Habitual Reminders

I've been rather lax in posting my habits each week. As Lara says in her post today I think I may be feeling somewhat of a Smart Habit overload. So here's what I've been working on:

Habit 12 Organize - We've redone our chore charts and are almost done decluttering the house. Joseph's even built shelves in the two upstairs girls' bedrooms this week. Next on the list is to go through our food storage supply and see what needs to be changed or updated. I really want to get a hand wheat grinder like this one but the price tag is steep. We have a little hand grinder that would require us to grind all day long in order to have enough flour for the size of our family. Joseph is also on the hunt for a generator. The farm has one but he wants one for personal use.

Habit 11 Reading my Scriptures I'm going to try something new here that I first heard about from a good friend, Shannon. I'm going to buy the cheap Books of Mormon and assign each one a topic like faith, the atonement, charity, etc. As I read the one assigned to charity I will focus on finding all the scriptures that have to do with charity, etc. Then I will have whole books dedicated to one subject each and won't overload one set of scriptures with so much underlining and highlighting that I can't read the words. Now I just have to decide which topic to study first.

Habit 10 Look my best each day I've actually been doing really well. I've also come to the realization that there's only so much one can do to look good. As my girls often say, "You get what you get and you don't get upset."

Habit 9 Mark my habits off on my chart Yikes! I forgot about this one.

Habit 8 Read to my children everyday. This has to be one of my favorite habits. There's something to be said for snuggling on the couch under warm quilts with a pile of great children's books.

Habit 7 Hand written letters - I need to work on this a little more. I received an unexpected letter and package this past week. It was so nice! (Thanks, Mindy!)

Habit 6 Latch on to the Affirmative Saying "yes" more often to my children has made it easier for the times when I've had to say "no." This quote by Sister Hinckley was my inspiration, "My mother taught me some basic philosophies of rearing children. One is that you have to trust children. I tried hard never to say "no" if I could possibly say "yes." I think that worked well because it gave my children the feeling that I trusted them and they were responsible to do the best they could."

Habit 5 Stick to a school schedule I have to admit the first full week of school was rough. We were still trying to get the hang of using the K12 site and it just seemed to take us all day long to do school. This past week saw a complete change. We're done by lunchtime. A light bulb has gone off in Eve's head as she realized she can adjust her K12 schedule online to whatever suits her. She's been getting done with all her subjects and passing the assessments (usually with 100%) in just two hours. She wants to try a more rigorous schedule (read 4 hours of school a day) to see if she can complete most of seventh grade by Christmas. Because of Habit 6, we're going to let her try it, especially since she is self-motivated to get it done.

Habit 4 Tickle the Ivory I'm still not playing as often as I'd like too. I have started learning some new ragtime pieces though.

Habit 3 Clean as I go The whole family has become involved with this habit. Our house isn't spotless by any means but there has been a huge improvement and it's still getting better.

Habit 2 Use positive reinforcement This really works well but I find I have to constantly remind myself to do it.

Habit 1 Exercise for 30 minutes every day. Oops! This has gotten lost in the shuffle of doing all the others. I would like to start doing what my cousin Katie does and run everyday. And not on my treadmill either but outside because the weather is just gorgeous. Autumn is coming!!!!