I love new years. I love the clean-slate, fresh-start, begin-again feeling of them. It's probably the recovering perfectionist in me...I like getting rid of the messiness and feeling like there's a chance I'll get it right this year. ;) But at the same time, I think the writer and the optimist in me also like new years...there's an exciting and hopeful anticipation of what might be written on its pages...of the ways I'll grow and change and learn.
This year I did NOT make any specific resolutions, which is a big change for me! I did, however, choose a word and a saint (more on those below). Instead of a specific resolution, I have these lofty and vague (and never-ending?) goals for organizing life, haha. Mainly: organizing my home and organizing my time.
For our home, we've only lived her less than two years but we also were both single living on our own for several years before marriage, so we've collected quite a bit that just isn't necessary in our home. I really want to clean out and minimize and donate a LOT so that our daily lives are less cluttered and materialistic.
For my time, I'm all about the idea of routines and schedules. I see the necessity of them with having a baby because otherwise I would feel like all I get done in a day is dinner and diapers (which is nothing to sneeze at, my hubby reminds me ;) ). Yet I also see the need to have LOOSE schedules and routines so that I'm not constantly trying to abide by a schedule that just doesn't fit this season. I'm learning to just watch the rhythm of my days right now and utilize certain chunks of time for work and purposely rest/read/pray during others.
As far as my word for the year, I really wasn't planning on choosing one, but on the last day of 2016 my devotional encouraged me to choose a word...or rather to pray over it as I read the scriptures for the day. The Gospel was one of my favorites-- John chapter 1-- and the word grace reached out to me and I happily received it.
I want to live like Mary-- full of grace-- in my daily life. I want to look for the grace God sends each day, even in the mundane. I want to be graceful and gracious to others. Grace means gift and that's what each moment of my life holds...grace and gift from God if I have to eyes to see it and the heart to treasure it.
Last but not least, I enjoy the Saints Name Generator from Jen Fulwiler and this year's saint for me was Saint Bernadette! I know her general story but I look forward to learning more about her and the ways God may inspire me from her life, as well as to her prayerful intercession to help me become the woman God wants me to be this year!
What are your goals or resolutions for the year? Did you choose a word or a saint?
Happy New Year, Laura! I'm right with you on the "loose schedules" comment-for the past couple months, my little guy stopped napping consistently, so our schedule was very thrown off. Add in the holidays and travels, and it's been kind of crazy. This is my first full week of "normal life" in a while, so I'm just trying to soak it up and see where our rhythm is at now so I can readjust our schedule accordingly. It's so helpful to have order to our days!
ReplyDeleteI need to donate, too. I've been making a huge mountain of donations for a while, but I haven't actually made sure everything is clean and ready to go yet. I should probably just schedule in a day to do that and get it out of the apartment. Passing along (or throwing out) some of our excess belongings is so freeing! I actually just pulled a bunch of old pots and pans from our cupboard yesterday to do a "trial run" without them and see if we can give them away, and now our cupboard feels so much more open!
Love the freshness of the new year too! And since being out of school, I've realized how awesome routines are. Still working on what mine looks like, but I love them!
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