Hi Again! HAPPY 2016!

Happy New Year and hello again!

So, I feel like I have a pretty legitimate excuse for not keeping up with blogging….

Ya’ll, this little gummy bear has completely knocked me off my feet and I am literally just NOW starting to come out of the fog and feel human again (just over 13 weeks). I never felt this awful with G… plus with my odd cravings for hot dogs, Doritos, and pizza… I swear its a boy.

I’ll write some “bumpdates” and the fun way we told our families about nugget #2 in a later post. But for now… HAPPY 2016!!

Is life moving faster now or is it just me? I swear you graduate college, get married, have a kid, and all of sudden life grants you the (rather unwanted) gift of some hyper-speed time warp. WTF… life is just getting good, SLOW DOWN!

New Year, New Goals

Some people find making resolutions pointless, I mean, why take the time to set something you are bound to abandon in a few weeks? Ya’ll I am one of those weird articles you see floating around Facebook – “The Extroverted Introvert” aka the oxymoron.

I am a thinker, a dreamer, a planner. I love intellectual, spiritual, and challenging conversations, and thought provoking reads. In the same vein, I am an adventurer, an explorer, a lover of chaos, and I have no fear of trying. I know, my poor husband, right?

I get both sides of the argument – why make the bed if you are only going to mess it back up in a few hours when you get back in? Why clean up the toys if your kid is just going to play tornado behind you and dump them all back out anyways? Because there is something to be said for structure, and organization within the chaos. No, I don’t make the bed every day, and yes, I wait until nap time or bed time to ACTUALLY clean up the toys. I’m not going to make myself crazy by doing silly things time and time again lol. It’s this structure or routine that provide opportunities for growth within yourself, your spouse, and your kids.

There is a natural, undeniable human yearning for growth, for improvement, to become “best version of ourselves” ((I HIGHLY recommend the book “Becoming the Best Version of Yourself” by Matthew Kelly)). This is why athletes push themselves to be the strongest, or fastest. To consistently improve our personal best.

Personally, I love the process of sitting down and assessing what is important to you and prioritizing what you would like to do, or what changes you would like to make in and effort to become a better YOU. If you don’t make an effort to think of things that are important to you and find practical ways to accomplish them, you will always feel some sort of incompleteness. I almost feel like I aimlessly float through life, half aware of what is going on when I am missing that direction or purpose.

Let’s just say you aren’t 100% consistent all the time – well guess what – you know what’s important to you because you have thought about it and have given your life, your year, some direction. THAT already puts you ahead of where you would have been had you decided to not do ANYTHING at all.

I’ve always given myself a few guidelines to setting new years goals:

Spiritual – something to help myself grow spiritually
Emotional/Personal – something to help grow personally or emotionally (think of those dear hobbies you have been putting off)
Physical – (ah yes, because who doesn’t need a kick in the pants to go outside and walk or stop eating Doritos and eat a piece of fruit instead?!)
Family – something to grow your relationship with your family members (think new experiences, new traditions, a new look on everyday tasks, a commitment to an “at-home” date)

Ok, let’s face it, by the end of the year we all need to press the “restart” button in many, if not all, of these areas.

I have a lot to look forward to this year, and frankly a lot to prepare for!