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myThoughts

February – Where New Year’s Resolutions Go to DIE!

So? What happened to your New Year’s Resolutions? It’s February and most people have already abandoned their ‘resolve’ to lose weight, pay off debt, save more, read more, spend more time with family, give more to charity, volunteer more, watch less TV, go out to eat less, and spend less time online (don’t start that back up now – finish reading my blog first). If you haven’t already throw away your resolutions, then you may be on your way to atypical results! Want to know how I’m doing?

I’m going to tell you anyway – my goals were to lose weight, go back to school, pay down debt, get more involved in my church, eat out less, and read more – with an emphasis on my Bible reading. Lets start with the bad news:

  • Bible Reading – I haven’t begun a Bible reading plan despite the best efforts from a good friend of mine, Jason. I have a bunch of excuses but no good reasons.
  • Weight Loss – aarrrgghhh!!! I started out well with my diet, but haven’t lost any weight. I also planed to read some health and diet reviews from Ben at DadQuarters website. Stephanie and I rearranged our living room to put in my bowflex and we bought her an elliptical, but so far we have only used the new room a handful of times.
  • Dinning Out – this is supposed to foster a few new living habits, like spending less money, spending more time with family, and losing weight. For most of January we did great, but we both have slipped back into our old habits over the last few weeks and go out to eat often.

Lets move on to the moderate to good news:

  • School – I had to postpone my college start date until March due to money issues, but all has been resolved and we are moving ahead with March 1st as my start date.
  • Church involvement – We have been attending the evening services more regularly, however over the last two weeks we have been out with sicknesses. Stephanie hosted her first scrapbook meeting and I filled out all the paperwork to host a small group at our home, and this week was to be our first meeting – however the small group is currently listed as a young adults group and as such our first meeting was a combined meeting with all other young adults groups. We do have at least one confirmed couple that will be coming to our group and the actual first meeting will be Sunday.
  • Paying down debt – I’ve made a huge jump forward in this area because of our tax refund this year. Last year we owed several hundred s of dollars to the IRS, however this year we got several back. I used the refund to pay off three small credit cards we had.

So how about you? Have your New Year’s Resolutions been reduced to New-First-Two-Weeks-of-the-Year Resolutions? Or are you chasing “results not typical”?

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myThoughts

New Year’s Resolutions – 2008

Well, that’s the bad thing about having a public blog. You may be able to run away from last year’s resolutions. You may be able to escape the fact that you haven’t made one ounce of progress in those lofty goals you set last year. But I cannot…

It’s here again – The new year. I read my post from last year – it was in my not so humble opinion, well written, well said, and well ignored. Every year, no matter how hard I try to NOT create ‘new year’s resolutions’, I find myself wanting to start anew and lose weight, reduce debt, go back to school, read more, etc, etc, etc. Last year, I started talking about setting goals instead of making resolutions (not in my blog entry, but among my family). Maybe this year, I will create a constitution for myself and my family. I don’t know how to make this time any different than before, but as with every preceding effort, I want to believe this time will be different…. My prayer from last year still holds true today:

What must I do to be saved from ‘eating too much’? What must I do to be saved from ‘credit card debt’? What must I do to be saved from ‘realism’? What must I do to be saved from ‘my same old ways’? What will make this different from last year, last week, last night? Am I the only one asking these questions?

I’m still asking those questions. I still don’t have the answers.

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myThoughts

New Years Resolutions

Resolution – A formal expression by a meeting, agreed to by a vote; a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner.

Resolutions. Its the time of year when we all begin to think about ‘New Year’s Resolutions’. Gym memberships across the country skyrocket. We resolve every year to pay the credit cards down and get the weight down, and spend less time watching TV. We set goals on how many books we are going to read instead and recommit to reading the Bible through, for real this time. We think of the new year as a new beginning; A time when things can change for the better. Maybe this year will be different – maybe we will stay committed to reading the Bible and watching less TV, maybe we will pay off the credit card and start taking off the extra pounds. I doubt it!