Goals and Gratitude

I just had a moment.  A moment where I felt like I already failed one of my goals for my family for the new year.  We have been driving all day, got a flat tire and had to drive on the spare all the way home so the drive took about 1 1/2 hours longer than it should have.   We were spent and the kids were exhausted.  When we went to put the kids in bed I grabbed the scriptures and we gathered for Gratitude’s, Scriptures and Prayers and Daddy Story time.  The kids weren’t cooperating and we said our gratitude’s, and my husband said a encouraging prayer about the new year, and then we had story time and I went on to clean up more of the mess.  After the kids doors were shut and my husband left to run to the store I noticed on the ground our Scriptures.  At first I thought, OK I am waking up the kids and we are going to have Scripture study, we are going to start this year off right.  Ha, silly me you might think, but I wanted perfection in the year 2011!

We have struggled, for the past few months reading more than a couple verses a day, and sometimes skipping days, and even though I read with the kids during school, I know it’s important to do it as a family before the kids go to bed so I was determined we weren’t gong to miss a day this year!  After stewing for a minute, I felt peace and I had a thought came to my mind saying, “It’s ok, you tried and just because it didn’t go perfectly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep trying, or that you even failed.  Goals are some things we are trying to achieve, something we have to work on every day to be better at it.  We don’t just start them one day and we are perfect at them for the whole year.  We have to work on them every day, and even then we might fall down, but we just have to keep a going!”  I was thankful for that insight the spirit gave to me.  Tomorrow is a new day even though it’s 1-2-11 and not 1-1-11, it’s okay, and we will get better at this goal for our family and by 12-31-11 we will almost be perfect at it!!

This next week I am going to share my goals for the year. 

• Improve on an old skill
• Learn a New Skill
• Do something to become a better Mother
• Do something to become a better Wife
• Improve on my meal planning and grocery management skills
• Improve on my writing skills. 

Each day I will also write about something I am grateful for that I learned in the year 2010.  What are you are doing to make this new year of 2011 better for you and your family!