Goals for 2012

So I have been averaging about one post per year.  If you look back at my paper journals I am actually making a considerable improvement here than there!  Well, if I try to recap a year, I will never to it.  So, I will just put down my goals for 2012 so at least I know they are documented and out there.  Then we can go from there!

God has shown me a lot in the last year about how He is calling me to live a life that is a little different than the world calls me to live.  In everything from our finances (the system from Financial Peace University with Dave Ramsey) to parenting (Love & Logic parenting) to the choices we make about what to eat (going more organic and unprocessed) and what to watch on TV (like the fact that I am putting the kibosh on almost all tween-type Disney TV and on several dramas that I like to watch).  For exampe, the world says "charge it!"  But I believe He wants me to save for things I want to buy and have no debt (insert gasp!).  The world says "Buy, Buy, Buy!!"  I believe he wants me to live simply.  The world says give your kids what they want, make them the center of your universe.  I believe GOD wants to be the center of our universe, and then spouses and kids go next, in that order (understanding, of course, that in certain seasons children require more attention!).  The world says "Low fat, No fat, fake food is fine."  I believe that He says food from the earth and food that had a mother is what we should be putting in our bodies...not chemicals.  The world (through popular Disney shows) tells us that kids should be sassy, have attitude, roll their eyes and talk back to their parents.  Um...no.  And shows tell us adults that we should sleep around, consider cheating, talk behind our friends backs, and be rude and lie when necessary. (Seriously, why do we WATCH this stuff?) Obviously, HE wants us to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness & self-control. What a concept, hey? But how can I expect my kids to behave way that when their roll models on TV don't act that way? And how many of us have stopped to really think about how the shows we watch affect how we act in real life. Garbage in...garbage out.

So, my goal for 2012 is to make choices that are in line with the way God wants me to live.  Sounds simple.  It actually is simple, just isn't always easy.  But I also want to show my kids that in this world many times we have to sacrifice what we want in the moment to live the way we know is good for us, the way God wants us to live.  That might mean walking away from Facebook or the tablet game I want to play, turning off the inappropriate tv show, or throwing away the cookies I want to eat even when my flesh tells me to just do it.  SO not easy.  But I am up for the challenge!  Anyone want to join me?

Happy New Year!!

Leaning on HIS grace!
Colleen

Let's Try This Again!

Hmmmm...well, 2010 didn't go so well in my quest to blog. I did, however, dive headfirst in the event blogosphere this fall and fell back in love! My creativity and passion for all things related to celebrations was reignited (thank you Tarisa!). I will get some of those blogs listed here soon so you can go have fun too. In the meantime I thought I would share a few photos of our holidays.

My hubs and I both agreed that this was probably our best Christmas in a LONG time! It was filled with family and friends...

... good food and fun.
























I won't say I am sad to see Monday morning get here and get back to a routine, but it was a wonderful couple of weeks!

As I have thought about 2010 and what was good, bad, and in between, I was hit by the song "Just To Know You" by Mark Schultz. I invite you to take a listen as you think about what you want to make of 2011! As it says "I want to live like a (wo)man who will love with abondon....I want to finish strong. I want to run into your arms and say I gave it all." If that isn't a good goal for 2011, I don't know what is!

OK, off to bed.  Lots of new good habits to start working on for 2011, and getting to bed before the crack of dawn is one of them!  So...until tomorrow (or now...perhaps later today!)

With love and grace!

Colleen

I DID IT!

So let me start out by saying that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be an athlete. But lately, in my attempt to lose this post-baby weight by training for a triathlon this summer, I am almost starting to feel like one. For the first time in my life I enjoy exercise. That in itself is a small miracle in my book. So today I undertook and accomplished a task that I am very proud of...I successfully climbed the 42 story US Bank building in downtown Milwaukee! It was a fundraiser for the American Lung Association. My dear friends and family supported my efforts by donating over $1300! This climb came 1 year and 1 day after my mom died of lung disease (COPD and emphysema to be exact). So this was a tribute to her. It doesn't hurt that my sister and I both have asthma....I mean who doesn't know someone who suffers from a lung disease? So, I climbed...and climbed.... I started off strong. Humility set in about floor 3 when my springy steps slowed to a turtle-like crawl. 3 floors? Really? But as my dear friend, Amy, reminded me..."slow and steady wins the race!" So, I stopped a few times to catch my breath (I admire the irony of that!), and kept slowly stepping. Imagine by excitement (and utter disbelief if I am being honest) when I climbed 47 floors (we started in the basement) in 18 minutes 39 seconds. Woohooo!!!! Yippeeee!!!! Yahoooo!!!!

I am so excited to have accomplished this, and in that time. I never in my life would have thought I could do it in that time. I thought those times were for someone who was running it (the top person did it in like 5 minutes...I find that just superhuman!). But it makes me wonder in what else do we limit ourselves.... what else do we think we could never do, so we don't try? What joys and experiences do we keep ourselves, or our kids or families, from experiencing because we think we will fail?? Hmmm.

Last night I told my daughter that I was doing something CRAZY today and climbing up lots of stairs. I told her it would be like climbing up our stairs like 50 times. She was upset she couldn't come do it with me. But at bed time prayers after we said our communal prayer, she surprised me by praying for me! She asked Jesus to help me climb up lots of stairs and to "help her gets lots of energy!" Amen!

Speaking of baby steps and doing something you thought you couldn't do, our Little Man, who is 18 months old this week, has been walking with assistance for a couple months. He had gotten to the point that he could walk as long as you were touching him (touching...not holding on). But if you stopped touching him he would sit down. He just didn't know he could do it! But last weekend he finally figured it out! So, now my Little Man is walking!! Hmm, maybe I need to start calling him my Big Man! So, I hope this week you step out in faith and do something you would have never thought you could do. It doesn't have to be huge or life changing...baby steps here! Then let me know how it went!

Not off to a rocking start, am I?

Well, so much for trying to write on a regular basis! Well actually, if you snuck a peek at my diary, this would actually be pretty amazing, seeing as though I would sometimes go 365 days or more between writing. OK, so I am doing great!

I should be in bed but I'm not! Today was a good day. Started my day in the typical Friday way...Stroller Fitness with dear friends. Picture it: 15 or so moms in a local store, pushing strollers of 1-2 children each, all doing a serious, sweat-inducing, hard core kickboxing workout, while periodically reaching through a punch to deliver a sippy cup or some cheerios, or jumping out of set of lunges to redirect one of the children who are not contained in the strollers from drawing on or hitting or sitting on one of the other children! Whew...tired just imagining it?? I have been doing it for (yikes!) 4 years now but I realized how we must look a few weeks ago when a woman who was shopping GOT OUT A CAMERA AND PHOTOGRAPHED US! Needless to say we were less than thrilled. But I guess it is a sight that most people don't see every day!

After Stroller Fitness we headed to our post workout lunch...always interesting with 4 children. Now that they are getting older, we are actually finding it possible to TALK on occasion. Who'd have thunk?! Then after some blissful quiet time while the little ones slept (or at least remained quietly in their rooms) we had some more wonderful playtime with some other friends. We went to one of those children's play places that are so WONDERFUL! Really, what could be better than a warehouse that is cleaned daily and contains a multitude of jumpable, slideable, and climbable sturctures and can wear out even the most energetic of children? And this one has some wonderful safety procedures so even on a fairly busy Friday night it is possible to sit down and allow your child to be out of your sight for 10 minutes or more without going into a panic about where they may be at that moment! Truly, these places may be God's gift to tired moms! Follow that up with a fish fry (for me!) and wonderful, God-filled conversation at dinner with dear friends, and you have the makings for a wonderful day.

A little icing on the cake was coming home from all that fun to find I had NOT missed the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics and getting to watch, in awe, the beauty that someone out there imagined...it was STUNNING! I would SO have loved to have been involved in the planning of that event. Someday.... It is, after all, one of my two dream jobs. Oh, I could never even have imagined something so beautiful or elaborate. So my job will not be creative director. But to plan even one piece of the Olympics, and be one of the many players involved in putting on the elaborate event that is the Olympics, will hopefully be a job I get someday. Not anytime soon...but someday!

So, with that, I really need to get to bed. I have a lot to accomplish this weekend. It is time to get a bit more serious with some of those goals for the new year. Things like working out and doing a little makeover on my diet. I read this week that Food is Fuel, and we should make choices on what we eat based on that principle. OK, got that. It's makes sense. But now I have to figure out how to get myself to make choices on my food based on it's potential as fuel and not based on the fact that I just want more chocolate (or ice cream, or peanut butter cups)!

Until next time, with love and grace!

Time for a change

A new year brings new hope for me. New hope at doing better in 2010. New hope of feeling better, of new opportunities, of renewed grace. I have been thinking about my "resolutions." Mine aren't so much things I want to accomplish this year, like lose 30 pounds (which I should) or eat more vegetables (which I also should) but rather things I want to be this year. I want to be grateful for what I have, for what I don't have, and for every thing that has led to this moment. I want to be healthier. I want to play more and enjoy more. I want to spend more time getting to intimately know the ones I love: my family, my hubby, my kids, my friends, and my God. I want to document our lives better. As a scrapbooker, I know that our tendancy can be to get in there and "Start at the beginning." But the problem with that is when you do that, sometimes you never get to the now. So I will being at the now. And, with some luck, I might tell the story back to the beginning. And if I don't, I will be grateful for what I did get to tell!

I don't really know why I am doing this. Except that I used to write in a journal. And with the addtion of a husband to my life and then two beautiful children, that has all but gone away. Who has the energy to write in a journal at the end of a day when you feel as if you have barely made it through? Tomorrow, I would say. And then one day I would open up my journal and realize that 365 tomorrows or more had passed and I hadn't written a word on how I FELT about all those many moments in between. I have plenty of drama filled journals of my youth for my kids to read someday. Actually I am not sure I would let them read some of them. (Have you ever gone and read through your teenage journals. Oy!) But since that isn't who I am now it isn't really the person about whom I want them to read. So, I thought I would give blogging a try. Someday my kids can read this and see what was going on in the head of that lady they call mom. And since I am always on the comptuer anyways, I think this will be more natural for me to do (and faster since I can type faster than I can write!! My fingers can almost keep up with my brain!).

So, welcome to my blog! I have lots of ideas for what I want to post, but I am going to take babysteps. It might be about my kids, my day, my household organization (or lack thereof), my MOPS group, my friends, my family, couponing, scrapbooking, stained glass, my deep desire to go somewhere tropical and warm this winter, cooking or baking, or any number of other things us moms try to do! I don't know if anyone will read this! But if nobody does, that is OK. Then my husband will get insight into the mind of his wife, and it will be there for my kids to see when they get old enough. And that will be enough for me! Yeah for 2010!