think about if it were a possibility. Dh surprised me with a late anniversary-Christmas/early New Year present: A 2015 Mazda 3. I was content to have what I had already but am extremely grateful that we have the means to get the car now rather than later. It does mean that we have to curtail some of our frivolous shopping that we'd gotten used to in the past. It means that there will be a bit less money each month. I pray that this year we are content with the abundance of blessings we have and not focus on the things we may want (Philippians 4:11; 1 Timothy 6:6-10). 

I know that last area started with "finally", denoting that it was the last but really how much is too much in terms of growing and strengthening? We as a family need to grow in our wisdom of healthy eating and living, and therefore strengthen our bodies physically, so that we may be good stewards of what God has given us (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20). Sometimes I've mentioned Trim Healthy Mama on the blog, and while the name is a little off-putting, the 'science' behind the way of eating is sound. It means no more sugar (we would use honey some but stevia and other natural sweeteners such as erythritol or xylitol), no processed foods (or very minimally), and eating balanced meals. In addition to eating better, I would like us to get more active. With it being so cold right now, it is difficult but it's only a short time away for it to be warm enough to take a walk or bike ride around the neighborhood. 

Those are the areas and ways that I hope we will grow and strengthen in this new year.