2013 Resolutions, Deleting Facebook and 52 Dates Wrap-Up

When we came home after the holidays we had nearly two miserable weeks dealing with a horrid cycle of sickness.  First Daphne, then me, then Burke, and then Daphne again.  Yuck!  Then the rest of January has passed in a blur as we hosted alternating guests for 2 weeks, showed the house to gads of people and got swept up in a couple of exciting projects (more on those to come).  Here are a few things I've been wanting to write about since the beginning of the year.

Resolutions
I'm big into goal setting, so I always love making a big fat list of things to do each year.  My resolutions from January 2012 can be found HERE.  Out of the 10 goals I set for myself last year, I completed 4, stuck closely to 5 (but didn't quite complete or am still working on) and bombed 1 entirely!  After reviewing my goals from last year I realized that less is more.  This year I want to zone in on only 5 goals so that I can be more focused and intentional about my growth.  This year I'd like to...

Emily Goals

1) Eliminate distractions (facebook, blogging, cleaning) to focus more fully on the things that matter most (the gospel, my family & serving others).

2) Stay fit by exercising 2-4 times a week

3) Continue to work on my genealogy, index 500 names and find family names to take to the temple.

4) Finish writing GG’s history and compile it in book format by her 95th birthday in June.

5) Study early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – especially the life of Joseph Smith.

We made some "goals" for Daphne too, but basically they're my mothering goals of some main things I want to teach her this year.

Daphne Goals

1) Potty Train

2) Learn letters, colors and numbers

3) Learn to ride a tricycle J

4) Learn to sit still in Sacrament meeting

5) Transition to toddler bed

Then we broke up our family goals into 2 categories - family & financial and Burke made some goals too, but I'm not sure if he'd want me to share them.  I'll let him put those in his own journal. :) 

Facebook/Less Blogging
- In keeping with my first goal of the year, I decided to delete my Facebook account.  I had been thinking about it for quite some time, but as I was trying to decide how I could free up more space in my day for gospel study, I realized how much time was being wasted on social networking.  Facebook can be a fantastic tool for contacting people, but I noticed that it had become my routine to do the following 3 things at least 3 times a day: check email, check blog and check Facebook.  The problem is, I couldn't just glance at Facebook to see if I had any notifications.  Instead, I would end up scrolling through the latest posts on the newsfeed and inevitably end up watching videos, flipping through photos or connecting to blogs.  I realized that if I was being honest I probably spent 30-60 minutes on Facebook every day if I tallied up the 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there.  It shocked me to confront how much time I was wasting online.  Into my mind came President Uchtdorf's October 2012 conference talk (which I think I've listened to 5 times now - it is SO good!) where he said,

In our day it is easy to merely pretend to spend time with others. With the click of a mouse, we can “connect” with thousands of “friends” without ever having to face a single one of them. Technology can be a wonderful thing, and it is very useful when we cannot be near our loved ones. My wife and I live far away from precious family members; we know how that is. However, I believe that we are not headed in the right direction, individually and as a society, when we connect with family or friends mostly by reposting humorous pictures, forwarding trivial things, or linking our loved ones to sites on the Internet. I suppose there is a place for this kind of activity, but how much time are we willing to spend on it? If we fail to give our best personal self and undivided time to those who are truly important to us, one day we will regret it.  Let us resolve to cherish those we love by spending meaningful time with them, doing things together, and cultivating treasured memories.

Talk about a punch to the gut!  I examined my habits a little closer and noticed that even this blog had come to represent a source of distraction.  In trying so hard to document every aspect of our lives, I was actually missing out on enjoying sweet moments together or spending an hour of Daphne's nap time putting together a post rather than studying the scriptures in that brief window of peace and quiet.

For example, last year one of my goals was to document our date nights each week.  Remember my 52 Dates posts?  I ended up with 39 dates documented (of probably 45ish dates), but rather than enjoying our dates each week without distraction I would sometimes unnaturally interrupt what we were doing to take pictures so I could later document it on the blog instead of just being in the moment.  Burke and I have actually had several conversations this year about the tendency our generation has to "over-document" until we are inundated with so many memories/pictures/posts that they begin to lose their meaning.

So, you will notice that in an effort to simplify my life and eliminate distractions, I have restricted myself to only blogging 2-3 times a week, which hopefully will still be plenty of time for me to preserve those things that are most important to our family right now.  Here's to unplugging from the online madness of virtual reality and focusing on the living in our daily reality!

What are some of your goals this year?