resolution ideas

1. make it to level 3 in my exercise chart
2. read my scriptures daily
3. write in my journal # times per week
4. write in a gratitude journal # items per day, # times per week
5. only eat dessert every other day
6. get Instagram or Twitter?
7. make #happyconfession a thing
8. become a Youtube sensation
9. earn a million dollars
10. paint our bedroom
11. finish reading and return the library books that are currently $9.50 overdue



...The longer I think about it, the wilder they get...

cue Batman narrator voice:

WHICH ONE WILL SHE CHOOSE?

WILL SHE MAKE IT OUT OF THE MUSEUM ALIVE,
OR WILL SHE BE CRUSHED BY JOKER'S GIANT EGG TIMER??

(or, y'know, whenever I pick one. It might not be tomorrow.)

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Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

the "why"'s

Try not to be jealous that I have the best parents ever!  (Sorry, you're probably sick of hearing about people you might not even know.  Allow me one more gush post.)

make the bed every day - My parents' bed is always made.  How is that possible?!

keep the bedroom clean - Okay, they have to clean their room every once in a while.  But I remember, all growing up, being amazed that they always kept their bedroom clean.  (That was a hard one for me haha:)

empty the dishwasher every morning - My dad empties the dishwasher every morning, usually before anyone gets up (so there's almost never pile-up in the sink).  He doesn't complain or ever say he does it; in fact, even if you lived with us, you might never know it was him unless you asked.  But it always gets done.

start it every evening + wipe the counters after dinner - My parents go to bed every night with a clean kitchen.  I have never seen them clean up a mess one day that was made the day before at dinner.  I never thought much about that until I had my own kitchen.  Now, every night when I think, "Man, I'm tired... I'll just do this tomorrow," I also think, "How do Mom and Dad do this every night?!"

be intentionally friendly at church - What I didn't share from my journal on the day I shared this goal was that I made it 100% with my mom in mind.  She is the friendliest person!  It seems like everyone at church knows who she is / knows her and loves her.  She is not one to wallow in feeling friendless or leave immediately after a meeting so she doesn't have to socialize; she looks for those who need her friendship (and anyone else) and gives it!  I know she's not always in the mood to do any of this, but she does it.

make dinner every day - Growing up, we almost never ate not home-cooked food.  "Eating out" was buying 14 Happy Meals on the day they were on sale for a dollar.  Every once in a while we'd order pizza.  I respect this a lot about my parents - it's hard to cook every day!

plan for eating out - Like I said, "eating out" was $1 Happy Meal Day, not any day my mom didn't feel like cooking.

be a visiting teacher - My parents are the best home/visiting teachers ever.  I don't know if either of them have ever missed a month.  It never seemed like it.  And it's not just checking something off - Dad gives teachees rides to church when they need it, Mom calls to check up when she feels like she needs to or if they miss church, and they both always seem to know what's going on with their teachees.  They take the responsibility seriously.

say personal prayer before bed - I cannot even begin to guess how many times I have walked in on them saying their personal or couple prayer at bedtime.  Mom, Dad, have you ever missed once?! :)

exercise every weekday - My mom is one of the best examples of exercise in the entire world to me.  You know how people say, "Exercise!  If it's hard at first, it'll get better, because you will start to notice how GREAT you feel after you exercise!"?  My mom's hips hurt after exercise.  She never feels good after exercising.  But she knows it's good for her and tries to take care of her body.  She exercises every weekday.  And I always brag about my dad.  He could run marathons, easy.  He just doesn't because entry fees are non-refundable and you never know what could come up and cause you not to be able to go do it.  Haha.  But he used to run marathon distances just for fun.  "We just ran up to the airport and back.  Yeah, I guess it was probably about 20 miles or so."  He's so modest. :)

enjoy time with my family + strengthen family relationships - My parents are all about this.  Mom's especially vocal about it :) but strengthening our family has always been a priority.

go on dates with Joel - My parents date all the time!

learn to love (and hopefully be good at) being Primary Chorister - I'm pretty sure every person who ever had my mother as their Primary Chorister remembers it fondly.  She LOVES this calling.  When I called to tell her I had it, she was jealous.  She is fun but knows how to keep control, and she works the Spirit and the gospel into everything.  None of this "Use a picture of a bodybuilder to stand for the word "strong"" stuff.  :)

brush my teeth at night + floss once a day - How many people do you know who floss twice a day EVERY DAY?  Well, you can up your tally by one, because MY DAD.  Every day, people.  Think about that next time you get in trouble at the dentist for not doing it once a day.    

help my family + be a good parent - I cannot even say how much my parents do for our family, or how great of parents they are, so I'm not going to try.  Suffice it to say, they were the inspiration for these two goals.

incorporate the above goals as a mother - Did I mention that they did all of these things while we were growing up?  :)



Dear Mom and Dad,
I'm sure you don't think you're perfect, but you might be the only ones.

Love,
Everyone

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In one swift, fluid motion, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; the flaming hat fell off him and he drew from its depths something silver, with a glittering, rubbed handle - 

With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake’s head…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

last year's resolutions

Hello!  I haven't done an update on my resolutions since August, but not because I haven't been working on them!  It's mostly because I was out of town for almost the whole month of September and then got a foster placement and then in October got another one.  Things have been busy around here.  :)  But here's a quick update:

September - I put all my energies into helping my family as we moved my grandma out of her house and into a new place.  

October - I honestly can't remember.  Maybe I didn't have a goal that month?

November - My goal was to feel good about myself as a mom, as this was really the first time I'd been one.  This wasn't my goal because I'd previously felt bad about myself as a mom; I just know a lot of moms do and I never wanted to start.

December - All of my previous goals had been done as someone with no children.  Children busy life up a lot, so my goal this month was to incorporate the year's goals as best as I could with children.  It was hard, I definitely wasn't perfect, and I know how I want to improve this year, but I'm happy that I figured out how to be better at so many things before having kids.  I think it made this month a little easier.

And now... for the big reveal........

I told you in January that I'd be making small goals each month in order to reach an overarching goal.  I also told you that goal was too personal to share - as in, I wanted to accomplish it by myself, without reminders or pressure from others - but at the end of the year, I'd tell you what it was.

No one knows this.  (Even my husband.)

Are you ready?

Drum roll please...

Get ready for the sap fest!

My goal for 2014 was to become more like my parents.  :)

It's sparkling grape juice, I promise. Also, aren't my parents great selfie takers?

My mom and dad are the best parents in the entire world.  Probably the best people in the entire world.  In my completely unbiased opinion.  :)  Joel and I spent Christmas 2013 at their house, and the whole time I was there I noticed habits they had that I wished I did.  Their house runs so well!  Their habits seem more perfect than any other family's I know.  (Theirs is the only house I've lived in, so I don't know what any others are like.  Maybe yours is great, too.:)  I have always admired these things about them, but for some reason, it was in my mind ALL THE TIME during that vacation and after we got home.  So when 2014 started, my mind was full of things I wanted to do like them and my overarching goal was born.  I wrote a list of ways to improve, spread them out through the year, and worked all year to accomplish them.  I also said in January that "this resolution is more important to me than some, and more possible than many, and I know how happy I will be if I keep it..."  I didn't reach my goals perfectly, and many of them only lasted the one month, but I still work hard at them every day!  I don't think a day ever goes by that I don't ask myself what one or both of my parents would do in my situation.  They are amazing.

Told you it'd be a sap fest.  :)

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The door that led to the kitchens was blasted off its hinges.  The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleavers, and at their head, the locket of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog’s voice audible even above this din: “Fight! Fight! Fight for my Master, defender of house-elves!  Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus!  Fight!”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

AUGUST

August's goal check-up time!

My goals in August were to brush my teeth at night (I know, I know, you're all disgusted that that wasn't a habit before) and to floss once a day.

Here's my question:

Do you know how hard it is to reach a goal about improving your oral hygiene when you spent the first day of the month at the dentist and he told you not to change a thing about your oral hygiene because your teeth and gums are AWESOME?!

It's really really really hard.

Soooooo.....

Flossing - Yeah, I was horrible at that.

Brushing at night - Probably 50/50.  

And yet, the dentist's (and hygienist's) words are still echoing in my head, so I don't feel bad about it...

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…[T]he goblin rarely left Harry, Ron, and Hermione alone together for more than five minutes at a time: "He could give my mother lessons," growled Ron, as the goblin’s long fingers kept appearing around the edges of doors.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

the seventh goal in the seventh month...

Ok, most of the previous months had more than one goal, so it's not actually the seventh one.  Oh well. :)

July goals!

1. Go on dates with Joel (not just stay-home dates)

2. Learn to love (and hopefully be good at) my new calling - being Primary chorister

Go on dates with Joel (not just stay-home dates)

Joel and I have a great marriage.  We like staying home, and most of the time, splitting a cake-in-a-mug and watching a movie are a good-enough date for both of us.  I like to leave home, too, though! and sometimes I get bored of staying home with the same routine.  In the past, we've had a budget for eating out and a budget for other dates, but we almost never used the "other dates" budget.  This month, I combined and lowered the budgets to be more realistic and we set a rule - we had to use all the date money!  It was fun!  We still used a lot of it for eating out, but we ate at more fun + new places.  I picked Joel up from work one day for a middle-of-the-week lunch date at a new place.  We went to a Young Entrepreneur fair and loved spending $3 for (fill in the blank) because it came from our date fund and was for that!  I want to keep this up, moving away from eating out with most of the money.  There are a lot of fun things to do around here!  Having a date budget keeps me from feeling guilty about spending money on things that logically feel "frivolous" things but are fun, like eating at a restaurant nicer than Wendy's or going bowling. :)

Learn to love (and hopefully be good at) being Primary chorister

When I got this calling at the end of June, I didn't want it.  I didn't want to leave my old calling, and I didn't believe I had time for something new.  If I had to have something new, I didn't want this - it just seemed so hard with a lot of planning.  Being positive about it seemed like a good goal, all things considered.  Thankfully, I had a pretty great resource to call!  My mom's been her ward's Primary chorister forEVER, and she loves it.  So I called her immediately in hopes of getting pumped up.  She gave me a lot of great ideas, but I was still ner. vous!  When my first Sunday rolled around, I prayed that it would go perfectly.  "I know it won't always be perfect.  I know there will be some really hard days, just like with teaching.  But please let the first day be perfect so I won't feel so nervous from now on."  And it *was* perfect.  Heavenly Father is merciful.

I've only had a couple other weeks since then, and there have definitely been times (and days) when I felt overwhelmed with this calling.  It's not a ton of hard work, but it's work I'm not used to.  For most of the month, I never felt caught up.  It felt like people were always asking me to get things done sooner, be more ahead, give more people your early-made lesson plans.  But I think I'm finally starting to come out on top with the planning.  As far as the presentation goes, well, that's always fun. :)  I'll get closer to this goal as I start to feel more comfortable with the expectations, but it sure made my first month go better!  Attitude makes a big difference!

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“Are you threatening me, sir?” he said, so loudly that passersby actually turned to stare.

“Yes, I am,” said Mad-Eye, who seemed rather pleased that Uncle Vernon had grasped this fact so quickly.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

goals: fifth and sixth editions

I know what you all are thinking.  "Alison hasn't posted anything about her resolution since she was complaining about having too many goals in May... She must have given up like the rest of the world."  Wrong!  Guess again!  I've been just as diligent as ever (just less diligent about writing about my diligence).  Here we go!

May

As some of you may recall, my initial goal in May was to try doing all the goals from the previous months.  I wanted to make them more firm habits.  Well, I was over my head, what with school ending, so I decided my new goal for May was to finish the school year with grace.  Good news there!  Things were crazy and hard, and I didn't get much done outside of school, but everything I wanted to accomplish *in* school, I did, and I'm really happy with how it went.  Did I tell you about the ten kids who spontaneously showed up in my classroom to help me clean it an hour before my checkout appointment with the janitor?  They were wonderfully amazing, I love them, and Heavenly Father is merciful.  And thus ended Month 5.

June

I was out of town for almost the whole month spending time with my family, so my goal was a little different in June.  Habits I develop on vacation don't tend to stick around when the vacation ends - life is so different, the goals don't carry over very well.  I flew home and then drove with my family to my grandma's house to help her clean some stuff out and have the world's biggest garage sale. :)  

I had two goals for June:

1. Enjoy every minute with my family as much as possible (and not spend my mental energy missing Joel, who was a peach to let me be gone so long).

2. Strengthen my relationships with them, especially focusing on my younger sisters.  They were who I'd be spending the most time with + one was leaving on an 18-month mission soon + the other is starting college soon + they've always been who I've had to watch my tone around the most, so it made sense to try to make the most of our time together!

Basically, I wanted to avoid arguments, judging, and Facebook (ie, not being present), and be helpful.  :)

Man!  Focusing on thinking before speaking makes a difference!  There were many instances where thinking first came in extremely handy, and a couple where I was almost physically biting my tongue to keep negative comments inside.  It worked!  Peace and harmony abounded.  :)  It was an AWESOME trip, and I am extremely happy with how both of my goals turned out.  

Stay tuned for July!

___________________________________________

“He somehow could not find words to tell them what it meant to him,

to see them all ranged there, on his side.”

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

update

Soo....

Have you ever tried to reinforce one million personal goals

while finishing school as the teacher of 600 students?

Me neither.

And thus begins a different goal for this month.

Instead of trying to keep up with goals previously established, 

this month's goal is to

finish the school year with grace.

It's okay if things aren't done perfectly!

It's okay if there are scheduling errors!

It's okay if we ate macaroni and cheese and/or pizza a hundred times this week!

Finish the school year with grace.

All I can say is, I know exactly what I'm going to be doing on May 23.

Hellooooooooo, Hallmark Christmas movies.

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“May I introduce - incredible though it may seem - the fourth Triwizard champion?”

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

April

Hola!

Did you think my May goal was to give up blogging?  Guess again!  :)

First, let me address my goal for Lent, since that started last month but finished in April.  I did it!  No eating out because I didn't feel like cooking!  We still ate out, but when I didn't feel like cooking, we ate leftovers or salad or I learned a new recipe, and it went really well.  I'm hoping to keep that goal going.  Eating out's expensive!

Now, for my March goals:

1. Say personal prayer before bed.

2. Exercise every weekday.

Say personal prayer before bed.

I used to do this all the time, no problem.  Somewhere along the way, though, I fell out of the habit.  I don't know when.  I know it got more difficult when I started sleeping in beds kept on cinder blocks or that were otherwise tall, because my favorite praying position for personal prayers is against the bed.  With a tall bed, I can't reach the top when I'm on knees and it's uncomfortable.  Not less comfortable; uncomfortable.  Anyway, the important thing is, this was a good goal for me.  I wasn't 100% at it, but it was good for me to recognize the situation and consciously work to correct it.  

Exercise every weekday.

Wow!  I give a lot of credit to those of you who do this.  It's hard to make the time!  The easiest time, of course, is early in the morning, before I have time to procrastinate it.  That's also the hardest time, what with getting up early.  :)  Some days I exercised before work, others after, and many days I rode my bike to and from work to get it in then.  It became more difficult when someone else in my household with a much different schedule wanted to join in, because then I had to choose between actually doing it and trying to figure out a time every day that would work for both of us.  The times that were convenient for me (and that guaranteed I'd get it in) weren't convenient for that person.  I learned I'm better at exercising independently (unless there's group that meets every day at the same time and that time works for my schedule).  

I'd say I was about 85% on each of these goals.  I do have to say, though, that I feel a lot better.  It was interesting - I didn't expect that to be a benefit of Lent or Goal #2.  I kind of hoped I'd see a difference, but I didn't expect to feel one.  But less fast food - even though we still had some - and more exercising - even though I often did the bare minimum :) - made me feel better.  Better energy- / health-wise and better about myself.  So that was cool. 

As far as May goes, here's what I've decided.  I said in January that "My hope is that doing each mini goal for a month will help make it a habit, but even if none of them turn into habits, I'll still be on track."  I since have amended my views.  I want these goals to become habits.  During the month of May, then, I'll be working on doing all the goals I've done until this point.  It will be hard, but I've been trying to anyway, so I'm hoping that helps.  It will be a lot to remember, though... Wish me luck!  :)

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“But Hogwarts is hidden,” said Hermione in surprise.  “Everyone knows that…well, everyone who’s read Hogwarts, A History, anyway.” 

“Just you, then,” said Ron.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

And thus ends Month 3.

Goals!

1. Make dinner every day.  ("Every day" is part of the goal, but it's not quite literal.  I'll explain later.)

2. Wipe the counters after dinner.

3. Be a visiting teacher.  (Don't know what that is?  Click here or here.)

Make dinner every day.

I told you up there ^^ that the phrase "every day" is part of the goal, but it's not literal.  I sometimes fall into the habit of being lazy after work.  Relaxing is fine and good, but sometimes I don't stop.  Joel gets home from work, we sit around, and then 6:00 rolls around.  I'm hungry but don't feel like cooking; Joel's hungry but doesn't feel like cooking.  The question, "What do you want to eat?" gets kicked around for a couple minutes, and then we get back to our TV show.  6:30 comes.  A little hungrier, and therefore a little less willing to get up and cook.  Finally, 7, 7:30, or 8:00 arrives and I say, "Man, I'm starving! but I never felt like cooking.  Rats.  I guess we're eating McDonalds!"  No more!  That's expensive!  Plus not quite healthy.  So my goal this month was not to do that.  Every day I would make something, even if it was frozen Totino's pizzas.  (And this goal also matched up nicely with my Lenten one.)

I did pretty great!  We ate out about once a week, but it was never because of laziness.  We sure ate leftovers a lot, but hey - I made those!  :)  I feel happy about how this goal went, and I think I'll be able to keep it up.

Wipe the counters after dinner.

OH MY GOSH THIS WAS HARD.  Why was it sooooo hard?  I don't know.  All I know is, I did okay *and* got help from others in the house, but basically starting counting down the days left in March about a week ago.  I think it's because I dislike coming back to the kitchen.  I love cooking, I love eating, but once the work is done, I don't want to have to come back and do MORE.  The most guaranteed way to make sure the counters got cleaned was to do it while dinner was finishing cooking.   Yeah, this one will definitely take some more work.

Be a visiting teacher.

I'll admit it - I've been a lazy visiting teacher for the last few months, resorting to dropping off a treat on the last day or two of the month.  It's because I hate calling people I only kind of know on the phone to make / confirm the appointment.  It's helpful when you can text instead of call, but I only have the home number for one of my ladies, which means I have to call.  I basically failed this month, BUT.  I think it was helpful to get me on track for next month.   So I'll report on this goal again in April and let you know if I did any better.

This was a hard month for goals, more because of the goals than the effort, though.  Because I put in a LOT of effort.  I'm giving myself a couple of the easier goals for April.  :)

___________________________________________

They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, though they didn’t eat much - Hagrid had made what he said was a beef casserole, but after Hermione unearthed a large talon in hers, she, Harry, and Ron rather lost their appetites.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

resolutions: month 2

February:

1. Empty the dishwasher every morning.  Start it every evening.

2. Be intentionally friendly at church.

Ha!  I bet you thought (after January and the first goal of February) that my overarching goal for the year was to keep a cleaner house!  But then you read February's second goal.  :)

Empty the dishwasher every morning.  Start it every evening.

I did pretty okay on this.  There were some days we didn't use many dishes and the dishwasher didn't need starting, so the next morning it didn't need emptying.  Those days don't contribute to failure because the job didn't need to be done.  The real test of whether I did well on this goal is this: how many times did I think, "Man!  I need a certain dish but I didn't do the dishwasher last night so it's still dirty. :(  "?  The answer: 2-3.  Not too bad.  I hope to continue to improve, but this month wasn't bad.

Be proactively friendly at church.

We have lived in our current location for two years and still feel like we hardly know anyone and no one knows us.  In our last ward, there was a strong feeling of community.  Everyone loved and helped each other, and there was hardly a Sunday we didn't spend at someone's house for dinner / games or with someone at ours.  So it's been hard to have such a noticeably smaller friend pool here.  That's why I picked this goal.  I was sitting in church one day and wrote this in my journal:

Sacrament.  I was looking around during the hymn, thinking about last week.  I was in a different ward for sacrament meeting and this lady came and sat by me.  She was so friendly, you'd never guess we'd never met.
There are a lot of visitors in our ward this week.  I looked around at them and thought, "I wonder if any of them have had a similar experience in our ward today."  Immediately I thought, "Of course not; our ward's not friendly enough," remembering how we've felt here and what someone mentioned to J last week: "There's a real lack of camaraderie in our ward."
Right when I thought that, another thought came to mind - "Why don't you do something about it?" and imagined myself being friendly to everyone. "I can't do that."  and then it occurred to me that the lack of community in our ward is sad to Him, too.  And then we sang, "Be obedient, I implore..."  You don't "implore" something that doesn't matter to you; you implore about something that's really important.  And then, still feeling afraid, I thought, "Be the change you wish to see in the [ward]."  So.  I guess I've found my goal for next month. :P  The blog I read this week about asking meaningful questions instead of "How was your day?" directly applies here.  So do those people we saw at the furniture store yesterday who asked about J's dad instead of a generic "How are you?", showing that they remembered something important going on in J's life, even though they hadn't seen him in a long time.
Heavenly Father prepares us.

Now, let me just say, in case you're in our ward :) that some feelings get worse the more you think about them.  Meaning, things aren't as bad as I think sometimes.  However, everything I mentioned up there are things that others in our ward - like, a lot, not just one - have said to me or Joel as well, so it's not just us.  Anyway... now that I've sufficiently hurt everyone's feelings... 

Being friendly was something I'd been thinking about for a long time - a "stop complaining and do something" idea - but that journal entry (and what inspired it) was the exact kick in the pants I needed to start.  I made the goal of being proactively friendly because it made me more responsible.   No more sitting around and waiting for other people to come and receive friendliness from me - now I had to seek them out!  No more contributing to the problem and calling myself a victim!

This goal was so hard for me!  But my very first Sunday of trying, Joel and I received our FIRST EVER!!! invitation to dinner in this ward.  It was amazing and soooo fun!  It was not specifically a result of my efforts; I know that.  I didn't even see that family that day.  But it was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father saying, "Look!  This can work!"  The rest of the month went just as well, though just as difficult.  One of my favorite results was that I left church every week feeling happy.  This is one goal I am excited to try and carry out through the rest of the year.  Feeling happy is worth the effort.

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“That was a sample of fertilizer from Norway!” said Percy, going very red in the face.  “It was nothing personal!”

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

New Year's resolutions

You thought you were done reading blog posts about resolutions, right?  Wrong!  Here's one more.  I purposely didn't post it until now.  :) 

During the first week of January, it feels like the whole world is talking about resolutions, and a lot of people actually make some.  I did, too.  However, I've decided that mine is too personal to share.  Not personal as in, I don't want you to know what my resolution is because it's private.  Personal like, I want to know at the end of this year that I kept (or didn't keep) my resolution solely because of myself.  [and Heavenly Father]  I don't want reminders or encouragement from family or friends; I don't want to feel pressured to blog about my progress; I don't want to ever be asked about my resolution outside of maybe comments on this post.  I want all of you to pretend, at least while we're talking to each other in real life, like this post doesn't exist.  Because this resolution is more important to me than some, and more possible than many, and I know how happy I will be if I keep it and want to know it was because of my own desire and determination.

That said, I will tell you parts of it.  Goals should be SMART, right?  That is to say, goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.  If I learned anything from my home teachers growing up, it was how to make goals.  They had us make them one year and then checked up on us every month to see how we were doing.  For some reason it stands out as a traumatic memory in my mind, but it was an extremely effective way for me to learn about goals and I've never forgotten it.  [Shout-out to Brother and Alex D!]  

Anyway, off that tangent.  So, my overarching resolution is more of an ART goal - it's neither specific nor measurable.  To fix that, I have mini goals for each month.  When I've reached them, I will also have reached my overarching goal.  At that point I'll tell you what it was.  My hope is that doing each mini goal for a month will help make it a habit, but even if none of them turn into habits, I'll still be on track.

Well, it's the end of Month One!  My goals this month were to make the bed every day and to keep our bedroom clean (with Joel's help on both), and I'm happy to say we were successful!  We weren't 100%, but we were close enough that I feel good calling it a success.  It is marvelous to come home at the end of a long day and go into a bedroom with a made bed.  Everything looks neater when the bed is made.  It's also wonderful to wake up in a clean room.  And it feels really great to climb into bed knowing that, when there was some stuff on the floor today, you put it away, and if you have to go to the bathroom tonight, you won't step on anything pointy or important.

Here's to Month Two!

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"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire