Snow! And Monthly Goal Check-Up

So even though I still don't think all those people were justified in buying out all the chicken...Dallas did get hit with somewhat treacherous conditions today.  After freezing rain throughout the night, I woke up to the following sights:

(That's Ice.)

I treated my snow day in the proper way:  laying about in panda pajamas all day, watching movies, and drinking hot chocolate.  As a rule of thumb, I don't use snow days to try and get ahead on schoolwork; I'll do whatever necessary amount of work I would usually do, but treat the rest of the day as a vacation day from God.  If the weather forces me to relax, who am I to disagree? :)

In other news, it's February 1st: we are officially a twelfth of the way through 2011.  Can you believe it?  It seems like the month went by really fast.  Anyway, I've decided to take the first of every month to do a goal-check up, and see how I'm doing in accomplishing things.

As perhaps you recall (but I don't expect you to), I chose 5 big goals to focus on for January: Rejuvenate my Relationship with God, Make CCFOF Work a Priority, Create a Budget, Exercise 2x Per Week, and Read for Fun.  Well, I'm happy to report that I've made good progress on all of these things!

First: Rejuvenate Relationship with God.  This one still needs work, unfortunately (though, to an extent, it will always need work...).  Happily, I've made steps towards getting involved in a church: most importantly I've found one to attend, and second most importantly, I've gotten involved with a women's small group that meets every week.  So I'm not only GOING to church (something that I was barely doing at all last semester), but have started to make connections with people there.  Good stuff.  For this month: I need to make personal quiet times a priority...choose a specific time to read the Bible every day, and then DO it.  One of my professors has us meditating for 10 minutes every day (you get odd homework in seminary), so hopefully I can build quiet times around that.

Second: Make CCFOF Work a Priority.  This has been QUITE well achieved; my paycheck was at its maximum level this pay period, meaning that I actually worked every day (or went back and made up hours I missed).  I've started working first thing in the morning, after breakfast.  This keeps me from falling into that laziness and procrastination that comes with working from home.  For this month: Plan out weekly tasks in advance, for better productivity.  Our annual prayer campaign is coming up and that means lots of translating, and lots of organizing lots of small groups across the country and around the world.  Yeah.  Productivity in work is important right now.

www.ccfof.org.  Check it, yo.

Third: Create a Budget.  Well, budget is created.  In a few days I'm going to take my bank statement and see how well I lived up to it.  For this month: Keep track of expenses.  I created the budget mid-January, so last month I didn't really get to LIVE by the budget, I just made it up.  My first expense of the month: the soundtrack to "500 Days of Summer."  Write it down.

Fourth: Exercise 2 Times Per Week.  HECK YES!  I've actually been exercising for half an hour a day, 5-6 days per week.  I've also lost about 5 pounds since the beginning of January, and lowered my BMI a bit.  Woot!  For this month: Keep doing things like that...

Fifth: Read for Fun.  This goal is still in progress.  I was doing really well with it over winter break, but back in the world of academia, it's kind of fallen to the wayside.  I'm still reading "The Man in the Iron Mask," and quite enjoying it when I actually read it.  It's quite long, so I'll be enjoying it for quite some time :)

So I'm making good progress!  Looking back at that intense planner (which I haven't been using day to day, but where I've been listing mini-tasks to accomplish monthly goals), I've marked "Yes" on more goals than "No" in terms of their completion (I actually just realized that that's not what that column is for, but it's my planner so whatever).  And, I think there's something to be said for keeping my New Year's Resolutions up for an entire month :)

Hopefully tomorrow I'll devise the plan of attack for February.