I love a good book. This wasn't it.

I read a book this month called Flunking Sainthood.  The book wasn't great by any means, but it did get me thinking, so I guess it wasn't a total waste of time.  The book is pretty much about a girl who decided to set a different (and sort of outrageous) spiritual goal and do it for an entire month for a whole year.  After reading it I got to thinking about my life and ways to improve it, in both temporal and spiritual aspects.  So, I set a goal to set some goals.
Pretty ambitious aren't I?

I have no desire to fast from Sun-up to Sun-down or to observe an Orthodox Sabbath, but I do want to improve my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  I have set a couple of goals.

1. Read my scriptures every day this month  (notice I didn't impose a set time or length...I gotta start small, so if I get 3 verses in, it counts!)
2. Add a family prayer in the morning to our usual routine of evening prayer. 

(Most of you reading this probably already do this...but I really struggle with both of these spiritual basics)

To help, I made a 'chore chart' for the kids and added 'morning' and 'evening' prayers to check off to the list.  Charts are awesome.  Peter will do ANYTHING for a sticker on that chart.  And the kid never forgets.  He is my biggest motivator for my new goals! 

The second part to my goal setting are these

1. Go to bed every night this month with a clean kitchen- including the floors.
2. Just for the heck of it, I am boycotting shopping for the ENTIRE month.  Which means, no purchases of anything other than food, diapers, and maybe toilet paper.  Maybe. 

I decided that the second goal up there was so huge (for me) that I needed to ease into it, so I started this 2 weeks ago in the middle of January.  I did  great until I found a HUGE frame at Micheal's on clearance for 8 bucks...(I am gonna need some serious will power to make it to March!)

I have been lax on setting goals this winter and it feels great to have some direction and motivation for self-improvement.  All I needed was to actually sit down and take the time to write it down to make it real.  I am somewhat like Peter too.  I will do about ANYTHING to check something off a list.  Wish me luck!