12:1 getting unstuck ~ books over t.v.

I still need to write a post wrapping up all that we experienced and learned throughout our February challenge of service and kindness, but given that we are now into the first week of March, I thought I better first address our new months challenge.

This is the month that we’ve decided to limit the T.V. watching and instead focus more on reading and writing books, both individually and as a family. (more on the writing a bit later!)

~ I have some writing to get done & some books stacked up that I have been meaning to read for over a year now…
~ Jimmy has books to finish for his seminary classes…
~ We’ve always wanted to choose a book to read together as a family…
~ And I want the kids to be reminded that reading is actually fun and not just something that needs to checked off a homework list for the day.

And so we’re limiting our TV watching to one hour on the weekends and a half hour each weekday night, (Might be a little more now that I have a dear friend to cheer on!), and instead replacing the extra time rekindling our love for writing and reading books.

Already, I am seeing the changes and I love it.  Just yesterday as I was taking an extra long shower to escape my day for a bit, Chloe found her way in with a stack of books ready to read to me all my quiet time long.  She reminded me it was “book month,” and that she needed to read me some stories so I wouldn’t be alone during my shower.  Never in my life have I ever wanted to give up my quiet shower time more than I did in that moment.  She even took the extra time to poke the book past the shower curtain so I had an opportunity to see each picture that went with the words she was so graciously reading to me.

We also started a new book about Jim Elliot, an incredible missionary, that we’re reading together as a family each night that we’re all able to sit together at the dinner table.  It’s amazing.  We’re making memories.  And I cherish it more than I ever thought I would.

In addition to this challenge, we’re also choosing this month to bring back the first two months challenges as well: Health & Kindness, and do our best to successfully juggle all three. I think every three months, we might bring back the old so as to really keep things a part of our lives and really solidify our new habits.

I have to say, I am LOVING these monthly challenges.  I love that my family is so involved in this with me and that we are actively working together to make positive changes in our lives.  I love that we can already look back and reflect on all the ways we’ve been able to make 2014 really count.  We haven’t been perfect, but we’ve certainly done our very best…making sure to pick ourselves back up the next day when maybe the day before had been a bust.  And in breaking all our hopes, dreams and goals up into 12  thirty(ish) day challenges, we are already so much further ahead in accomplishing our 2014 goals then we ever have been in previous years.

12 in 1: A year to getting unstuck… it’s good.  It’s really really good.

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