Resolution

I'm not a big fan of typical New Year's Resolutions (for myself) and I'll tell you why. If I make them I'm sure to break them. I strive to live my life deliberately one day at a time. So I am constantly setting goals for myself, both small and large, and that also involves modifying, changing, or eliminating those goals as life happens. A lot can happen in a year. A lot can happen in a day. Life can change from one day to the next so dramatically that everything you worked for yesterday could suddenly be meaningless. So to set a specific goal for a whole year in my world just doesn't work for me. I really need to keep my resolutions on a smaller time scale in general, while dreaming big about the future in the meantime, in order to be successful :).

So my broad resolution this year is to continue on this path of living deliberately. And with that resolution comes a lot of smaller daily choices that may or may not work for an entire year, but will be flexible with changes that are sure to come and go. This year has a lot of change ahead for us...Brad graduating residency and starting his fellowship, Riley starting preschool, Naomi hitting her "terrible-twos" (which we hope won't be too terrible), and my own transition from MOPS coordinator to "4s and 5s" coordinator, plus more changes we have yet to know about.

I'll share my newest deliberation for myself this month while Brad is on my least favorite rotation and we are going to have a lot of long lonely days ahead. I am making a better effort to schedule play dates for the kids and time with other moms during the day. I am naturally a pretty shy person until I really get to know someone (and then watch out LOL), and a lot of times I don't make the effort I should to get to know someone because it really is just easier and more comfortable for me not to. I often wish other people would step out and make the effort to reach out to me because I would gladly accept it, but I am realizing that I need to step more out of my comfort zone in this area. And I know how much the kids love playing with others their age, so instead of having so many winter days stuck at home by ourselves, we can enjoy the long days in the company of friends!

With all the craziness that has been going on here (well extra craziness cause let's face it, life is usually pretty crazy around here), I never got the chance to reflect on the past year like I meant to. I am sorting through some photos and hope to post some highlights from 2008 soon, before 2009 is too far gone. It's amazing looking back at how much we've all changed in a year, especially the kids, which you don't always notice on a daily basis!

And thanks to everyone who has commented on my contest post! It is so fun to get to know people through their writing and pictures and exciting for me to know someone is actually reading this. I appreciate all my readers, old and new, so hello to you all!