September

I recently read an article in Woman's Day magazine that talked about how September should begin our calendar year, rather than January. I whole-heartedly agree. The school calendar dictates so much of our lives for so many years!

Kody and I are entering year II where we're not controlled by a school calendar, but we still see it all around us. Friends going back to graduate school, teacher friends preparing their classrooms, school supply advertisements all over the place.

It's a fresh start and new beginning for many. A time to set new goals and reevaluate life. Since I didn't officially make any New Year's resolutions, I decided to make a short list a few things I hope to accomplish in the last few months of 2010.

1) Read one book per month - Might not sound too difficult, but considering I've read about three pages of two books during the summer, I've got some work to do. I really enjoy reading, but I need to make a concerted effort to make time. Up this month - Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" (Sorry Sara, I still haven't finished it!).

2) Get a library membership - This goes along with the book goal. Kody and I loved using the Bourbonnais Public Library when we lived there, but weren't able to sign up for a membership up here because we lived too far out of town. Now that we're in town, we can use it! Time to get reading!

3) Use my new kitchen appliances and blog about it - I recently acquired a food processor and juicer from my Nana and a bread maker from sister-in-law Bethany! I'm so excited about them, but now need to put them to work! I've used the food processor three times and it was amazing, but now I need to try out the others. Homemade cinnamon rolls in the bread maker are on the agenda!

4) Send one letter/cookies/goodies package to a friend/family member each month - I know how fun it is to receive surprise goodies in the mail from friends and I need to reciprocate!

5) Make a monthly meal plan, share it on the blog, and stick to it! - I did this in August and it worked so well! So nice to always know what I'm making for dinner!

6) Use cash for grocery budget and stay within my budget - I've been consistently going over our budget recently ... or since we began a budget ... but I've tried cash for the past two months and it has worked so much better! I even have $14 left for this month and no grocery trips planned or necessary!

7) Bump up the coupon usage - I've been slacking recently, but a friend recently sent me a coupon cheat sheet that gave me a few new resources and motivated me to get back into it. My last grocery trip was so fun! I'm not getting $100 worth of groceries for $10, but I've been able to save at least 50% by combining sales and coupons and staying within my budget!

8) Get back into a running routine - While I was training for the half marathon I got into a really good routine and now I need to jump back in. It worked best to run when Kody was at work or gone for the night. I'm hoping to get running again on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and possibly one morning per week. But let's be real - the morning thing probably won't ever happen.

9) Make a point to greet Kody first when getting home - It's so easy to either continue cooking or doing laundry or whatever I'm doing and not purposefully stop and greet my hubby when he comes home (or when I'm coming home). I've heard this is important for successful marriages and I need to do a better job of it. Goal is to try to beat Noodles to the punch, although he has the "great hearing" advantage that he can hear Kody while he's still outside!

10) Memorize a Bible verse per month - I'm terrible at this. Don't really ever do it. So I'm going to give it a try for these months and see if I can get a few verses down. Maybe Kod and I can even make it a competition!

I've already got a few of these under my belt! Last Saturday I signed up for a library card! Yay! Haven't used it yet, but maybe I'll get a book on tape for an upcoming road trip. I've also been reading for about 20 minutes before going to bed for the past few nights, used my food processor and got $0.50 Ziplock freezer bags and plastic lunch containers using coupons at Meijer earlier this week (but I didn't use cash)!