What is this?

To describe what this blog is, here is the first post we wrote on January first:

We are dreamers. There are lots of things we hope for, but have never really done much in the way of actively pursuing. Needless to say, it is frustrating, and somewhat silly.

Reading about exercise, does not build muscle. Only thinking about having friends over regularly for real talk, food, and games does not build relationships. Dreading the daily grind of running an inefficient home, does nothing to put systems in place.

We think recording our journey in a daily blog is a valuable way to gather some traction towards reaching heretofore unrealized dreams.

As we come up with systems and strategies, we will be writing about them and what we learn along the way. In no particular order, we are looking to move towards:

Better health. Both of us struggle with low energy, frequent headaches, and other health issues. For Mark the goal of better health looks cutting back on sweets, junk foods at work, and regular exercise. For Debra it looks like getting answers on what she is dealing with by finding a good doctor and going from there.

Being more intentional about relationships. We think this looks like daily quiet times, weekly dates, having friends over frequently to do life with, and being more intentional about family time.

Having a lifestyle of learning. This is a huge reason we are starting this blog, to challenge ourselves to think and learn daily. We are both nerds, and love systems and numbers but lately our learning and thinking has not gone beyond getting through the daily grind.

Taking control of our narrative. One practical way we are doing this is through “operation dump frump”. It might seem like a silly little thing, but we find that the process of getting dressed helps to improve the tone of our day. We are worth the effort of looking nice, or at least put together, and our day is worth it too.

Managing our home. We saw the benefit of having a semi-minimalistic lifestyle as well as good storage and cleaning systems. Unfortunately, that was about three houses and two kids ago. We want to be smart about our home, reaping a cleaner home with less effort.

Managing our time. We manage our time using the tried and true method of flying by the seat of our pants. It wears our pants out and we don’t get much done beyond the endless list of urgent parenting/house/work tasks. We have found in our finances that when we have a clear budget and tell our money what to do it amazingly listens (thanks Dave Ramsey). So we are going to try the same principle with our time. Saving on our pants budget to boot.

Our first goal is to come up with systems that allow us to prioritize our time, focus, and energy. We will refine them as needed, and of course, write about it here.

-Mark and Debra