Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 35

It's Monday again!!
(well it was Monday when I started this but I forgot to post it yesterday)

Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

This was a good week as far as goals go.

My Goals from last week and how I did:
Spiritual Goals 

1. Keep up with Reading the Bible in a Year. Done Yeah, I kept up and am not behind! Reading Zachariah today thru Thurs. then Friday Malachi. Next week starts the New Testament.
2. Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Not Done I meant to but the week got away from me.

Homeschool Goals

1. Keep homeschooling and do even better this week. Make sure the boys do all 12 workboxes every day or not computer time. Done 
2. Work on Portfolios. Done I did not get the Portfolios finished but made significant progress. I found that the pages I made to divide the subjects were made with the topics we are covering this year, not last, so I have had to make new subject pages. This is consuming a lot more time than I thought it would take me. But at least I am almost halfway done. I also have the subject pages for this year already to go, since I made that mistake, and I can assemble the portfolios as we go through the year. Hopefully that means I won't still be working on the portfolios from this year while doing next year's school. I have one more set of subject pages to make for History, then I have to sort and decide what things of Nathan's to put in the portfolio. Hopefully I will get this complete this week. It is my #1 priority.
3. If I have time I also want to work on planning History. We are done with Mystery of History 3 and I need to keep ahead on the planning.  Not Done

Health and Fitness Goals  

1. Get back to exercising, 3 times this week hopefully or maybe even 4. Partly Done I exercised 2 times. I will make time to exercise more this week.
2. Drink water 3-4 of my white and pink 16oz. cups full. Not Done
3. Get back to eating more healthy. Not Done

Blog Goals

1. Get my Blast From The Past post done and scheduled so it posts first thing tomorrow morning. Come back and see my family photos and link up. Not Done Oops! I planned to do this and just forgot. Nobody seemed to mind though and Kympossible did not leave me a message that she was missing the linky...hopefully I will do better this week. I will try and get the post done today and scheduled to post in the morning.
2. Work on and get posted one of the posts I have in the works that is not a meme. Not Done
3. Post at least 3 more times this week, not counting this post but including the goals 1 and 2.  Not Done

Personal/Other Goals 

1. Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Partly Done I commented on Katrina's post (our hostess) @ Mama Manuscripts I forgot to go back and comment on the other ladies posts.
2. Read, Read, Read!  I am making progress on my read 100 books in a year goal but I still need to read a bunch more. I am currently reading  Toward the Sunrise (Daughters of Fortune, Book 3) book by Judith Pella. I need to get it read before it is due back at the library. Done I read more of Toward the Sunrise but have a lot more to read.
3. One on One time with Nathan. Not Done

Well that is 4 Done, 2 Partly Done, and 8 Not Done. As I said I feel good about last week's progress on my goals even though I have more Not Done than Done. Some things I worked on took a lot more time than I thought they would.

My goals for this coming week:
Spiritual Goals 

1. Keep up with Reading the Bible in a Year.
2. Read chapter 1 and 2 of  God's Priorities for Today's Woman: Discovering His Plan for You for Ladies Bible Study on Friday Oct. 7th
3. Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.

 
Homeschool Goals

1. Keep homeschooling and do even better this week. Make sure the boys do all 12 workboxes every day or no computer time.
2. Read aloud to the boys... this counts toward my 100 books in a year goal. 
3. Finish last year's Portfolios. 

Health and Fitness Goals  

1. Get back to exercising, 3 times this week hopefully or maybe even 4.
2. Drink water 3-4 of my white and pink 16oz. cups full. 
3. Get back to eating more healthy. 

Blog Goals

1. Get my Blast From The Past post done and posted. Come back and see my family photos and link up later today.
2. Work on and get posted one of the posts I have in the works that is not a meme.
3. Post at least 3 more times this week, not counting this post but including the goals 1 and 2.

Personal/Other Goals 

1. Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. 
2. Spend Wed. afternoon with my friend Michele, catching up, laughing and supporting one another.
3. Make a Weight Watcher dessert for tomorrow afternoon when Michele comes so we have something yummy, but on my diet, to enjoy together. Michele should I make the WW chocolate cake or the gingerbread cake with raisins? If you see this and answer, great! if not I will choose.
4. Clean out my bedroom closet and store the clothes that don't fit me right now in a different place... my closet is getting to crowded. 
5. Get the Fridge cleaned out.
6. Read, Read, Read!  I am making progress on my read 100 books in a year goal but I still need to read a bunch more. I am currently reading  Toward the Sunrise (Daughters of Fortune, Book 3) book by Judith Pella. I need to get it read before it is due back at the library.
7. One on One time with Nathan. 

Well that is this week's Goals. I got a lot accomplished though there are a lot of Not Done's. Now to post this and get on with accomplishing my goals.

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The Shunning – Review and Giveaway

Click this link, read the review and enter the giveaway for the movie The Shunning at my friend's Katrina's blog.
It looks like a great movie. I hope I win.


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Thrifty Nifty Mommy: My Name is Handel CD Review and Giveaway

Thrifty Nifty Mommy: My Name is Handel CD Review and Giveaway
This looks like a great giveaway. The Maestro Classics cd's look really great. I would like to have a few of these. Check out the giveaway and enter to win.


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Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 34

It's Monday again!!

Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

Tuesday I woke up with a sore back. I spent the day on the recliner and the pain distracted me from getting much accomplished. The pain continued until Friday morning when I woke up so this week was not as good as last week. I did accomplish some things that were important to get done and though I had a bunch undone I feel good about how things went last week.

My Goals from last week and how I did:
Spiritual Goals 

1. Catch up with Reading the Bible in a Year... I am behind but should be caught up by next Monday. Done Yippee!! I read a bunch of my Bible on Saturday morning, early, and then more on the way to get a hair cut later Sat. and then finished getting caught up before church on Sunday. 
2. Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Not Done 

Homeschool Goals

1. Keep homeschooling and do even better this week. Make sure the boys do all 12 workboxes every day or not computer time. Partly Done This week was hard because of my injured back. This week I am determined and the boys are not getting access to their laptops until all 12 workboxes are done and graded.
2. Work on Portfolios.  Not Done 
3. If I have time I also want to work on planning History. We are done with Mystery of History 3 and I need to keep ahead on the planning. Not Done 

Health and Fitness Goals  

1. Get back to exercising, 3 times this week hopefully or maybe even 4. Not Done injured back prevented this.
2. Drink water 3-4 of my white and pink 16oz. cups full.  Not Done did not keep track
3. Get back to eating more healthy.  Not Done did not keep track and had Pizza one night and other junk food.

Blog Goals

1. Get my Blast From The Past post done and scheduled so it posts first thing tomorrow morning. Come back and see my family photos and link up. Done
2. I need to do my monthly update on how I am doing with my yearly goals. I missed doing this Sept. 1st. Done
3. Post my last review due for TOS.  Done

TOS Homeschool Crew Goals (I am not on the crew any more but have to finish up my responsibilities... 4 review)

1. Keep doing  Rooted and Grounded for Bible. Start writing the review for this. The review due by next Monday. This is my very last product review for TOS. Done

Personal/Other Goals 

1. Take my mom home. Done
2. Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Not Done Oops! I really wanted to do this too! Hopefully this coming week I will.
3. Ladies Bible Study starts back up on Friday. I am looking forward to it. My daughters will be doing the babysitting this year and that will give them some spending money. Starting next week I will be adding the goal of reading my chapter for Ladies Bible Study. We meet the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month. Done
4. Read, Read, Read!  I am making progress on my read 100 books in a year goal but I still need to read a bunch more. I am currently reading      Portraits of the Past  I need to also finish reading Emma. I have a bunch of Grace Chapel Inn books checked out of the library as well as the next Daughters of Fortune book by Judith Pella. I need to get them read before they are due back at the library. Done I finished Portraits of the Past and Winter Wonders (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #4) and started reading   Toward the Sunrise (Daughters of Fortune, Book 3)
    
5. One on One time with Christopher. If he does not make time for us to spend together and keeps putting it off I will skip him and go on to Nathan next week. Not Done so I am moving on to Nathan this week. He will hopefully make time to do his day with me next time his turn comes around.

Well that is 8 Done, 1 Partly Done, and 8 Not Done. As I said I feel good about this past week because I got my Bible reading caught up and a lot of reading done. I also completely finished my obligations to TOS when I did my last review for them and posted it yesterday and I accomplished all my blogging goals... somethings I could do with a hurt back.

My goals for this coming week:
Spiritual Goals 

1. Keep up with Reading the Bible in a Year.
2. Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.  

Homeschool Goals

1. Keep homeschooling and do even better this week. Make sure the boys do all 12 workboxes every day or not computer time.
2. Work on Portfolios. 
3. If I have time I also want to work on planning History. We are done with Mystery of History 3 and I need to keep ahead on the planning. 

Health and Fitness Goals  

1. Get back to exercising, 3 times this week hopefully or maybe even 4.
2. Drink water 3-4 of my white and pink 16oz. cups full. 
3. Get back to eating more healthy. 

Blog Goals

1. Get my Blast From The Past post done and scheduled so it posts first thing tomorrow morning. Come back and see my family photos and link up.
2. Work on and get posted one of the posts I have in the works that is not a meme.
3. Post at least 3 more times this week, not counting this post but including the goals 1 and 2.

Personal/Other Goals 

1. Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. 
2. Read, Read, Read!  I am making progress on my read 100 books in a year goal but I still need to read a bunch more. I am currently reading  Toward the Sunrise (Daughters of Fortune, Book 3) book by Judith Pella. I need to get it read before it is due back at the library.
3. One on One time with Nathan.

Well that is this week's Goals. I did way better than the last few weeks and that is encouraging. Now to post this and get on with accomplishing my goals.


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* NOTE: the links to the books are affiliate links for Amazon.com

Rooted and Grounded ~ a Bible curriculum review

Deeper Roots Publications offers teacher and student books, devotionals, DVDs, CDs, reading books, even parental encouragement books. Their Bible curriculum is suitable for homeschoolers and Christian schools. There are resources for missions and evangelism also.

I was grateful to receive Rooted and Grounded from Deeper Roots Pub. It is geared for grades 10-12 and is a one year curriculum. I have a son in 9th and a son in 12th. We are doing this curriculum together and it is working great. Rooted and Grounded is a topical Bible study covering many of the basics of Christianity and topics include: God's love for others and how we should love, having a relationship with God, God's awesome power, a couple of chapters on prayer, and many others. The lessons are set up so the student does most of the work on their own. Our family, however likes to do Bible together and actually in the review by Cathy Duffy in the front of the teacher guide she says, "This is serious Bible study that would ideally be used by parent and child(ren) together."

Each lesson covers 5 days and begins with a prayer emphasis for an unreached people group. So we spend time before each class praying for our lesson, that the Holy Spirit would open our hearts to what God wants to teach us that day and then one or all of us pray for the unreached people group. There are usually 2 or 3 specific prayer requests and so we each take one and pray on day 1 and then the rest of the week we take turns praying. Each lesson focuses on scripture... reading it and then answering questions which challenge the student to really think and apply the scripture to their lives. Each week there are scriptures to memorize also. On the last day of each week there is a review for the lesson. In between two of the lessons there is an extra reading lesson and there are also writing assignments in several of the lessons. Since we have extra time we can take a day or two extra to work on these if we want to. There are 36 weeks in our school year... we have to do 180 days to fulfill the requirements for our state... anyway there are only 27 lessons in the book so that leaves us a few weeks to expand things, do extra days. The lessons are organized into 8 units with tests at the end of each unit. The reviews you do for each lesson contain the material for each unit test. Going over the reviews prepares the student for their test. The tests include: short answer, vocabulary, matching, and short essay questions. The illustrations are also wonderful, especially the ones of the unreached people groups.

Rooted and Grounded Teachers Guide $39.50

Rooted and Grounded Student WorkBook $23.95

Rooted and Grounded Unit Tests & Answers $3.95

3 pc. BUNDLE Rooted & Grounded (includes all the above) $61.00

You can get a free PDF download sample of Rooted and Grounded if you fill out your name and email address at the bottom of the link's page. If you are looking at a different level there are free pdf's of them also. Just look around. If you download the pdf you will get a complete table of contents so you can see all the topics that will be covered for the level you are thinking of buying and in the sample I got for Rooted and Grounded it had the table of contents, the introduction, and 2 complete lessons to check out.

One thing you should know is that you must have a student workbook and a test book for each student. You cannot reproduce any part of this curriculum. I also find the teacher guide is a necessary part of the program and very helpful also. 

Out of five stars we give the Rooted and Grounded:


If you would like some other opinions of the Rooted and Grounded check out what my friends at the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say. Some of them also got different products from Deeper Roots Pub. so check that out too.

***Deeper Roots Publications provided me with  Rooted and Grounded and though I received this product for free I have given an honest review of it here in this post.

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Spirit Filled Sunday ~ He Keeps Me Singing

This is one of my favorite songs from my growing up years. We used to sing it in church all the time. We used the little Youth Favorites Gospel Songs and Choruses books from Singspiration. I am glad I still have a copy. It brings back such wonderful memories of hymn sings at our church. God is good. I hope you enjoy this favorite from my youth sung by the Gaither Homecoming crowd.





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*Link and book image are my Amazon affiliate links. Please click them and if you buy I get a little bonus with which I buy homeschool books. It costs you nothing extra.

Yearly Goals Update ~ September

This is my update. I want to stay accountable for achieving my 2011 goals. I want to do better than last year. I want to remind myself what my goals are and keep working toward them.

The positive steps I have made with my goals this month have a smiling smiley face in front, the goals that I still have to work on have a sad face in front. Some are not really sad but that is the best contrast I could make between completed and not completed. The color thing was getting to complicated and I love smileys so I am sticking with them.

Personal Goals:

Spiritual 

• Be more consistent with my personal devotions. 
• Our church started a year long challenge to read through the Bible. We are using Daily Walk from Walk Thru the Bible. I am a little behind but not as far as I was. I am currently reading Hosea.

Health and Fitness

• Exercise more, more often and consistently. I would like to be much more fit by the end of 2011. 
• I am getting back to exercising regularly after a summer of ups and downs. It's all good... it is a long term commitment to healthier living.

• Eat better and loose weight. I have been doing great on drinking my water. 
• I have done better with my water intake though I have been eating to much junk.

Educational

• Read some books on homeschooling and other educational topics. 
• I finished reading:
• How to Have a H.E.A.R.T. For Your Kids by Rachael Carman
• The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller.
• I need to work on finishing: 
• Promises, Promises: Understanding and Encouraging your Husband by the wives of 12 prominent Christian leaders. Challenging reading for marriage 
• I will be starting a new book for Ladies Bible Study this Friday. I don't even remember the name of it. See my Goal Planning Monday post next week for details.

• Work on my own writing projects. 
• I am working on the History Unit study projects and the E-book on Homeschool Organizing I was writing. I have other things that have taken priority. I plan to keep working on these, but don't know when. I don't know if or when I will get to this.

Personal/Leisure

• Spend one afternoon at least every other week doing scrapbooking. 
• I have not done this because I have portfolio stuff from last year still to do. I have set my goals and I do want to work on some things for pleasure and not always be teaching school or planning it.

• Read some books for pleasure.
• Going to the Chapel (Tales From Grace Chapel Inn, Book 2) by Rebecca Kelly
• Recipes and Wooden Spoons Tales from Grace Chapel Inn, Book 3) by Judy Baer
• I am also reading Emma but that is slow going. I need to read some of this each week or I will not be getting all the Jane Austen books read this year.
• I started reading a Love's Long Journey but then my Grace Chapel books came in and I need to read them before they have to go back to the library.

• Continue blogging and remember it is supposed to be for fun and for the records for my family.Write more consistently on my blog at least 3 posts a week.
• I have done pretty well. I posted 9 posts in the last week.
• I am back to do my Blast From The Past posts... I have one lady participating. I moved them back to Tuesday because Friday is to hectic.
• I posted 17 posts in July, August I posted 25 posts.

Homeschool Goals:

• Be more consistent on recording daily in our school log.
• I have been keeping up with this and doing well.... now to keep going.
•  Be consistent with reviewing the boys daily assigned work and making sure they complete everything assigned to them and then put the stuff away in the folders/notebooks where it belongs.
•   I am being consistent with reviewing the workboxes but the boys have not finished all 12 boxes most days. Tomorrow is another day.
• Complete the first half of my 3rd year on the TOS Homeschool Crew Review
•   I have only one more review to write this week and then I am done with the crew. This was a hard decision but I feel at peace with it.

Family/Relationship Goals:

• Get back to evening read aloud time with the boys. 
• I have still not been doing it. We are still on Little House in the Big Woods. I need to make it a priority at least 3 nights a week. I have not read to the boys since March. I need to talk to the boys about this. I need to get back to reading something to them. Either finish Little House in the Big Woods or pick something else.

• Get back to meal planning because meals are more varied and we will have the ingredients shopped for ahead of time.
• We did well in May and June with planning and doing meals.  I planned a few meals in August but need to get back to this... things go much smoother when I meal plan.

• Spend more time with my dear husband 
• We went to a fountain show alone last week. It was a great night out. We need to plan something else but this weekend we are going up to PA to take my mom to get her hair permed and I get mine cut and she pays for it... so maybe next week or weekend. We have also been running errands together which is at least some alone time.
• Hubby has promised to play games with me but we have not done it yet.
•   After watching The Grace Card a couple nights ago Hubby and I have been praying together before bed. It means so much to me. The first night he started, last night he seemed down and tired and so I started it... I didn't want to quit after only one night. We so need the prayers and the closeness I feel when we pray together.

• Spend time once a week with one of my kids, just mom and one of the kids having lunch in my bedroom alone and then doing whatever the child wants to do. Usually a combo of eating, talking and playing board games and/or computer games. Goal is one child a week, so they all get one afternoon with mom a month.Start with my youngest and schedule it on the calendar so I can keep track of who is next for their turn. We can add time on the Wii together now
• It is now Christopher's turn. It has gotten put off and put off. If we don't do it this week and he puts it off again I am moving on to Nathan next week.

So, that is my yearly goal update. I have 15 things with smiling smiley faces and 4 with sad smiley faces so more things are done then undone. Things are looking good for my yearly goals.

• Original post for my Goals 2011
• Goals Update Feb. 1
• Yearly Goals Update - March
• Yearly Goals Update - April
• Yearly Goal Update - May
• I apparently missed a June update oops... 
• Summer Goal list 
• Yearly Goal Update - July 
• Yearly Goal Update - August 

Did you make goals for this year? How are you doing on your goals? Keep track of your goals and how you are doing will help you achieve much this year. Watch for my final update on my summer goals which I will post Wednesday.

Doing the weekly goals meme on Mondays helps too.



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