101: Resolutions: Revisited

Where has this year gone?? It is already half way over. Next thing you know, Christmas will be upon us. *sigh* When you're young, time goes soooo slow. But as we all know, the older you get, the faster it gets. In honor of the halfway point of 2009, I've decided to revisit my New Years resolutions and see how I'm doing in meeting my "goals".

Here are the things I resolved to try and do in 2009: (My progress so far will be listed underneath each.)

1. Quit saying "no" to the kids so much. Now, please don't misunderstand this statement. I firmly believe in the necessary NO situations. Such as: "Jalyn, NO RUNNING!" or "Jaxen, NO! You can not pretend your sister is a Dark Force clone trooper/ droid/ padawha (whatever all those mean)." I am referring more to the day to day NO's that the kids hear. The ones that refer to markers on the couch, the jug of milk that's about to spilled everywhere, or pancakes at 7 in the morning on a Saturday. Because really, when you think about.. the couch already has marker lines on it anyway, milk can be cleaned up, and I really should jump out of bed to provide basic needs for my children.

Hmm... I'm not sure how I'm doing on this one, to be honest. I think I've just changed my wording. I believe I've been successful in not saying NO so much, but now I catch myself saying, "This is your LAST chance!!". And of course, I'll say that five times.... *sigh* . It is so hard to be consistent sometimes, although I really do try.

2. Less cleaning. The reality of life with two young children is this-- you can clean and pick up and vacuum and do laundry and on and on and on until you are blue in the face. And it's still going to look the same way tomorrow. My goal is to get things a little more organized (or just buy more Rubbermaid bins to hide everything in) so that I can least present myself and my family with the facade of a clean home.

I never did buy those Rubbermaid bins. But we have been working on purging toys. Just this past weekend, sweet husband cleaned off the back patio and threw away (or set on the curb for any takers) a ton of toys that the kids have outgrown. When it comes to outdoor toys, all they went is balls & other sporting equipment anyway. Everything else is pretty much gone, and was ratted out anyway. (In my brain, I'm envisioning family members reading this thinking, "OMG.. .did they throw away the gift I got the kids??". And THAT is why we have too many toys. I feel guilty getting rid of things, LOL.)

3. Spend more time doing fun things with the family. (See above number two and you will see where I'm going to get all this extra time.)

I'm proud and very pleased to say that this one has come true. We have been doing a ton more family activities over the past few months, and you can tell it has really made the kids happy--and has really helped our marriage. For starters, did you know that Celebration Station has putt-putt for only $1.99 on Wednesday nights?? (At least they do here in OKC:)). We love anything golf related, so that has become a family standard. This summer, Jaxen has also gone golfing on the "big people" course with Dad for the first time. We've been going to the park & getting snowcones a lot. Took the kids to the lake for their first trip on a boat -- that was fun!! Today we're going to hubby's hometown to have some bar-b-q. Just a little two hour road trip in search of great food. Fun things like that have really been revitalizing my mood as well. Who wants to do housework all weekend? Maybe the less we're here, the less dirty the house will get, LOL!

4. Blog more. I guess that should be pretty evident since it's been about a month since my last post. I like this resolution as well because my progess can be monitored. If you notice me slacking, please send me a friendly reminder of my resolution #4. Thanks in advance.

My last post was actually my 100th post. So I would say that yes, I have been doing pretty well with blogging more.

5. Read more. I already try to fit in as much reading as I possibly can, but honestly I believe there are some sacrifices that I could make so as to get in more booktime. Less Perez Hilton. More literature. A girl's gotta get her priorities in line.

Pretty successful here, as well. Especially in the past two months, I've read a lot of great books. I would highly recommend "The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife" by Janna Cawrse Esarey. It is incredibly well written--and who doesn't want to hear the true story of a couple who get married and decide to live on a sailboat together for two years ?? You just KNOW that's going to get interesting:)

6. Date nights. I almost said MORE date nights, but since I can't even remember the last time that Darrell and I had a date night, that wouldn't really be an accurate resolution. So I'm simply going to say have date nights in general. I think I had better stop there so that I don't overwhelm myself with goals:) Wish me luck on my quest to have a more relaxed, more FUN 2009! Just remember... there's no day but today.

My wonderful parentals had the kiddos come visit for a few days just last week, and Darrell and I had more date nights in the those few days than we had all year. It was just wonderful. We went to the casino to play my beloved Redball Bingo, went to a karaoke show and went and played golf. It was so relaxing and so needed. We have a hard time communicating at times, and this provided us a great opportunity to not only talk, but have a great time while we did so.

So ... there it is.... my progress, per se. Not too shabby if I do say so myself:) Did anyone else make resolutions? How's it going?