Week 11/12

Hah.

I attempted to start this bog post at the beginning of last week, but I never had the time to finish it. Yikes!

For the record:
Week 10's goal: To bed by 11:00 and menu plan. I modified my bed time to 12:00, mostly cause it fits better with David's schedule... I made a menu plan, but I'm still struggling with that one.

Week 11's goal: (This last week) I focused both on having devotions first thing in the morning (This was my first goal when I started at the beginning of the year, but I haven't been taking the time for it lately, and so that meant that it was back on the table for being worked on again.) and working out 5-6 times a week. I think I only missed one day of Devotions this week, which was good, and I put in two formal work outs, with "running up and down the stairs a million times today" counting for aerobic training once, and "winding 2,000+ yards of yarn on the re-skeiner" counting as strength training once... for a total of 4ish workouts- it could have gone better.

This coming week, Week 12, my plan is to do spring cleaning. The last time my parents were here, my mom bought me a book called "The House That Cleans Itself". The big idea behind the book is changing the house to fit the behavior, rather than changing the behavior when it comes to cleaning. I'm reading it today, and I plan to start working through it over the next 2- 4 weeks as my main focus. While I'm working through that, I'll be going back and revisiting some of my old goals to make sure I'm still on top of them- like working out, devos, drinking tea (I didn't at all last week cause I was so busy and didn't have the time, and boy, did I ever miss my cuppa tea!)  and wake up/bed time etc. I'm excited.

I'll try to keep you updated with how this deep cleaning/streamlining of my house goes. To give you a little taste of how the book is set up let me share with you how the author Mindy has you CONVERT a room into the HTCI system:
C-clear out the clutter
O- open up and clean
N-neaten, organize, and solve problem spots
V- verify and set up Stations as needed
E-examine Sight Zones
R record future improvements needed
T take steps now for ongoing maintenance

So far I've read up to the "V" chapter. It's the most unique book on organization/cleaning systems that I've read. Not like there have been that many that I have read.... She talks about the different personalities of people who clutter and have disorganized lives, and how different reasons for clutter need to be approached in different ways.  She also talked about Home base zones (that one place in the house that if you've got it clean/clutter free you feel peace even if the rest of the house is a disaster) and setting up a devotion "station" with your bible, journal, pen, devotional books etc before you jump into working through cleaning out the rest of the house. I'm pretty excited! I'd like to finish reading the book tonight so that I can start working through it tomorrow morning.

Rather than leave you with a picture of DJ- here is a link to videos from the Church services at Trinity. By tomorrow afternoon (Monday, March 21st) the video from today should be up. Trinity just started a choir, and I'm in it! Not only that, but last night right before practice the director asked me to be on the "front line"- she has two people from each part sing with mics to make it easier to make sure the parts are balanced through the sound system. We really had a good time and God really showed up. It was awesome.

The link:
http://trinitywired.com/media/service  The whole service is about an hour, but the music portion is probably only 15 minutes or so. I hope you enjoy it!