New Year's Resolutions

I know that it is mid-January already, but I am not going to miss posting my resolutions this year.  My friend Susan told me that my new year's resolution should be to post my new year's resolutions. :) In making new year's resolutions, I like to review my ones from last year.  In thinking back, I thought I had completely failed at last year's goals.  But when I went back and reviewed my 4 goals from last year, I did better than I thought.  These were my last year's goals: 

1) Prioritize and stay on top of things better--I did better at this but still have a long ways to go.  My iphone calendar has been great though. It is really helping me stay more organized because I always have it with to put things in when I find out about them.

2) Exercise at least 4 days a week-I accomplished this one!! I have been running with my good friend Priya 5 days a week ever since last May.  It has been great!  The second part of this goal was to lose 8 more pounds which I didn't accomplish.  In fact, I gained some of what I had already lost back.  However, I was able to maintain my weight as long as I've been running.  Now, if I could only change my diet I could lose the rest.

3) Do regular piano lessons with the girls-I failed at this one. I did pretty good through maybe March and then didn't do anything except help them learn Christmas songs the rest of the year.  Alex did make good progress with his new teacher though, but quit at the end of December. He is continuing to work on hymns and Jesikah is now taking his spot with the new teacher.  Now, if I could only just teach Tessa...
4) De-clutter/de-junk and re-organize every room in the house and donate or sell things we no longer use--I made it probably half-way through the house on this one but didn't accomplish it.
 
As for last years, I would like to continue working on the ones I didn't accomplish and maintain the ones I did.
 
Now for my new goals...
 
1) Find ways to spend time with Alex every day-I want to build my relationship with Alex so I am determined to find ways to spend time together and at least have pleasant conversations.  If I don't accomplish an hour, I am ok with that as long as I have positive associations with him each day. I have already been doing this one and have seen improvement in our relationship although he does fight it. You may say, "what about the other kids?"  Well, I feel like I already have ways of spending time in place with all the others each day and each week, and those relationships aren't struggling.

2) Follow Through and Stop Nagging-I need to be better about following through with what I tell the kids and not constantly bug them about things they need to do.  Whether it is a consequence if they don't do something or a reward or whatever. I tend to easily be convinced to let them have a friend even if their jobs are not done even though that is the rule or not do something that I promised I would. I have been working on this one already and the kids are responding.  I am determined to stop nagging the kids and let the natural consequence or set consequence come.  This is something that we were taught in the parenting class I took last year.  It is a tough one for me because I want to keep reminding them so they don't have to face the consequence, but it gets me irritated and it gets them irritated and is many times the source of arguments.  I think that as long as the rules are in place and the consequence is followed through, it will be much more successful.

3) Complete my blog books for 2010 and 2011