My New Year’s Resolution

My New Year’s Resolution is nothing impressive, but I am super hopeful about it.  This year I am going to………..GET ORGANIZED!  It’s so funny to me that I’ve had so many people just assume that I am really organized.  Who told them that?  It wasn’t me, and it isn’t true.  I wish it were true.  And with any luck, it will be at least partly true after this year.  And don’t worry.  I’m smart enough to know that if my goal is simply just to “get organized”, I will surely fail.  It’s not, though.  I have specific, obtainable goals that I’m working on.

First, I am going to be better at keeping up with the laundry.  I finally accepted the fact recently that it isn’t  impossible for me to keep up on the laundry (meaning I don’t constantly have a gigantic pile of clean clothes overwhelming my laundry room), it’s just that I have never made doing so a priority.   I keep a pretty good grasp on my dish situation, but only because that has been my priority.  You know what I mean?  So, thanks to my friend Erin, I have developed a better system for my laundry:  I bought four cute rectangular baskets to put on my teeny little laundry table (I would have bought more if I had more room on that table).  And every time I take a load of the kids’ laundry out of the dryer, I immediately sort it into the four baskets.  Then, when the baskets are full, the kids (minus Skip) come and take their baskets to their rooms and put their clothes away.  I don’t even fold their clothes.  Why would I?  They just get messed up in their drawers the very next second…I still fold the linens and roll Brian’s G’s, and hang all the church clothes, but still—just doing the basket thing with the kids’ clothes has given me just the help i need to keep things in control.   I started this system the day after Christmas, and so far, I have kept up with the laundry.  (As long as I hurry in there right now to take care of the last load.  Yikes.)  That’s FOUR weeks–a serious all-time, never-thought-it-could-ever-be-done record!  I’m so proud of myself.

Second, Brian and I are reorganizing our business.  Brian has often (and I mean often) lamented the fact that he can’t just swing his hammer and make a little money.  He has to constantly worry about all the paper work/taxes/insurance/workman’s compensation/licenses/permits/payroll stuff.  And I’m not exaggerating when I say he HATES it–probably more than anything else in the world.  And that stuff has always been a major source of contention for us because we have had incredibly poor communication, understanding, and commitment to doing it all right.  And recently we hit a real low spot where we both felt like giving up.  We were up half the night and I thought that in the morning, we might wake up with Brian deciding to join the army or become a police officer.  And I would have been OK with that.  He would be great in either of those professions.  But the fact is, we woke up that next morning and Brian put his tool belt back on and went back to work.  Because he really does love to build, and he’s super good at it.  He is very talented and very smart.   We just need major help with the business side of our business.  Sooooo, after all these years of fighting and not doing things right, we are really going to try harder.  We’re stepping up our game.  We are going to communicate and learn and improve.  Thanks to many prayers and fasting in our behalf, we have begun to experience little miracles that will hopefully start us on our way to success in managing our business better.  We had a conversation about payroll.  I was talking and sharing my thoughts.  Brian was talking and sharing his thoughts.  We were talking–to each other–about payroll–without fighting.  M.I.R.A.C.L.E.  Sigh….so anyway…. WISH–US–LUCK.

Aaannnddd, I’m going to get out of debt….again.  Remember that day when I told you I had paid my last credit card bill?   I do too.  It was a very good day.  Unfortunately, that day is long gone, but the debt is back.  I’ll spare you my excuses (because as you know, excuses are like armpits.  Everyone has them and they all stink).  Let’s just suffice it to say that I am committed to getting back on track.  I really love spending money, but I hate having debt even more.  It gives me high blood pressure, I’m sure.  It really does make me shake inside.  For me, debt literally makes me feel insecure.  You know what I mean?   I just cannot handle it anymore–especially while being self-employed.  So, armed with the tools and the encouragement I gained from Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (I’m a graduate, you know) We are going to pay off our debt once again.  It is going to be a long process and for right now, I’m not going to focus on our house or our (empty) lot, but we are going to start with the little debts and work our way up.  

So anyway…I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Don’t forget that today is the last day to give me dinner suggestions.  Again, I appreciate it SO much, and I will be drawing the winner of the 3M strips tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,

Ann