Tag Archives: Walk with Him Wednesdays

Ordinary Becoming Extraordniary

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

I’ve been leading our Women’s Bible study group at church on Wednesday evenings, and we’ve been working our way through Priscilla Shirer’s Gideon. (If you’re looking for a new study, you should really check this out, by the way. IT IS AWESOME. And did I mention how awesome it is?)

I wanted to share this particular quote with you:

Today’s tasks-even the most mundane of them-are often preparation for tomorrow’s calling. They can carry clues to what He is leading us to learn and accomplish as we faithfully serve Him. 

While it might seems comical to find spiritual principle in washing dishes or answering phones at your desk job, God is teaching you faithfulness, diligence, and integrity through every task.  . . . If we take the time to look closely, we might discover that God is using these normal activities to prepare us for future tasks, each duty point to His blessings in our lives.

Sometimes a lesson is teaching us so much more than just that lesson, isn’t it? In homeschool, it might be convincing a child to finish that math worksheet – not just to do the work for a grade or for busy work, but to learn the life lesson of perseverance, and doing your best work every time.

Sometimes that lesson is not just eating the stash of Halloween candy I bought on sale last week. Not just because I’ll need all that next week for the hordes that will come to our front door, but also to practice self-discipline and maintain good health.

When I look at the mundane that I do every day – frankly the stuff in my head I call the drudgery – I can look back on the learning of that lesson in my own life, and how it has prepared me for my “now.” Being required to do lots of chores as a kid? Work ethic and family team work. Doing those chores to my slightly-OCD parents’ exact wishes? Strong attention to detail and an appreciation for doing the job right. Being required to do the chore again until it was done correctly? Getting things done right the first time.

As an adult now, I can see how God is using my daily day-to-day to build me and prepare me for what lies ahead. In fact, by looking at what that list encompasses, sometimes I feel as I’ve getting a glimpse of what is coming and I am intrigued by what that actually might be!

Are you wondering what that picture might be for you? Here is a fun exercise that might help you start putting the puzzle pieces together.

1. What are the routine tasks that are filling your to-do list right now?

2. What skills or lessons do you see that God might be trying to teach you through these tasks? (If this seems difficult to answer, try to think about your recent past. What life lessons did God teach you recently – that perhaps came through dealing with your day-to-day?)

3. Write those lessons in a list. Do they begin to create a picture? For example, here is mine:

  • Strong time management, stronger budgeting skills and financial skills
  • Extra depth of business knowledge and experience
  • Self-confidence in professional experiences
  • Expanded writing reach
  • Role model professionally for my girls
  • Sharing my spiritual experiences with other women
  • Continuing maturity of my girls and my close relationship with them
  • Focusing on priorities and putting first things first
  • Peace and new reliance on God

No, I’m not quite sure of what these things will add up to be. But I can see how God is using the craziness to teach me new things and bring new blessings in my life now and and in the future.

If we do not focus on thanking God for instead of whining about the mundane, we might not ever have our eyes opened to see how God is moving in our lives and what He is trying to prepare us for in the future.

Walk with Him Wednesdays: Ugly Beautifuls and Hard Thanks

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,


So, I’m sitting here on the floor of my office at midnight, ready to write – my internal motor is running about as fast as the little space heater I’m sitting next to. Clearly, that large glass of “Baptist caffeinated sweet tea” I had before Bible study this evening is still doing its job!

Currently, I’m leading a Bible study at our church based on One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I loved the book the first time I read it. I love her blog. I want to move into her farmhouse and live in the pictures she posts and just sit with her and soak up her amazing-ness, and be her bff forever! (Ann, if you’re out there, you always have an open invite to my house and a fresh cup of coffee waiting! Just ignore the dust bunnies and mountains of laundry!)

Our group is really interesting to me. Except for two women I knew peripherally from my Sunday school group,  everyone else is brand new to me! And even more, this is their first Bible study ever at our church. It’s weird trying to teach/lead a group of women I don’t know! Slowly, they are overcoming their shyness and starting to open up and share and man, are our studies finally getting pretty MEATY and good. I love it when studies are more discussion, instead of lecture!

This week’s session covered chapters 6-7 of the book, covering the idea of the “ugly beautiful.” This reminds me so much of Samuel’s anointing of David. How David was the last to be “seen” and yet God chose him, because He looks not at the outside (the ugly) but at the heart (the beautiful).

When Ann talks of thanking God for the “ugly-beautiful” in our lives, for me I’ve tended to call these moments “the hard thanks.” And after tonight’s class, I might call these “fleas!”

In Corrie ten Boom’s book, she relates a story of when she and her sister were in a concentration camp. Her sister is “preaching” to the prisoner workers around them and the verse, “Give thanks in all circumstances” comes up. Later when she starts to thank God for the fleas in prayer, Corrie protested. But her sister held firm. God said to give thanks in ALL circumstances, not just the one we liked, or only the parts we liked. So they prayed and thanked God for the fleas, even though Corrie didn’t agree. And yet, a few weeks later, her sister had the last laugh. She found out that their freedom to speak so freely in the workroom was completely due to the soldiers’ not wanting to enter the flea-infested room! God had used those fleas to open the door so she and Corrie could share the gospel!

I admit, I’ve had some serious ugly in my life. Some ugly I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And frankly, even though I can see how God has used and is using that ugly in my life to make beautiful, to bring about transformation, I still can’t say that I’m all that excited by it. I wish there was an easier way to learn life lessons than have them beat into me, like the Potter hammering clay. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can understand and appreciate it, and maybe even accept it, but that still doesn’t mean I like it. And I think what that means is, I don’t feel it. I don’t feel thankful, though mentally I am thankful that God is using those moments to transform me into something new.

One of the study questions tonight:

All is grace! Is it? Are there things in your life that you still can’t trust to God? How can you trust our God — that nothing is beyond the reach of His redemption?

My answer that I posed to the group is that it’s not that I don’t “trust” God, necessarily. I feel like I’m accepting and holding him to His promises – that there is beautiful in my ugly, that He will work out ALL THINGS according to His purposes, that His purposes are to bring us future and hope.

But sometimes I have to count those ugly-beautiful moments as grace through clenched jaws and gritted teeth. I have to thank God and count them as grace even though I don’t feel it and certainly don’t see it or like it, and can’t quite completely accept it. For now I’m calling this my “fake it ’till you make it” approach. That by thanking God for these “hard thanks” over and over, I will start to understand, and accept and SEE.

See through the ugly. Through the dirty windows of our life and out into the world as Jesus sees us. How many times over and over and over did Jesus stop and truly SEE a person’s heart, and not just the surface? Past their history, past their circumstance, past the situation, past the hurt and the scars and sins and UGLY. Jesus never had to ask God to open His eyes to what was really going on, but often we have to. (I totally remember a reference to the Old Testament where one of the prophets prayed that God would open the eyes of a servant so he could see the spiritual battle happening around them – I just can’t find it! So if you know, please tell me!)

One gal in my group had this amazing insight. That over and over and over in Psalms and elsewhere we are COMMANDED to give up sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. So when we do that, even when it’s hard and feels like a sacrifice, then we are obeying God. And God rewards those who obey His commands. I loved that thought!

Throughout my life, it feels like I’ve always been a struggler. A Jacob wrestling. Sometimes it’s discouraging to see those around me who don’t seem to have to go through that wrestling match to be transformed. Esau didn’t (that we’ve been told at least). Before, he threatened to kill Jacob, and yet when they meet years later, he welcomes his brother instead of fulfilling that threat. He was transformed.

Jacob, however, apparently needed that struggle. His struggle with God was the process that God used to mold him, transform him, so he would be ready for the blessing. Otherwise, why didn’t Jacob ask for the blessing sooner? Why did he wait until after God touched his hip and put it out of socket? Why didn’t “the man” tell Jacob to stop earlier instead of letting it continue all night until the dawn? I think it took all that – an entire night of struggle – for God to transform Jacob’s thought process and character. And even though he was “transformed” through his struggle and was rewarded with the blessing and a new name, the repercussions still remained.  That limp, those scars and the injury were left to be a constant, forever reminder of the past he left behind with his old name, to constantly humble him him and to give him a new heart. To open his eyes past the ugly in himself and past the ugly in others.

So, I’m not sure what my resolution to this post is. I still struggle with it, even though I know He has a plan and a purpose. I trust in that. And accept that there Is plan, even if it isn’t mine. (I think that’s the harder point to accept sometimes.) That I am thankful that God can use anything about to create those miracles and changes in our lives.  Even after all that, I still don’t like my “fleas.” It’s like brussel sprouts: they might be good for me, and my momma might make me eat ’em, but that doesn’t I like ’em, and I might never will.

(PS. This is to just cover my last comment – that was a figure of speech. My mother never made me eat brussel sprouts. Now, if she reads this, I won’t get in trouble!)

The Practice of Sacrifice

14 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

I didn’t grow up in a church that taught Lent or giving up things as a sacrifice. So, when I decided to participate in it this year, my husband was a little . . . surprised.

I gave up TV for Lent.

I love TV, I love watching “stories” as much as I love reading them. I love getting involved with the characters and know there is another “chapter” next week (If it’s a good book, it always irritates me when stories end.) Not to say I don’t have my standards, but having a plot and good quality writing are the main two prerequisites.

What I realized has happened though, is that I’ve gotten far too attached to those stories. When I’ve been living a currently stressful life, watching some of these shows just send my stress levels and blood pressure through the roof. (For some reason, most of my favorite shows this year are “suspenseful.”) I get too wound up watching them, and it takes me forever to calm down enough to sleep. And let’s not talk about the crazy “Fringe”-induced dreams!

Somehow, my emotions and anxiety levels have forgotten that those folks on TV aren’t real! Dude, it’s an actor on a set, saying someone else’s words and faking a nonexistent life! So yeah, taking a break is probably a good idea to do. Even if not knowing what is happening on some of my favorite shows is driving me bonkers.

Recently, I came across this book, Shall I Pray or Watch TV by Vic Zurly. (Note: very poorly written, goes off on tangents all the time, but makes a couple good points. And oh, it’s free, and I was desperate for something new and different to read.) If you can get past the poor writing, it actually convicted me quite a bit.

  • How much time per week am I avidly watching TV?
  • How many of those shows are “have to watch” because I’m just “dying” to know what happens next?
  • How much effort, time, and money are we putting into making sure we don’t miss anything? (I’m talking rearranging our schedule to watch certain things, paying for DVR on the TV, spending time programming recordings, etc.
  • How much time do we spend talking about TV, what we saw on TV, or wish we saw on TV?

Those are the practical questions. The ones we know the “proper” answer to.

Now here are a few, that I’ve had to start asking.

  • How are these shows affecting me?
  • How am I using TV? Or perhaps, am I actually using TV, or is TV using me? What am I avoiding, ignoring, or replacing?
  • What kind of influence does TV have in my life? Specifically, my spiritual life?

I guess what is really poking at me during this Lent sacrifice of TV goes back to my Pastor’s message on priorities. Am I giving this electronic box too much power over my life? What could I be spending that time on that would have eternal value, instead of temporary or little (or, for some shows on TV, LOL) or no value? How could I be making positive, lasting, differences in the lives of our families or others during this time?

Even more, my husband and I have been talking about what “the world” is trying to tell our girls. We’re already very strict about what we let them see on television. But why are we that strict with our selves? Sure, we’re older and tell the obvious differences between fiction and reality . . . but are we truly wise to the subliminal lessons that “the world” is trying to infect us with, and protecting our own hearts and minds?

None of this is to say that I’m ready to cut the cord and get rid of the television completely. Not yet, anyway. It’s still quite a powerful bond, and I admit that I’m looking forward to this being over! It hasn’t been very easy. No one else in my family is participating by giving up TV and we’re living in a hotel room. There just aren’t that many rooms here for me to escape to, so I’m having to work extra hard and make strong conscious decisions in the evening when my husband is home to ignore whatever is on. (Thankfully, it’s been a lot of basketball, which I am more than happy to ignore.)

And it’s quite as easy to give the TV addiction up and insert another one, like Facebook. I need to put much more effort into using that time more wisely and productively.

What I am enjoying about this Lenten fast – getting to sleep at a decent hour is so much easier. And after hours of nonstop girly time, I treasure the peace and quiet and SILENCE that comes after they are in bed!

Going Home Again

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

They say “you can’t go home again.” But the thing is you can. You just might not like what you find when you get there.

As some of you know, I moved “back home” about 1 1/2 years ago, while my husband served over in Afghanistan for a year. I haven’t lived here long-term since I was 18 years old.

And being back home, and this time in the role of “mom” instead of “child”, really has changed my perspective. Living away for so long allowed me to break out of the mold,  forming those perspectives from living life itself.

Returning home has been  . . . revealing. I am learning things about my own personal upbringing and how they were formed. I’ve seen strongholds in my own parents’ lives, passed down to them through I have no idea how many generations, and am starting to come to grips with how they are engrained in my own life and consciousness. And I watch myself with my children, and even sometimes with fear. Will I be able to break this stronghold before it passes itself down to another generation?

I remember reading something once about Christian legacy and generations, though now that I want to quote it I can’t find it to save my life. But the gist was that it takes five full generations of strong Christian parents to create a “Christ-stronghold” legacy. Really? So long to break the chains that destroy and bind us?

My aunt loves genealogy, almost as much as she loves to tell the stories she learns in her searches. I hear of the “scandals” of back then, and it’s so easy to connect-the-dots to today and see how history repeated itself over and over. Yes, there are some dramatic differences. Our generation was the first to graduate college, most are successful in their chosen career, and empowered enough to choose our own path and find our own way. Yet my generation, for all of our education, successes, and resolves to be different from our parents, how have we really done breaking past those same traps that ensnared our ancestors? The evidence I see is not very good.

It took me the good part of a year to come to grips with this knowledge. I have to give grace where grace is due. I know my own parents looked at their situations growing up, and said, “I won’t _____ when I have kids. I won’t ______ when I’m in charge.” And to their credit, they haven’t. They tried very hard to be good parents and did the best they knew how with what they had at the time, to do the right thing and give their children the best they could.

I don’t know if that’s quite forgiveness. It’s the best I’ve got.

Unfortunately, that legacy is still filled with decades-old strongholds of pride, control, anger, resentments, and bitterness. And as I become “the grownup” I really have become aware of how deep the roots really can be.

Now, I’m the mom. I’m the one looking at my own children and my own upbringing, saying “I will never _____.” Cringing when I hear my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth like I have no control over my own tongue.

Which brings me back to those strongholds. Those same strongholds, that have in effect took hostage of my parents and grandparents, continue to wage war. I struggle daily to break those bonds on both myself and my family.

I don’t want that legacy for my girls. I want them to have a much different future than I have seen play out here time and time again.

I made the decision when my girls were a very young age that I wanted their childhood to be different. I wanted to faith to mean more than just going to Church on Sunday and Wednesday, and having perfect attendance at in Sunday School and participating in VBS.  

Looking back, I can mark events that started to direct me on a path away from those strongholds. A youth pastor, a Church retreat, a specific sermon, a personal crisis, a crisis of faith.

I think of Jacob after his struggle with the angel. Did his children learn from his limp and “battle scars?”

Perhaps that’s the desperation I hear in my prayers.

I know that the only power that I have against these strongholds is not mine. Because generations of my family have given lip service to Christ and full service to the chains that bound them. And that didn’t work out so well.

With but a whisper, Jesus can obliterate any ties in our lives. Or, like the woman in the crowd who thought, “I just need to touch his clothes. That would be enough.” She touched the hem, she didn’t even need Him to speak on her behalf. And she was instantly healed. Healed because of her faith.

So in faith, I too, pray. But I want more than the touch of Christ’s robe. I already have the battle scars of my struggles, and want more of Christ. I want Christ to be the legacy I pass own to my children and to my children’s children and to their children. I pray, interceding (for what is interceding than pleading and begging?) that a new Christ-stronghold be built in our home, enveloping and protecting our little nuclear-family; and then rippling out touching and affecting those we come into contact with.

And then I pray that my girls become even stronger prayer warriors than I. That they live deeply entrenched in their love of Christ, their internal peace unshaken by outside forces. That they take that love and joy in Christ and, with excitement and without hesitation, follow where it guides them and directs them.

Yes, Put First Things First, But First . . .

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

I’ve been reading 31 Days to Build a Better Spouse and have committed to spending the month of January praying for my husband.

At first I was doing great. It’s a simple read, and a simple little daily task.

One day we had a little “You’re speaking Man-Language and I’m speaking Woman-Language” spat. Nothing really.

And that night I realized, after picking up my e-reader, that I hadn’t prayed for my husband in almost three days. How in the world did it happen so fast?

Well, it’s a matter of putting “first things first.” Every single day. Over and over and over and over. That’s the part that always trips me up.

Right now, in our lives there is just so much going on, that even what we know to be first, what we know to be right, what we know to be best, doesn’t get done in the priority we know we have committed to. Tasks must still be done. Our move. Homeschooling our girls. Preparing for the packers. Making dinner. Laundry. And oh, throw in a small surgery for me and a week or so of bedrest in there.

Commitment is always so hard to reconcile with the daily calendar and to-do list isn’t it? Sometimes I feel like I’m just “fitting” my faith life in, instead of letting everything I do be influenced and permeated by my faith. I ask others how do you do it, and the stock answer of “putting it on my calendar” or “scheduling a time”, sounds great and all, but really, let’s face it. It doesn’t work! If y’all could just see my calendar, color-coded, long lists organized to the nth degree. (I am not exaggerating.)

It’s so much easier to say, “Tomorrow, I’ll ________” or “When I _________, then I can __________.” And mean it. Truly mean it. And then allow the defeat and self-condemnation swallow you up when of course it doesn’t happen.

On Sunday, we heard two different groups of missionaries speak at Church, and I really felt the need to help sponsor children to attend school in Honduras. The missionary mentioned how she was able to use Bibles in school, to teach the children English! How awesome is that? And yet when I came home and balanced the checkbook, I thought, “Oh, maybe when we pay off that debt we can afford the extra $30-$40 a month.” And once again I realized I was falling in that same “if/then” trap. 

So, no. I am not going to let that happen to me this year. I choose to complete what I start. I will put God first. I will put relationships before the task-master to-do list. I will reach out to others and seek for ways to use my purpose.

I will stop everything I’m doing, even writing this blog post and pray for my husband. (Realizing that yet again, I’m behind because I’ve lost track of what day it is!) What’s more important, the deadline or the “task” well done? And better still, I’d like to change my mindset because it’s not a “task” or a duty to pray for my spouse. It’s an honor.

It’s a gift that God has given us, the ability to pray for those we love.

I will not groan inwardly with the phone rings because someone has called yet again to check up on me, I will thank God for the chance to reconnect. I will look forward to those interruptions, because life happens in those interruptions.

And I will pray. I will pray for my spouse, so he can start his year off in the right place and on the right path that God has created for him this year, and I will pray for my children, that they will learn of God’s love and of God’s world, and of the place that God has created for them in this world. I will pray for all those that cross my path, because God can use that crossing to lay them on my heart at that moment.

The act of prayer, is my way of putting my wish for the movement of God in that person’s life first.

And this is the change I pray for in myself, that the movement of God happens in my own life, metamorphasizing my view until I can see like Him.

And I will see not a year filled with lists and tasks and duties, but a year filled with blessings and gifts and promises.

My New Year’s Priorities. Not Resolutions

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

I have to confess to all of you.

My focus with this blog has gotten completely out of whack. And it’s a picture of how my life has gotten out of whack as well.

Lately, all I’ve blogged about here has been homeschooling. I have left homeschooling pretty much take over our home life as well. With my husband being gone, and then adding homeschool to the mix, I basically did just enough to survive and get through the day. My health went into the toilet and my stress levels went through the roof. And my original goal, to use this blog to chronicle my journey becoming a Proverbs 31 Woman, went by the wayside.

I just wasn’t spending enough time in the Word and with God. And frankly, I think that alone is why, when my husband did come home last month, my body decided to fall apart two days later.

There is only so much living through your own willpower your body can handle. You just can’t live through your own strength and do anything more than survive this insane world. If I have learned anything this past year, it’s been that.

Look at our society. Aren’t most of the health issues of our country reportedly due to stress? And really, how much of that stress is truly necessary if we were living and abiding in the will of God? If we truly trusted in His provenance and His grace? If we waited on the Lord and allowed God to do His work, instead of pushing to do it ourselves?

Now I’m left to deal with the health repercussions of living with my spiritual life out of whack. According to my chiropractor, my spine isn’t in alignment and my mineral levels are depleted. According to my gynecologist, my hormones are “psycho” (My words. He’s much too polite to actually say that.) and the only recourse left seems to be to “shut down the factory.” My ENT doctor tells me my immune system is run down which is why I need horse-pill antibiotics to get rid of a sinus infection. In short, I’m a mess.

In the midst of all of this, our pastor’s sermon this Sunday was very timely.

Bay Community Church – “Out of Order”

Basically, we spend our time where our priorities lie. And if we look at our goals and resolutions, you’ll see where our true priorities are. As he mentioned, why do our New Year’s Resolutions focus on the temporal items which won’t last, instead of the spiritual, which is forever? We (and I do mean “I” in this case) give great lip service to living for Christ, and yet we don’t really live like that. Or worse, we say, I will be able to ____ for Christ after I ________ (lose 30 pounds, pay off that debt, get that raise) which of course never happens. We become hypocrites of our faith, and slaves to our taskmaster – success by the world’s view.

Is that any way to live? Is that the legacy I want to leave to my children? A life of struggle and stress?

This year, I am going to do things completely different from I have ever done them before. My “New Year’s Resolutions” are based on the spiritual. I want to reboot my focus and put my priorities in order.

My first New Year’s Priority/Resolution is simple: Put God First. Give him the FIRSTS of my life. I’m still working out what that will end up looking like, but my current ideas are:

  • Have my first thoughts awake be prayers and thanksgiving to God.
  • Be sure that my last thoughts before napping or sleeping are prayers for others and praising God.
  • Make a real focus to spend time in deep study of the Word, and reading books about the Word.
  • Get back to focusing on the girls’ spiritual development with prayer, learning Bible stories, verse memorization, and character development.
  • I need to stay involved in group Bible Studies, both for accountability and spiritual connections.
  • More conscious effort in praying for others.
  • Get back to the original message of this blog and write more about my spiritual journey, not just homeschooling or other topics.

My second New Year’s Priority/Resolution is: Put Relationships First.

I think I have a tendency, as a SAHM/WAHM and now a homeschooling mom is to stay.at.home. It’s just so much easier to never leave the house! But I know that my soul longs for human interaction. I’m really more of a people person than I have I let myself be in the past few years when I’ve been focusing so much on dealing with kids and “getting things done.” Yet, that’s not what God has called us to do! If we are to be His hands and feet, what good are we to Him if we don’t get out and reach out? So this year, I resolve to:

  • Make sure I spend time out of the house, interacting more and reaching out to connect more.
  • Focus on spending more quantity and quality time with my husband and our children, especially outdoors.
  • Take care of my health, so that I will be able to get out and have the energy to actually do things.

And my third New Year’s Priority/Resolution is to: Reach Out to Others. Use my Purpose.

This is pretty self-explanatory. God has commanded us to “Go;” not to “Sit” or “Stay.” So trying to keep that command, yet stay with the first priorities of putting God and relationships first, I plan to:

  • Use my spiritual gift of hospitality when possible. Willingly and cheerfully host coffees for groups, or functions for my husband’s office group, and perhaps host a Bible study group in my home if needed.
  • Look for small ways to serve. Meals to share, donating items to charities, or volunteering. Or perhaps a special note to encourage a friend.
  • Work my personal business with the mission to help others. Reach out and connect more using this business as a tool for sharing God’s provision.
  • Blog more. Use the internet to reach out, connect, and share God’s love with those I might never meet in person.

Of course, there are still things I’d like to accomplish this year. However, I’ve decided that I refuse to call them a Resolution, as that puts the wrong emphasis on these items, and gives them too much power over my life. So, instead, I’m going to call them “projects.” These are my “projects” for 2012:

  • Lose 20 pounds. Gain back my health. Get back to working out regularly once medical issues are resolved, and end the year strong and fit.
  • Scrapbook. I’d love to catch up (I’m about 3 years behind at this point) and I want to have fun doing it. I’d like to finish about 150 pages this year.
  • Complete our moving nightmare adventure. Get the family unpacked and settled in our new home, and happily adjusted. Pay a really nice chunk of our mortgage, keep our financial situation in control, and focus on living within our means!
  • Help us get out of debt! I really would like to actually make some money this year (normally I break even or just under).
  • Practice the guitar and play more, and finish my recipe book project that I’ve been staring at for a few years now!