Long Term Goals

I read a lot of blog each day, my most favourite or the new ones I've found are on my blog list and the rest are bookmarked on my computer. I noticed each and everyone is aiming for something, and its been making me think about my long term goals, what I really want from this world and what I'm aiming for. Sure there are heaps of things that are dreams but never going to happen or I read something and think 'wish I could'. But what am I really wanting and working towards now and what is really possible in my life and situation. Here is what I've came with:

I've spoken before about our house, I really want to move into the bit we are building, and even though the lounge/kitchen will be temporary in the garage I want to make the house into a calm warm place where my family comes home to rest and recharge before entering into the world again. Building the rest of the house will just move along slowly, we need to put family first for a while.

We have a small mortgage in comparison but we also owe a bit of money to my parents for the land we bought so my aim would be to pay my parents back and try to overpay the mortgage as much as possible. The extra amount will be worked once we moved in and our new household expenses are worked out.

I'm really desperate to start a garden, plant veges etc. I've started doing my research on no dig gardens cause we were planning on having a few raised garden beds around the place, so I thought the theory of the no dig garden would be good. Also I am going to get chickens, the girls cubby is raised, so we were thinking of building the coop under that and then off to one side so they have a enclosed dry area.

I've already spoken of my long term goals for myself in terms of weight loss and getting healthy but also I'd love to be learn how to knit and sew, I've done a few searches on sewing classes in my area but there are none running this quarter so I'll keep looking for later in the year.

As I was hanging the clothes on the line today it accured to me that if something happened to one of my family or me today, I would not be in the position to easily just drop everything. You know if an emergency happened I would struggle to do what I needed to do without causing problems. I want to be in the position where I'm prepared to leave the house at any time. I probably am not explaining myself but I want to be up to date. If I needed to leave for a week or two then we'd have bills overdue, the accounts are already months behind, the kids and hubby would need to search for clean clothes cause although the washing is fairly up to date the clean clothes are shoved into baskets all over the place. There are no meals in the freezer so food would be an issue. I would love to go to bed at the end of the night knowing I've done all that was needed to be done today and if I slept all day tomorrow then it would only effect tomorrow, not the weeks of work I haven't done. So to be in the position I want to be I need to finish the accounts, get laundry and housework up to date, prepare ahead by cooking meals, tackle the overflowing filing tray in our office. And then maintain.

Go the above is all a bit messy, I'm trying to get all the thoughts out of my head and its jumbled but you get the general idea of what my long term goals are and what I'm working towards. So I better go and do it.... I wrote this while taking a small break from working on our accounts.

Waking Up

I was reading thru various posts on Zen to Done last night. And stumbled upon this post, about getting up earlier. It was written in 2007 so a lot of people would have already read it but I hadn't. The quote from the Dalai Lama, who said, ” Everyday, think as you wake up, ‘today I am fortunate to have woken up, I am alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others, I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’ was very touching. I'd like to be able to go thru my day like this.

The article went on to show various great reason why starting the day a bit earlier is a good idea but I loved point 8 about having a weekly goal and a mini goal each day to help you reach your weekly goal. I have a lot of things I need to get done over the next several months, with the move into the new house looming. So I think a weekly goal would be a good idea instead of what I'm doing now, casually jumping from one thing to another and getting nothing done.

I'd like to be able to get up earlier each day, our current is about 7am, my youngest woke at about 7 today and we held her off and tried to get her to keep quiet until 7.30 when we all got up. This is not a good start to the day and its also going to create a rushed and stressful morning when we introduce school runs next month.

Today's goals: The house is a mess, after the girls got home yesterday I went food shopping and they trashed the place while hubby watch grrr, I ended up going to bed at the same time as them and leaving him with cleaning up the kitchen but the rest of the house....

Also after thinking about all that needs to be done around here, I've decided getting both our business and personal accounts up to date is the top priority. So I'll be working on those on and off all day today, I say on and off all day because I'll be constantly interrupted by the girls.

The new year

Welcome to 2009. How was your 2008?

Although my 2008 wasn't horrible there is certainly things about it I would like to change. Just lots of little things that made for huge stress. But its all in the past now and I can take those little things and make positive changes for 2009. I'm determined to make this my year. This will be the year I get fit and healthy, this is the year our money gets organised and we actually use it in the right way. This will also hopefully be the year we move into our house, a house we have planned for, made sacrifices for and worked hard for for about 3 yrs now.

This is also the year my eldest goes off to school, I seriously can't believe it has come about so fast, she was a tiny premmie baby just yesterday I feel. I worry for her, she is such an individual in her outlook at life, I hope she is OK. The school have been wonderful in helping us prepare her and she does have a compulsive need for routines and plans so maybe school will be perfect for her. We shall see, atleast I'll be in the position to monitor it, I've already joined up as a canteen mum.

So how did you spend the night last night? We stayed in, the family next door had a party and we were encourage to go but DD#1 isn't great with noise and crowds so.. what we ended up doing was pulling the girls mattress off their beds and making a comfy little nest for us on the lounge room floor. We watched the 9pm fire works on tellie and then watched a movie together, slowly we each dropped off to sleep, hubby being the first, lol. None of us made midnight.

Todays plans: this week we got a little mortgage to finish our house, so for convience and money saving sake I'm planning on moving all my bank accounts from our old bank to our new mortgage giving bank, I have an appointment with them tomorrow and have to take a list of all the accounts, cards, services I would like and they will try to match up my needs with their accounts etc.

My Goals

I'd like to live a more simpler life, living within our means, paying off debts and being happy and these are my initial goals to do that:

* Get Business and Personal accounts up to date on MYOB
* Update budgets and stick to them - probably using the cash envelopes system
* In Feburary - update budget to include school fees but to take away DD#1 weekly therapy sessions (DD#1 is autistic and has some form of therapy session every week, a lot of these will be cut back once school starts)
* Start to go thru the boxes and piles of 'stuff' in the garage/laundry
* Start doing stuff like tracking water and electricity usage
* Work on menu plans, shopping cutbacks
* And Me, eat better, drink more water, be more active