New Year's Resolutions

Last year I had some pretty standard resolutions: lose weight, eat less sugar, no more pop. Wanna know how they ended up?

Lose weight: Lost 10 pounds by my birthday. Gained it back. And it's still here. But hey, at least I didn't gain more!

Eat less sugar: I did really well for 2 months. Then I really wanted a cookie.

No more pop: I did so well on this one! I definitely did have some pop, but I think it was like...4 for the year, so I'm counting it as a success. The only pop I crave anymore is Root Beer, but I have stayed away!

This year I have decided to give some other goals a shot.

1. Start and maintain a budget. I have been so horrible in the past. I just want to get to the point where I know where my money is and how much I have. It's going to be a tough one, but hopefully this will be a learning experience for me.
2. Study more. Goodness knows I'll need it in the future. This one will require a lot of self control. I really hate studying. I'm not very good at it. I guess that comes from my high school years of never opening a book and still being the valedictorian of my class...
3. Index 10,000 names and arbitrate 30,000 names. In the past I've done really well with indexing and arbitrating, but I have basically done equal numbers of both. This is me trying to focus more on arbitrating while still setting a lofty goal for myself.
4. Don't eat out so much. I do it a lot...especially during finals week and stuff like that. I'm hoping that my budget goal will help a lot with this.
5. Expand my horizons. This one is kind of one that is open to interpretation. Basically I don't want to do everything the same all the time. Not ordering the same thing off the menu every time I go to a restaurant, put together a new outfit out of the clothes I already own rather than buying a new outfit, sit by people at church I don't normally sit by. Things like that!
6. Blog more. I really do enjoy blogging. I just never found the time to do it and fell really far behind and then didn't want to catch up...so I've decided that I'm just not going to catch up and start from where I'm at haha. I have recently passed the 2000 day mark in my Prayer-Journal-Scripture Study, so expect a post about that soon! I just need to be back in Poky where I have access to my other journals.

So there you go! If my #6 goes well, I should be doing a follow up in about a year :) Hope to see you all then!

What can you do in 1000 days?

How about fill up five journals?

(The sixth is a work in progress)

I started writing in a journal when I was in seventh grade, but I didn't write every night.

I would usually write if something big happened...but even then I still have entries like this:

Nov. 3, 2006

I haven't written in awhile, but I have excellent news. On June 24, 2006 Logan got married to a girl named Rachelle Farmer. She is so sweet. Then I jabber on for awhile....yadda yadda yadda...He called today and talked to mom for awhile. After she hung up she called Maci and I upstairs and said, "So, do you want to be called Aunt or Auntie?"

So basically I summed up six months in one entry!

In that same journal I started keeping track of how many days in a row I could write. 

I was inspired by President Eyring's talk in General Conference about keeping a journal.

I wrote for 118 days in a row that journal.

The next journal has a lot of drama in it...which I hate to admit.

There were lots of guys involved in this one :P

I made it to day 185 before I fell asleep without writing in my journal.

That's when the real run started. 

1000 days guys. 1000!

That's every single night.

Prayer.

Journal.

Scripture Study.

And it's been amazing.

I have a huge sense of accomplishment whenever I think about it!

And I have no intention of stopping now.

And now I'm going to give you a little glimpse of my last 1000 days.

I'm going to ask the people in my apartment to pick a number between 1 and 1000 and I will tell you what I wrote about that day...if it's not too personal that is.

John: 521

Day 521 I was on my way to State volleyball in my senior year. We had just left Missoula and checked into our ghetto hotel. I expressed how nervous I was to play Nampa Christian at 8:30 the next morning. 

Brian: 887

I failed a quiz in Calculus :P Definitely not my brightest hour...

This was also the night of the Institute dance that Kenna and I dressed up as Greek Goddesses for :D

Mystie: 333

This was the day of my Junior Prom. The first sentence of the entry is, "Okay, so today was pretty much the best day of my life squared!" 

I was pretty sick that day, but I didn't let it stop me from having fun! We picked out clothes at the DI for our dates and went ice blocking down Old Main in Logan. We played Apples to Apples-Walmart style. I don't think I stopped laughing or smiling all day. 

Kenna: 88

This was Lindsay's birthday. I didn't get to spend any time with her though :(

I went on a date with Cecil to Montpelier. We had pizza at Studebaker's Pizza, toured a tabernacle in Paris, Idaho and then he took me to Bear Lake for the first time.

Bracken: 797

This was my mom's birthday. I hadn't bought her a present yet and I felt awful. Then Maci and I went to Alco and found her an awesome present. :) This was also the day I started my blog. 

Derek: 497

This was a pretty boring entry. We played General Conference Bingo in seminary and my team won :) Also, we started the media fast and it was killing me not being able to get on facebook to talk to my boyfriend...oh the drama of a high school senior eh?

Carley (okay, so she wasn't in my apartment....I started having fun and texting people): 500

I was in a bad mood after an early morning volleyball practice and when I got home I found a letter from my mom on my pillow. That letter made my day and it continues to do so. I actually reread that letter tonight. I love my mom!

Lyndsey: 378

I had a long day at work that day. Nothing seemed to go right, but then I started developing my "mom voice" and a kid stopped tantruming and did what I told him to. This was also the day that our van died, so my parents were talking about getting a new car and teaching me to drive a stick :) 

Ryan: 374

This was the first day of summer vacation. I was having another hard day at work. A kid threw a chair at me and when I had him settled down enough to talk to me he said, "I'm just so sick of your crap!" All I could do was laugh.

Maci: 79

This was the day before I got my patriarchal blessing. I wrote down the five things I wanted to learn from my patriarchal blessing. I can't write them down because I was told to tear that paper up, but considering the fact that it was in my journal I didn't. I wrote about how excited I was. 

This was also the day that my family got our keyboard :)

Kyle: 9

This was the last day that I was going to see Cecil for three months. We had a going away party at MaRhea's house and played spoons and BS. Then we went and played frisbee at the park. I was super sad when the day ended!

Jeff: 2

Hoooo boy. I wrote about a dream I had about a friend (that I hoped would someday be more than a friend if you catch my drift). I really don't wanna go into too much detail about the dream....

Jim: 10

This was the day before EFY started.

I got some excellent news from one of my best friends. She had been going through a pretty difficult time and felt like she couldn't go to church. A friend got her all straightened out and now she's stronger than ever! I remember being super ecstatic when I heard the news and it still makes me happy to this day :)

There are some seriously good memories in these pages. From the Osmond's Concert to Washington DC (I have three pages filled up with inside jokes from that one week). From Soda Springs to Pocatello. From absolute 100% joy to heartbreak. Girl's Camp and Youth Conference. Love, notes, words of encouragement, venting...and the list goes on.

If you are not keeping a journal I seriously encourage it. It doesn't take that much time before bed and your posterity will love having a record to look back on. In my eyes, the scriptures are a journal that was passed down from father to son. They wrote their experiences and now we look back on them and learn from them.

1000 days and still going strong. I'll see you all in another 1000!

Deal?

Deal!