I keep making these things called weekly plans.

In my attempt to wrestle a routine out of our year, I'm falling back to some ideas I got out a book I read last year called Say Goodbye to Survival Mode by Crystal Paine (she's the moneysavingmom.com person in case you've ever heard of her).  It was actually a great book and very helpful. The basic point I'm using right now from the book is to make smaller, manageable goals. The other half is recognizing that I can't actually do all the things that I'll put on my list so I need to accept that from the beginning. Anyway, she suggests you make goals, then break them down into smaller, measurable chunks.  So that's what I'm doing. Sometimes it seems like a work of futility, but I'm going to keep pushing for routines. It's got to work one day, right?

This week's goals are as follows:

• Work on organzing/decorating our bedroom for 15 minutes every day
• Eat at home (No restaurants until Saturday when we go out of town)
• Get math done before lunch every day
• Read a chapter out of my current book every day (which is The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller at the moment)
• Say NO TO SUGAR!
• Run/walk 3 times this week for 2miles 
• Be kind

I think I've got a good mix of school, house, and personal goals to work through this week. The eating at home will be tough. You know that. I LOVE eating at restaurants. I've gushed over it for years so there's no reason for me to do it again. Basically, if we're going to save up for a house and maybe go on a special trip later this year, the eating out has to go away. Sigh. I'm taking it one week at a time.

The no sugar thing plays into the restaurant goal. I love sweet tea. Sweet tea has sugar, obviously. Since I'm choosing to abstain from added sugar as much as possible in the weeks leading up to Easter, it's easier to avoid it if I also avoid the restaurants. At home I can control my ingredients and happily drink water. By the way, Sundays don't count for fasting. I read that Sundays are for celebrating the Resurrection, and I liked that. Today I had sugar in the form of a cafe mocha, chocolate covered peanuts, and sweet tea. They were all delicious. In fact, they were more special to me today. It actually felt like a little celebration. It may seem silly, but eating the sugar today actually did remind me that today is a day to celebrate Jesus.

Math...well, I don't like teaching it. UGGHHHH. I don't. like. it. I wish I could go back in time and only use Math U See. They have videos. Why didn't I go with the videos?! Anyway, it's too late for Tommy and Charlotte so we're going to try very hard to get the math over with as soon as possible so it doesn't get pushed to the end of the day...then the next day...then "CRAP WE HAVEN'T DONE MATH ALL WEEK!!!"  That doesn't really happen. I would never let that happen. It might have happened a few times. Don't judge me. My kids are still on grade level and brilliant.

Then all that's left is running, reading, and being kind. The kindness is more of my general character trait I want to focus on this week. The running is the smaller chunk of a bigger goal to maybe try to run a half marathon by the end of the year. I'm still not fully committed yet (in case you didn't get that from the "maybe try"). I don't like running. The only part I really love about running is the part when it's over. Still, it would be cool to be able to say I'd run a half marathon. I could put that 13.1 sticker on my car. I wouldn't have to even say anything. People would see my car and know that I finished my race.

So there's my week. Again, nothing terribly exciting. Exciting is overrated sometimes.