Happy New Year!

For me 2013 was a chaotic year. It was an excited chaotic as we anxiously awaited and welcomed our 4th child and older kids explored new activities and sports. It was a difficult chaotic as I struggled with depression and toxic familial relationships. Fortunately, God was always there during those difficult times, even if in just small ways like having me stumble upon old favorites of mine on YouTube.

Seriously, this song always brings a smile to my face because this is so me, right down to the lack of patience and the scatterbrain. It is such a reminder to me that God is ALWAYS there even when we forget to look at Him!

Now on to 2014! I'm looking forward to what God wants to do in my life personally, in our home, and in our school. I'm big on setting goals at the beginning of each year and coming up with an actual plan of meeting each of those goals. Like most, I'm not always the best at keeping them, but I figure that every little step forward is better than standing still.

Goals for our school in 2014:

• Accumulate fewer fines at our local library! Do this by packing our books the night before our weekly trip when we are not as rushed and tending to forget things.
• Stay on top of inter-library loan orders, so I'm not waiting on materials for lessons. I'm trying something new for this quarter to see if it will help. I ordered all the books up front requesting them for the length I needed them (some up to 9 weeks), so I only have to worry about returning them on time. (I'll look at doing another blog post on how I manage my ILL's so I don't return something too early by accident.)
• Do our morning routine on a daily basis. This includes reading a chapter from Psalms, calendar, counting practice, mental math, patterns, and money. This also includes getting the kids to put their own stickers on the attendance chart again instead of me doing this. (I'm bad about just doing things for them instead of holding them responsible for what they should be doing on their own.)
• Making art a bigger part of our school week. Big Girl loves art, so she's always a more eager student if she knows there is an art project to be done! Big Boy isn't as into art, but I have noticed that really enjoys the break from lessons that art gives him.

So, that's it! I can think of about a million more things I could add to this list, but these really feel like the big ones. I feel like they can really be summed up by saying be more organized, more diligent, and more fun!

What are your goals for 2014?