Welcome 2018

While enjoying the first snow day of the year I finally take a few minutes to write down some thoughts I've had lately....mostly thoughts about the new year.  I have made four goals for myself this year....resolutions.  1) Drink more water,  2) Go to bed earlier,  3) Keep my house plants alive.  I am up to 30 house plants  (this includes the 3 I am babysitting for a neighbor who will be gone for a number of months) and I am determined to find a rhythm which each of them. 

4)  My biggest goal is to do more reaching out to others.  It's so weird, but when I wake up in the middle of the night and can't go back to sleep (happens frequently), I lay in bed composing emails and letters in my head to various people.  I also think of kind things I should do for others that either deserve it, could use some extra encouragement, or just need to know that I'm thinking of them.  I do this ALL the time...could this be the time that I'm still enough to hear God putting these people on my heart?  The sad thing is the fact that I very seldom follow through on these middle of the night thoughts.  I wake up in the morning and get in my busy routine and don't give it much more thought.  We attended a teacher institute back in the fall where the speaker quoted Martin Luther King Jr.  as saying something like, "At the end of my life,  I will not remember the words of my enemies, but the silence of my friends".  That quote really stayed with me...and I guess you could say it punched me right in the gut.  I have so many good intentions, but they don't mean anything unless I see them through.  So that's my fourth goal. 

I've started the new year like this:

Listening:  Evangeline learning a new piano piece each week

Dreaming:  of lots of snow

Loving:  the sound of my children playing together

Reading:  Pride and Prejudice, The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh (with Evangeline), Spookley the Square Pumpkin (one of Jed's current favorites)

Practicing:  An earlier bedtime routine

Learning:  to be more patient with life, not getting hung up on the small things

Enjoying:  all the moments I get with my family and my very sweet class of school children

Sipping:  Hot Cinnamon and Spice tea, hot chocolate

Crafting:  Dandelion Doe stitched with love for Evangeline