Hello 2016!

Wow… NEW YEAR! New adventures, new challenges, new memories. Bring it on. 🙂

All last week we were hard at work sleeping in, eating (what felt like) all the time, spending time with family, and celebrating Christmas and the New Year. Can’t wait to put together a recap for you… this year’s will be a little different. I had been wielding my phone all week long and have TONS of videos of our trip that will all be dumped into one big RECAP VIDEO. Welcome to the big leagues. 🙂 I also have a winter-y table setting for you that never got published last week. I was too busy eating cookies and drinking punch, so I still owe you that.

For now, here are my 2016 Goals! Last year, I set some New Year’s goals for myself and ended up really loving that I had them to check in on throughout the year. You can see how I did with last year’s goals in this post. For those of you who are new, I try and set a few goals for a bunch of different areas in my life… work, personal, and blog. Here we go!

1. (Personal) Learn to play the guitar. Mitch plays and I own one, but all I know are a few chords. I’d really love to learn some more, so maybe I can coerce Mitch into teaching me… I think I”ll play the wife card on this one. 🙂

2.  (Blog) Finish creating a project gallery. I’ve been slowly chipping away at creating a gallery that will make it easy to find any home project, holiday craft, or life post we’ve ever done, searchable by category. And this is the year it’ll be finished.

3. (Personal) Walk 10,000 steps, 3-4 days each week. Last year, I set a goal to make some tweaks to lead a healthier lifestyle and we did that by joining the YMCA and getting more active. What I didn’t realize, though, was that my phone tracks the number of steps I walk each day. How cool is that?! I know, I know… that’s probably common knowledge in smart phone world, but I’m a late learner when it comes to smart phoning. As I was scrolling through the past years of steps, I saw that some days were astronomically higher than others and I began to notice a pattern… here are my top 5 days:

My observations from this data are as follows:

• Amusement parks are a good thing
• 2 of my highest days were during vacation
• 3 of my highest days were during programming events for work

In conclusion… I need to go on more vacations and work more. Right. How’s that for clarity? 🙂

4. (Personal) Read one book each month. Last year, my goal was to read before going to bed as opposed to scrolling through my phone. This year, I’ve decided to go for the same theme but with a more concrete way of monitoring if I’ve succeeded or not. I love to read, so this should be no problem. The issue is that I have the hardest time finding time to read… and therein will lie the challenge.  12 months, 12 books… I can do this!

5. (Work) Keep my office clean on a weekly basis. My colleagues are going to laugh at this one. You can read all about the woes of my office here… bottom line: When your office becomes a catch-all for all things teenager-y, it is SO HARD to keep it organized. But I’m on a mission.

6. (Personal) Be a part of a small group. Community is important and I have found that my life and my faith are uniquely enriched when I engage with people who encourage and challenge me to grow. Mitch and I have talked about intentionally joining a small group as a step in our spiritual growth and I’m thinking this might be the year to try and make it happen.

7. (Blog) More videos on the blog! This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Videos are always a huge hit and I have a lot of fun making them. In fact, we’ve got big plans for this year already in the works… we’re adding a whole new element to the blog and I can’t wait to tell you all about it! More details coming in February… 🙂

8. (Personal) Make more meals at home. Mitch and I have special talents of eating on the run. We’re All-Stars at it, mainly because my job requires us to be out of the house a few nights a week. This makes the “sit down and have a real conversation over dinner” thing really tricky. However, something we’re not so great at is meal planning. Deciding ahead of time what we will be cooking for dinner, taking for lunch throughout the week, etc. Not planning ahead has meant more Subway-for-dinner nights than we care to admit, so we’re going to practice changing that. This week, we’ve successfully planned and have the things we need on hand to prepare a meal for each night (leftovers included), PLUS having things at the ready for lunches. New Year’s Resolutions always start strong, eh? 😉

9. (Work) Focus more on what I am good at in regards to Youth Ministry. In any job, there are things you do because you have to do them and they are part of your job. There are also things that you enjoy more because you are good at them, have practiced and honed that skill, and get a greater sense of fulfillment from because they align more with what you feel your purpose and giftings are. My goal this year is to allow myself to do more of the type of ministry I enjoy and am skilled at, as well as  find ways to release myself from some of the things I feel I have to do, but maybe are not completely necessary. That sounds super poignant and philosophical. It’s not. It’s basically this: Start doing more of what I’m good at.

10. (Personal) Have one planned and unplanned adventure. This is a repeat from last year and I loved it so much that I decided to bring it back. There’s something about making plans to be adventurous, to do something different, to seek something new that just feeds my soul. I love the chase of it, the research and planning beforehand, the anticipation, and then best of all… getting to experience the trip or drive or new food or fun day out. We’ve already got this year’s vacation in the works and are SO EXCITED. I can’t wait to fill you in on the plans when we have a few more details nailed down!

So that’s the planned-ahead-and-get-it-on-the-calendar stuff… but there’s the other kind of adventure that I truly believe keeps us youthful and can be even harder to allow ourselves to do. The unplanned, unexpected, and completely spontaneous kind. The opportunity arises and you just go for it. No thinking or weighing the pros and cons… just jump right in. It can be challenging for some, but so very rewarding. We have so many memories from little moments that we just said YES to and I can’t wait to see what surprises 2016 holds.

Whew, what a list! I’m excited by some of these and weary of others, but I think that’s what making goals and giving yourself a direction to head in is supposed to feel like. How about you? Have you set any goals (I avoid the term “resolution”) for yourself this year? Leave a comment below with some of yours!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everybody!!!