Follow-Up Friday

So, how are you doing with your New Year's resolutions? In an effort to keep myself honest, I've decided to post weekly updates on all of my resolutions. The fourth update of 2010 looks something like this:

• Scrapbooking: Yikes! No real progress on my Project Life kit. :-( This is my project for the weekend: I'd like to fiddle around with some pictures and get started on my journaling cards. Keep me honest people! Stop by next week to see what I've gotten done!
  
• Book Clubs: Discussions galore! I popped into the forums at SimpleMom.net. The other folks in the book club have given me some great ideas for being proactive and making deposits into the Emotional Bank Accounts of my family members. (No idea what I'm talking about? Read the book! I finished Chapter 1: Be Proactive this week, and the ideas and tools for really improving your family dynamic are great!) The discussion of Same Kind of Different as Me on Bloom also began this week. I've stopped by the Ning community (the forums that the club uses for discussion), but I want to watch the videos posted on the blog before I start commenting myself. Another goal for this weekend!
  
• Project 365: I continue to keep up with my picture-a-day goal. I'm doing better with taking pictures of things other than Abby (although I'm getting lots of good munchkin pictures, too!). Stop by 365 Days of Ng to see what things, ordinary and extraordinary, are taking my breath away.
  
• The Bible in 90 Days: Despite the fact that today is January 29th, I am a full two days ahead in my reading. Know what that means? I am more than one-third of the way through the Bible! What an amazing experience this has been. I look forward to my daily readings, spending time with the Lord and trying to discern what He is telling me through His Word. (A task, which, I must admit, is more difficult with some passages than others...) The SOAP reflections that Amy posts on her blog, Mom's Toolbox, are a great way to reflect on a verse/passage, and I often find myself scrolling down to re-read past SOAP reflections. I am so thankful for this challenge!
  
• Eat From the Pantry Challenge: This was technically the last week of this challenge. (After all, you can only eat from the pantry for so long - then you need to restock the pantry!) The challenge then transforms into a budgeting challenge. I'm on-board for that one, too! Last week, Carey and I stopped by Pathmark to pick up some groceries. How did we do?
  
  
  Total bill: $26.60 - over by $1.60... But, we got a lot of great stuff, including some items to re-stock our pantry (cereal, pasta sauce), so we were still pretty happy. Going forward, we're going to give ourselves a monthly food budget of $120. That way, if there's a great sale on a staple item (e.g. ground beef, rice), we won't feel guilty if we spend more than $25. We'll just have to watch spending the following week(s) to stay within budget.
  

So, this was Week #4 of 2010. I hope that your new year continues to be blessed!