HAPPY (Chinese) NEW YEAR

It is now February, I am past the 6 week postpartum recovery period, and I have to say that I am feeling pretty good. So... It's time to get going on some self-improvement goals. I've sort of been working on some of them already, but not officially. Aaron informed me on Monday after school that he wished he lived in China because it was Chinese New Year on Wednesday (today), and that if he lived there he could have a party and see the big dragons and stuff like that. So tonight we are going to go out for Chinese food to celebrate (We finally found an Oriental restaurant where I liked the food) and I decided that it would be a good day to officially write down some goals.

1) Be a better housekeeper. I really love FLYLADY. I have been a wanna-be flybaby for a long time and I have seen definite improvements in our house as a result, but I am committed this year to doing a little better at really establishing some routines and doing the daily missions. Last week I actually did ALL of the daily missions. Right now, my kitchen is looking clean, and the zone for the week IS the kitchen, so I'll be doing some deeper cleaning in there throughout the week. (For example, today's mission is to wipe out the fridge and throw out any budding science projects - and I'm planning to tackle the mission as soon as I post this and get the kids some lunch.)

2) Improve my personal and family scripture study. I am going to do the "Hinckley challenge" to re-jump start my personal scripture study. (I have been seriously hesitant to accept this challenge, due to an experience I had at a devotional once, which I will try to get around to sharing in a post in the next few days, but I have decided that the important thing is that I will be focusing on reading.)
We have been doing better than ever before on our family scripture reading too. For 3 weeks now we have read from the Book of Mormon every morning before Aaron leaves for school.

3) Take better care of my physical body by eating better and exercising regularly. (feel free to read this as 'lose the baby weight' if you want, but I'm trying to change my mental perspective to be focused on being fit instead of focusing on losing weight.) I pulled out an exercise video and it was sure an adventure! It was a "postpartum workout," so I wasn't worried about it being too strenuous. Trina was trying to do the exercises with me, so she inadvertently kept getting in my way as we were trying to figure out the steps and do the moves. (I am totally uncoordinated when it comes to dance, aerobics, etc... It's like I have 3 left feet - and no that 3 is NOT a typo...)
Then Bryan wanted to get in on the action and started running around in circles around us. Just imagine - I'm trying to do the "forward, 2, 3, kick - back, 2,3, knee - - forward, 2, 3, kick etc..., while trying to not step on or kick Trina who was trying to imitate me, and Bryan who was running in tight circles around me. I finally gave up and called it good enough for the day.

Wish me luck and feel free to follow up on my progress - and Happy New Year!