All around today, I have seen all sorts of reflections on 2008 and recaps of the year. I personally prefer to look ahead to the new year. I told Andy this morning that New Year's is one of my favorite holidays, because it feels like my very own fresh start. A fresh start in my spiritual life, in my marriage, in my classroom and in my diet and exercise. I want to talk a little about each of these.
I pulled out all of my new Bible study materials for the new year and started to glance through them--and I am so excited! I am going to do the M'Cheyne Bible in a year plan, using D.A. Carson's "For the Love of God, Volume 1" along with it. I'm also praying through "Power of a Praying Wife" and doing Beth Moore's "Jesus: 90 Days with the One and Only." We are starting a new Kay Arthur study at church in a few weeks, so I might move Beth to weekends only so I don't get too overwhelmed and just quit.
A fresh start in my marriage. Our house is nice and sparkly clean. Our living room newly reorganized and our drawers and closets all sorted out. All of these are things that mean a whole lot to my husband. If I can keep these things maintained (and basically the whole house picked up and laundry done the right way....I'm really bad at laundry) these will show love to my husband in very practical ways. In fact, when they aren't done, he truly feels unloved and disrespected. It's taken me awhile to figure out why it's so important to him, but this is probably one of the top two or three ways I can show love to him.
A fresh start in my classroom. I've had time away,and I've been able to step back and reevaluate. I can see some things I want to do differently. Assuming I get my tail into gear in the next few days, I'll start out strong, and we'll finish up this six weeks strong. I know what I'm going to allow, and I know what sort of discipline I want to apply (the strict kind....we're going to shape up quickly).
My diet and exercise--I had a good handle on this last winter. When I was at Purdue, my weight wasn't bad, but my fitness was poor. My weight wasn't bad because I wasn't eating a whole lot. My nutritional habits were pretty poor. Plus, student teaching took away my appetite. Then, I got married and started eating a whole lot. And gained fifteen pounds almost immediately. Last winter, I was exercising twice a week with some ladies at church, and I lost about 10 of those fifteen pounds, and was in better physical shape. I had some muscle tone. Then, they stopped doing that for the summer....and I stopped substitute teaching and was home a whole lot. And then the school year started and I stopped doing anything because I was so exhausted. So now I weigh about 20-25 pounds more than I did when I got married. And that's an issue. So I would like to get back into a routine with exercising. I have some of the videos I was doing with the ladies at church, so I want to do one of those at least twice a week. Also, when my grandparents bring my new-old treadmill and bike I can add those into my routine. And, on Monday at Wal-Mart I bought Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I did the first day today, and it was INTENSE. Possibly the most physically difficult 20 minutes of my life. Really, it was kind of sad.
I was reading reviews online, though, and everyone has said that they are amazed at how much their endurance improves in the first five days. So I'd like to do that 3-4 mornings a week before school, since it's so short. Hopefully between that and watching what I eat, I can get into a healthier lifestyle routine. I don't want to overdo it....I want this to be something that sticks.
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