My Wisdom
My Goals for 2012
I love the old saying start as you mean to go on. It really brings home to me that if I want something to be different (hopefully better!) then it is right now, that I must start right now in order to achieve the hoped-for results. Doesn't action turn dreams into reality? I have a multifaceted life, as I'm sure most women do nowadays, so I have many improvements I wish to make in this amazing gift of life God has entrusted me with. To help myself focus on different areas, I have divided up my ideal goals for this point in my life into categories. It helps me set "real" goals and allows me to break them down into steps that produce tangible results, if needed.
Don't be a quitter
I recently discovered an amazing guy, Jon Acuff, who has since become somewhat of a role model to me. He is an author, speaker, and motivator regarding using where you are in life as a spring board for where you want to be (and where God intends you to be). He's very clever and writes extremely interesting blog posts and books. And you will laugh uproariously many times.
He has written a book titled Quitter 
and, of course, am an avid fan of his blog that led to the book.
My favorite blog post of late, is his December 19 post daring us to finish something this year. How did he know how wonderfully easy it is for me to start something, but also how arduous and sometimes tortuous it is for me to finish? Can it be that I'm not the only person in the world afflicted with this? And he cleverly calls 2012 the Finish Year. Doesn't that just make you want to entitle every year from now on?
So perhaps we should seriously consider joining Jon and his readers in this noble endeavor. I especially like how he chooses only a few goals to focus on rather than a seemingly endless list of things to do in the new year, which was my previous attempt at resolutions. As he sensibly points out, if I accomplish a goal before the year is over, I can pick another to tackle. What a novel idea!
Please visit Jon's site and enjoy his clever and amusing thoughts, and feel free to post here (or there) about what goals you will finish in 2012.
Menu Plan Monday
Welcome, Monday! I'm always happy to see the beginning of a new week (or month or year for that matter). We lead a fairly low stress life around here in regards to activities and too much going on, and this week is no exception. Thankfully I don't have much on the schedule to work around in regards to meal planning.
Last week's menu plan was executed very easily through the week, but the weekend did not follow the intended plan. This is very common around here. A lot of times I get the urge to cook something more elaborate than what I originally intended or we get invited to eat at someone's house, which one should never turn down! I like to include weekend days on my menu plans, but we are flexible enough to just scrap it if need be. So here is my plan for this week:
Monday~ Roast with mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable, and carrot cake. The roast will cook in the slow cooker (after browning of course) so the main part of the meal will be done with very little effort. I have carrots that need to be used up, hence the carrot cake. I like the "fancy" recipes with raisins and nuts in the cake, but I will leave out the coconut as our pastor and his family are coming for dinner and Mrs. Pastor is not a coconut fan. We like it either way!