Today is my favorite day of the year. I love fresh starts. I love the reminder that things can be more than they are, that I get another shot at being all I can be. Usually New Years Eve is spent mulling over the previous year and how I did with my resolutions, and then making the new ones.
Last year I did my resolutions as a scrapbook page:
Pray. listen. Quite my mouth, open my heart, listen better, hear more. be honest.
teach. daily contribute in a measurable way to andrew's homeschool experience.
sell home. it's time. help scott finish projects, and in april, regardless, put it up for sale and sell it.
move. i want to move in my body as pain free as possible. i want natural exercise to bcome natural.
record. whether on a scrapbook page or in my journal, i wnat to record my thoughts daily.
declutter. daily ask myself, "do I need this?" give away until it hurts.
complete. finish all started scrapping projects through july, 2004, no more half done, no journaling pages!
manage. i want to daily keep up with the dishes, weekly wit the alundry and biweekly wit the groceries and menus
date. reinstate minimum of twice monthly dates with scott that are not eating out or movies.
scrap 30/1/3 $30 a paycheck budget, away from home for a day 1 time a month, away for a weekend 3 times a year.
power down. turn off the tv, computer and phone for 36 hours each weekend.
There was another one, but it fell off the page and I can't find it. Sad, I also can't remember what it was. So probably its a good guess I didn't do well with that one!
So how did I do? Well, the house sold, the move happened, that helped with alot of clutter, and I gave away more than half my scrapbooking supplies. I'm pleased with the level I have things at now. The Record goal was met in an unexpected way. As of year end I had created 120 entries, journal entries in a format I wasn't even aware of when I wrote the goal. This blog. And I'm fully hooked into keeping it up now. I love using it, and I've also done a fair amount of journaling on scrapbook pages, getting real with my journaling and handling topics that I might not have handled a year ago. I also feel that the Teach goal was a hale fellow well met, Andrew is reading, is doing great with Math, is spelling at an amazing rate. If we chose to put him in a private school next year he would have no problem entering 1st grade, and in some instances would be beyond the kids in the class. Less successful, but still with some progress were pray.listen and manage. Of course moving to an easier to maintain home helped with the manage, but I'm getting the flow of it and Flylady will help me get the rest of the way in the early part of 2006.
Where I really am disappointed is on the goals of Move, Date, Power Down and Complete. Scott and I have moved to a level of dating that is almost not there. We got away for one overnight trip and went on three date IN THE WHOLE YEAR without Andrew. Sad. It was not wise to make this a goal though, as I don't fully control the situation. It won't be on my goals for this year, but it will be in my heart. Power Down. We got rid of the TV, so that is a victory, but I artfully find a way out of staying off the computer for more than a few hours at a time. I WILL have this on my list again this year, and I will make it a priority. My scrapbooks are a MESS! I am very undisciplined and I didn't make much progress toward cleaning up the past mess I've made. My new pages are all journaled and in books though. I'm very close to deciding to close the books on the old ones too and just leaving them unjournaled or unfinished. I think that will way less heavily on me than worrying about the fact that they aren't done. I still want to stop taking on so many new projects when others are hanging out there. I hope to resolve this issue soon. And then there is Move. I hate that this has been a problem for years. I hate that it shows up every year, worded this way and that, and every year I fail, fail, fail. No progress, no better understanding, no new tactics. If anything, my health went downhill this year, as I discovered new allergies and ailments. I want to change. I don't know how. No, I don't want advice. I know enough to know your ideas won't help me. I have to help myself. Sigh.
The scrap. Goal is a funny one. I no longer want to scrap away from home, as I instead have a beautiful, functional, comfortable scrap haven. So the reason I don't scrap away once a month is because I don't want to, not because I'm forgetting to take care of myself. $30 a paycheck? Well, I have no biweekly paycheck anymore, and if I only spent $30 every time I did get paid, well, that would be something! Something new, trust me. I do have a new attitude about scrapbook spending and I have seriously cut back. I now spend less than anyone I know and when the year started out I spent WAY more than most. So I don't know if I met the goal, but I certainly made progress.
I was reading a bible passage this morning and got hung up on a word. So I went online to www.crosswalk.com to review the text notes and my attention was caught by an article there about homeschooled kids. The woman who wrote the article had a blog, and I visited it. I found out her five homeschooled kids also had blogs, so I checked them out. What I found blew me away. This link www.rebelution.blogspot.com will take you to her twin 17 year old boys' blog, and one of the two boys sharing of his 2005 resolutions and his commentary on how he had done. I looked at my meager notes for 2006 and was floored by the maturity of this boy. I've printed his out and will use them as a framework for my own path, as he has a much clearer vision and voice. It gave me courage to try again when I saw what this young boy can do. It reminded me that it isn't about what I can do, but about what God can do in me.
So, on to a new year with new challenges, new goals, and new focus on old battles!
And here's a couple more pages from my scrapbook day:
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