Goal Setting

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I know that this is the typical thing to talk about at this particular time of year.  We all get in that GOAL zone don’t we?  It is the perfect time to review/evaluate your life and see where you can do better, add some new goals, lose some old ones.  Back in the mid-70’s, when I was a college Freshman, I had a class that was kind of a mix between consumer education and home management.  I wish that I could remember the name of the course, but I am sure I could look back on my transcripts to find it.  I won’t because I came in to the office today to do this post, as the message I wanted to share is on my work computer, and so I have no access to my home files at the moment.  Anyway,  we had a great teacher, Lynette Bartholomew, and she loved to share quotes and stories with us that she would run across that would pertain to the curriculum.  The following is one of the things that she shared and I have carried around the original handout from class all these years, in all its purple mimeograph glory.  Yes it is that old.  So old I am not sure I even have the process name right. 

                My goals 21 years ago included:

       1.       Keep an immaculate house which would be an ideal setting for the Spirit of our Heavenly Father to dwell.

       2.       Read at least one excellent book a month and become well-informed about the world around you.

       3.       Prepare well-balanced, attractive gourmet meals, experimenting with at least one new recipe a week.

       4.       Bear many children who will be well-dressed, well-pressed and well-behaved.

       5.       Keep an optimistic outlook on life.  At the end of every week try to evaluate what created in you good feelings or  frustrations.

       6.       Tell your husband, once a day, that you love him.

Then came the first child.

With the demands of burping, changing, loving, bathing, rocking, washing, praying, some of my goals needed to be modified.  I must give up my immaculate house.  My revised goals now read:

       1.       As you pass a table, blow hard on the top to rearrange the dust.

       2.       Put the vacuum in the middle of the living room floor so that anyone calling on you will think that sometime soon you intend to     get debris from the floor.

Then came the second child.

With the demands of burping, changing, loving, bathing, rocking, washing, praying, some of my goals needed to be modified.  I must give up my reading books.  My revised goals now read:

      1.       But not my newspapers.  I still snatch time for a little worthwhile reading of my favorite funny paper characters, Mary Worth and Dr. Rex Morgan, but only every other day.  And who can live without Ann Landers?

      2.       To keep well-informed I rush to the door when I hear the mailman to discuss some pertinent problems: “Has the garbage been picked up down the street yet?”

Then came the third child.

With the demands of burping, changing, loving, bathing, rocking, washing, praying, some of my goals needed to be modified. 

      1.       Instead of preparing well-balanced , attractive gourmet meals, experimenting with at least one new recipe a week, my goals now read “Serve one hot dish a day.”  This means if you serve hot soup for lunch you can get away with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. When I do find an extra hour and decide to go all out on a roast, potatoes, gravy and baked bread, the children ask, “Who is coming to dinner?” or “Is it Thanksgiving already?”

Then came the fourth child.

With the demands of burping, changing, loving, bathing, rocking, washing, praying, some of my goals needed to be modified. 

      1.       Instead of reading “well-dressed, well-pressed and well-behaved,” my goals simply read “dressed.”  If the diaper is hanging around the knees by noon, my neighbors know that I pinned it properly earlier in the day.  I haven’t seen the bottom of my ironing basket for three years, and really don’t know when I ever will.  Praise be for polyester.

Then came the fifth child.

With the demands of burping, changing, loving, bathing, rocking, washing, praying, some of my goals needed to be modified.

      1.       My goal no longer reads “Keep an optimistic outlook on life.  At the end of the week try to evaluate what created in you good feelings or frustrations.”  it now says “Keep your voice down until noon.  At the end of every week count to see if you still have five children.  Check your varicose veins to see if your legs will take you through another mad week.”

My last goal “Tell your husband, once a day, that you love him,” now simply says “Try to speak to your husband once a day.”  With Cub Scouts, Little League, watching football, basketball, baseball, track, violin lessons, PTA board meeting, United Fund drive, Primary Blazers, Relief Society visiting teaching,  Bar Auxiliary, Law Wives, University Women’s Club, chicken pox, rosella, hepatitis,  Asian Flu, and tonsillectomies, I feel lucky to call out to him as we rush past each other going in and out of the front door.  “Golly dear, I am overdrawn at the bank again.”

Twenty years later my goals are summed up by reading “Sustain Life and endure to the end.”