Looking Back and Moving Forward

2008 was a great year for my family and I! This has been a year of so many blessings! I am so grateful for all of them, including:
1) Marrying my best friend in the Mesa Temple. It was a wonderful day! I am so blessed to have Rick in my life! He's wonderful (especially when he picks up after himself) and my life would be so much duller without him.
2) Finishing my first year of teaching. It was HARD. I never knew how much strength you needed, both emotionally and physically, in order to be a teacher. This is what I have to say about my first year teaching: It was probably one of the toughest things I have done in my entire life (thus far). Teaching 7th grade Social Studies at Landmark Middle School in Glendale was extremely tough. I survived though, and that's the most important thing. I ended the school year, and I wanted to go back to teaching. I needed to prove to myself that I could be a good teacher, and that students could learn from me. I did not feel like I accomplished much last school year, and this school year has been a complete turn around for me.
3) A new family. I guess that this goes with marrying Rick, but I have become a member of a great family. The Chappells are great people and it's so nice to be close to them and have family around.
4) A great family ward. The Bethany Home Ward here in Phoenix is great. I have two callings, Webelos Den Leader and Valiant 9 Teacher. We have some good friends here in this ward, and I hope that we can become more active in our callings and better friends with others.
5) My two new nephews. Luke Bradley Layton was born in December and Oliver Ruben Smith was born in October. I am such a lucky auntie!

Now for 2009, I have so many things that I would like to accomplish in this upcoming year. I have to tell myself that I need to prioritize and do those things that are the most important first. So, here is a list of things that I would like to do in 2009.
1) Change my life around to eat healthier and exercise 3-4 times a week.
-My doctor told me that I needed to lose weight, and I told her that I agreed. I have joined Weight Watchers, and Pure Fitness Gym in an attempt to lose weight. It's going slow. I know that I have to stay consistent and that I need to be stubborn. I am not going to be perfect when it comes to losing weight, but that doesn't mean that I still can't achieve my goals. I just have to "endure to the end".
2) Budget our money and time better.
- The housing market isn't that great for people that own homes, but if you're looking into buying in the near future (us), then it's good. Rick and I want to try to save up as much money as possible this year to get some debts paid off so that we can focus on putting more money into savings. I would really like to save a lot of money this year also. My good friend Kara, on her blog, gave some good suggestions of things to do in order to save money, including a couple of websites (my favorite: couponmom.com).
-As for budgeting our time, I keep thinking of a talk by Elder Dallin H. Oaks and I keep thinking about how I spend my time and how it could be spent better. Like, how I should make time to plan my Primary Lesson before Sunday so that way before noon church, I can read "The Holy Temple" and my scriptures and write in my journal.
3) Take a sewing class-- learn to sew
-This is something that I really want to do. I am so excited to be taking classes in the next couple of months. :) I need to learn to sew. And I am so happy that I will be taking classes this year.
4) Plan meals out every week.
-I would like to plan my meals out much, much better this year and take advantage of something that I haven't used in a year or two--- the crockpot. Our goal is to limit our eating out to 1 time a week together. I know that we can do that. It is simple and easy, it just takes planning and not being lazy.
5) See Rick graduate.
-February 27th. And get a good-paying job.

Here are a few things that I would like to accomplish this year. These are mostly would I would call my temporal goals. My spiritual goals are more like: Go to the temple at least once a month, go visiting teaching every month, read my scriptures every day, read "The Holy Temple" this year and do better in my callings.