For the first week of my project (last week, July 1-7), I picked two things I wanted to create good habits with, then to continue them throughout the rest of my weeks. And forever, obviously.

I felt I kind of HAD to pick “Home,” since I’d be moving, unpacking and settling into a new home. 

Naturally, I picked “Marriage” as my second area, because my marriage is my most valued possession. It’s so easy to take it for granted, but I don’t want to.

So here was my game plan/results:

Home

– Get COMPLETELY unpacked and settled (last time we moved I was still waiting to hang stuff and unpack some things when we moved out. Yikes.)
—-> I don’t have everything hung, and I’m still moving things around in my pantry and from cabinet to cabinet based on my mood, but I did pretty good!

– It’s the little things: close cabinets & drawers, keep closet & pantry doors shut, keep clutter off the coffee table
—-> Still working on this through the clutter, but I’m making a conscious effort to scan a room when I leave it and just tidy up a tiny bit – close the doors, turn off the lights, put things back. It makes a difference.

– Don’t put anything off that takes less than a minute to do. I unabashedly stole this one from The Happiness Project because it just stuck with me so easily. It just makes sense and it’s simple.
—-> I actually wrapped up and put my curling iron away you guys. I’m serious.

Marriage

– Pray together before bed. I know. Pathetic that we didn’t already do this. We had such different schedules for most of our marriage so far, that we didn’t always go to bed at the same time. Now we do, and I wanted to make this a habit.
—-> This has made the single biggest difference of anything I’ve ever tried to do to improve my marriage. Wow. We take turns praying aloud each night and it really is amazing. It means I’m not making to-do lists in my head mid-silent prayer, not falling asleep, not forgetting things I wanted to pray for/about. And it’s really made me feel like we’re on the same team after a crazy freaking 2 months of chaos.

– Stop criticizing. I’m the worst. Even just little things like “You never take out the trash” said in passing. Where is that getting either of us? No where. So why do I do it? Because I’m the worst. If it helps, I’m also super mean-critical of myself pretty much every second of the day. Doesn’t help? Ok.
—-> I’m working on making requests, not criticisms or demands. Like “Hey could you please take the trash out after this inning? You are my favorite. Thank you.”

– Learn our Love Languages. I’m a big believer in love languages, so I re-read the book this week. It was really interesting to see how different it was from when I read it 2 years ago when we were newly engaged.
—-> The Beard is a big quality time language guy. He loves it when I make time to just watch a baseball game or a movie with him, no Pinterest, no books, just cuddles. As a chronic multi-tasker, it doesn’t always come naturally. But I’m working on it!
—-> I’m an Acts of Service girl. It really means the most to me when he does things that I know he doesn’t want to do. He thinks this means what I really love is torturing him. So we’re working on that. (GOING TO MOVIES ISN’T TORTURE, RYAN)

– Family Counsel. We sit down, talk about where we’re at, how we’re doing, what we’re worried about, what we need to work on and make a plan. We used to do it a lot when we were first married, and it kind of trickled off, I guess. Welcome back, marriage DTR!!!!
—-> We did it! We even took notes and made lists and goals with due dates! We also decided on a family motto – “Do More.” Good, right?! We recognized that laziness is so tempting to us, we need to fight it actively.

Overall, I’m pretty pumped after week one. It was a good, doable week and I feel refreshed and happy. The tough part will be continuing with these resolutions as I add new ones each week.