posted by Jessica Lynette on Personal

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Personal Challenges

Buy 12 personal items only this year – personal items include clothing, accessories related to dressing (purses, shoes, jewelry, etc.) and all undergarments. The only thing exempt from this is workout clothes and running shoes.
I own an abundance and have no current needs so the purpose of this challenge is two-fold – first to discipline myself to do this and secondly to develop my creativity. I am hoping this challenge will encourage my sewing skills to surface!

Photograph a wedding –  I don’t think I have any interest in wedding photography but I suppose I can’t safely say that until I have photographed one. So I will be pushing myself out of my comfort zone and photographing one wedding this year for a friend who wouldn’t take no for an answer from me.

Teach a Photography Class –  I have had several friends ask if I would do this and so I am going to give it a shot!

Learn about flash lighting –  I haven’t a clue about flash lighting and so I am going to be studying this on my own and perhaps take a class if time and funds allow.

Live without internet connection at home – We discontinued our internet connection while the boys and I were in Nigeria and I have been surprised at how much I enjoy not being plugged in at home. It means planned coffee shop dates to do anything online {or using my phone to check email}. It might not be practical to continue without internet at home all year long, but for now there is no true need for it and it has given us so much more free time!

Diet and Fitness

Our interest in ethnic foods has developed into a plan to make every Thursday night ethnic food night. We don’t have a lot of ethnic grocery stores in our area so it may pose to be a problem in the coming months, but I am looking forward to this weekly challenge! If you have any recipes to recommend I’d love if you would share.

My goal fitness wise this year is to become a runner – I have a goal of running 3 miles by the end of the month and 15 miles by the end of June. I am also interested in mountain biking and want to pursue that with Paul as time {and babysitters…} allows.

Reading

I am going to continue reading through the Daily Bible each morning.

I also want to read {and complete!} 3 books a month and read the boys several stories a day as well as a bit of a chapter book each day.

Family Life

As a wife I want to spend my year wooing his man heart by developing my interest in the things he loves – mainly outdoor activities like mountain biking, running and camping. And playing endless games of chess with him. And maybe learning to enjoy black coffee.

As a mom I want to romance my boys hearts. I want to passionately enjoy this year with them. We want to continue our one on one overnight dates with them – once in the spring and once in the fall – as well as start doing daily one-on-one reading time with them. {Likely at bedtime, with each of us reading to one of them, at the same time in different rooms.}

As a family we want to work on memory work – to include scripture, hymns and poetry. I haven’t quite decided on what we will do this year.

Travel

Our dream for our family is to visit different missionaries around the world – exposing our kids to various cultures, ministries and people, encouraging those serving the Lord and sharing about the work that is going on with those who are back home. Ideally we would love to visit one country a year with the kids, but it might not practically work until Paul has finished school and is working again.

Hospitality

We spent quite a few nights at hotels this past year and the boys thought it was so fun they expressed a desire to turn our house into a hotel! We have told the boys we’ll do the best we can to get overnight company coming over so they can play hotel keepers. With Paul starting school our schedule should be much calmer than previous years and most anytime should be good for company.

With Paul now having his weekends free we plan on having more friends from church over and working on developing and deepening relationships with our church family.

Tags: challenge, organizing, thoughts