One Small Change and 12 in 12

I love all the great challenges that people will put out at the beginning of a new year. I like the idea of having a personal project or challenge and then using your blog as a platform to talk about the challenge and keep you going on it.

So far, I already signed up to do a Support Your Local Library challenge, with a goal of reading 100+ books from the library.

Now I've seen two more cool ideas, which I think can be combined for me. Handmade Homeschool has invented her own challenge, called 12 in 12. Basically, you pick things you want to do each month, and she has picked three areas to concentrate on. I like the idea of three areas of focus, and I'm going to hold up three areas of my life that might otherwise be easy to let slide.

My three areas will be: Environmental Impact, Social Life/Marital relationship, and Go Outside and Play. All of these are important to me, but they don't stand up and scream for attention the way that the kids or my job or a dirty house does.

For Environmental Impact, I'm joining another challenge called One Small Change. The idea of this challenge is to make one change a month to improve the environmental impact of your family lifestyle. I was already doing a Buy Nothing Month in January, so that is my One Small Change for this month.

For Social Life/Marital relationship, I want to have one non-church event a month on my "social calendar", and I want to have at least one date with my husband. What exactly counts as a non-church social event is still not clear to me exactly, however. I feel like playdates with my kids shouldn't count, but this month I am going to a college-friend's babyshower - does that count? I think it does.

And for Go Outside and Play I want to do just that - a hike, camping trip, beach walk, or other fun outdoor activity a month. It will not count to just take a walk around our neighborhood, or to just go to a local playground or park for a picnic.

Fun! I'll keep you all posted as to my progress.