New Year's Perspective

I am so excited about the coming year! There are so many things that I will do differently. I find this time of year to be great for reflection and for looking forward. It's almost like we are given a chance to start over and to do better. Although we don't necessarily get to start over, the feelings are somewhat the same to me.

I don't typically make resolutions. I've tried and I rarely succeed. I am more likely to commit myself to something if I tell someone and have to be accountable, but that doesn't seem to work with resolutions. I'm kind of the same way with goals.

This year, I'm taking a step back with my perspective on goal-setting. Instead of just making long-term goals, like I usually do, I'm going to make and set smaller goals and less deadlines for them. That way, if I don't meet my goals exactly when I thought I would, I won't sabotage myself and give up.

One of my biggest short-term goals is to blog more regularly. Although I would love to blog daily, I find that I just don't have the time to do it. So, for my goal to be attainable, I need to set a number to it. My hope is to blog at least three times each week. I know that doesn't sound like much when others do it daily and some multiple times a day, I just don't seem to be able to do it.

While I've been on Christmas break, I was looking back at pictures, scrapbooks and old memories items that I've kept from the kids and I began to realize how much I was forgetting. The pictures and items brought back memories, but not specific details that elicited feelings of being in the moment. Since I have neglected scrapbooking in this phase of my life, my blog needs to be the scrapbook that I can record my thoughts and feelings about my family, my marriage, myself, my religion, my successes and failures, my need to put into words the feelings that I will one day forget.

We have no big plans for New Year's Eve.  We are simple in our celebration of a New Year. We find comfort in the thought of just being together and not going out. So, our only plan is to stay home. We hope to make M & M's cookies and watch Netflix movies. We will do silly things and giggle. We will take pictures and clean up messes. We will read books for the millionth time and receive countless pieces of paper that only read MOM, DAD or COLE from Audrey. We will hear about Transformers and computer games. We have all been staying up way too late, so we might actually make it to midnight tonight, but if not, that's okay. I know that I'm happiest when I'm home with my family doing whatever it is that makes each of them happy.

Happy New Year to each of you and may 2011 bring you many blessings, good health and lots of love!

A few random thoughts…

I have sorely neglected my blog, once again. I’m pretty sure at this point, I can’t even remember how many times I’ve done it before because it’s more than I have fingers and toes to count. I feel pressured to get everything captured and written as it’s happening, but find that days turn into weeks and weeks turn into a month and I feel like I will never catch up.

 

So, here I am once again trying to figure out how everyone seems to balance it all.

 

I have weeks worth of pictures to post and the need to be sure to do it since I don’t seem to scrapbook anymore.

 

I have entered my 7th year of teaching and things are just as hectic now as they were when I first started. John is officially laid off until the beginning of the year. That is good news in our house! We enjoy the extra time with him. Especially since I work Mon-Fri and he works Fri-Sun. The 12 hour shifts are hard on him, too.

 

Looking forward to catching up soon!

Whirlwind Summer

I have sooo much to catch up on here. I like to use my blog posts to journal things that are happening in our daily lives. Unfortunately, I have found that I haven’t been so faithful at doing it lately, which is really sad because we have had so much fun doing things while school is out. I hope to catch up this week. Until then, I better go get started painting my bedroom. Apparently, just wishing it will paint itself isn’t working.

Am I allowed to post without a picture?

Seriously, I think I have a picture posting disease. I feel like I can’t post anything on my blog without a picture to go along with it.  I hope this post isn’t as painful for you as it is for me. :)

I just realized it has been a month this coming Friday since I’ve posted. That’s soooo very sad! I have lots of fun pictures and we’ve done so many exciting things (at least to us), but I’ve been too busy/tired/lazy to post. I promise to purge my camera soon and get a few things posted.

We only have 46 days of school left and in Kindergarten we get very busy  toward the end of the year. This year is definitely no exception. However, I’d like to be better about posting. I have had no time to scrapbook in what seems like a zillion years and I feel like I definitely need to post more often or I’m going to forget so many details that go along with the events in our lives. I love that blogging is such a fast and relatively easy way to chronicle the things that happen.

Hopefully, I will be posting soon!