Upcoming Lent and a Few Personal Goals

Lent begins tomorrow, and I've still not completely nailed down how I want it to play out for our family. . . and for me personally. I've sort of committed myself to attempting a slight meat and sugar fast. . . to feed the family more simply for the next 40 or so days. I'm also planning a sort of grid/calendar/chart for each of the three older kids on which they can keep track of days till Easter as well as give themselves stars for good deeds and also focus on a different character trait or Christian discipline each week. But that is about as deep as my plans have gone so far, and I am looking for divine inspiration at this point. Maybe that is the best way to do it, anyway. Especially since we plan to be out of town on a relaxing vacation during Holy Week. Maybe this Lent I will intentionally do a planning fast.

However, I do have some personal goals for March.

1. I'm always re-visiting this particular goal. . . To drink 64+oz. of water a day. When I do it, I feel so much more energized and happy and patient even. When I don't, I'm tired, grumpy and irritable.
2. To completely carve out a stress-free 1 1/2 - 2 hr. quiet time at least every weekday. This time is to be dedicated to reading my Bible, journaling (paper and pen), praying and then reading a book till I fall into a sleep-like stupor. NO COMPUTER! I already do this, to an extent, when the kids are doing their quiet times/naps; but I need to work on just relaxing during this time. . . nothing else.
3. I've been working through A Mother's Rule of Life. . . s - l - o - w - l - y. I'm pretty good with my first P -- Prayer. I'm struggling with my second P -- Person. I think I will probably need a good month to get in the habit of taking better care of myself. So I will be breaking this into mini-goals. Week 1: Begin getting into bed by 11:00pm every weekday night. Week 2: Every morning, after breakfast, get dressed, wash and moisturize face, brush hair and teeth, and put on deoderant. Week 3: Every evening, shower, comb hair, and moisturize. Brush and floss teeth every night before bed. Week 4: Exercise with Teeny (Teeny really likes exercising -- she did not get that from me.) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when J gets home. Also: Take every Saturday morning off (so long as family and J's schedule allows) to pamper self, go shopping *alone*, lay in bed and read or nap.

Again, I'm horrible at taking care of myself. I have a really hard time letting go of motherly responsibilities for *any* length of time. This will be a struggle for me, but a struggle I believe the whole family will benefit from.

Now to go begin our Mardi-Gras celebrations. . . and make up some Lent charts.