Resolution

I've never been one to make new year's resolutions. I always feel like they are just setting myself up for failure. I think that's probably because they have such a stigma that I hate to jinx myself by calling a goal a "resolution". Silly, I know, but I feel like it gives me less of an excuse to quit.

This year, I haven't really set any "resolutions". (Except for potentially trying to drink less soda/more water. But don't hold your breath on that one. ;) I've tried and failed before. Like, yesterday.) But I am glad for this new, fresh year. The chance to love better, live fuller, breath deeper, and learn more. And like this quote says, spread that life around to everyone I come in contact with.

 “Happiness is a perfume 

you cannot pour on others

without getting a few drops 

on yourself."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Check out more shots at Macro Monday

Arts & Crafts PTSD

I remember coloring as a kid. I also remember I wasn't very good at it. Coloring isn't my thing. I am a major perfectionist, who cannot stay in the lines. Bad combination.

My kids haven't spent much time coloring or drawing. Not sure if it's my own art phobia, or just the fact that they don't even color on the page that keeps us away from it. I even tried the bathtub markers with Merrick. He colored on the wall with those.

Recently, my aunt had an extra box of crayons, and asked if I wanted it. At first I thought of that red-scribbled wall back home (I still can't get it off...) and almost said no. But decided to give art another chance. I put both of them at the table with a sheet of paper (plain, no lines. Don't want to give them arts and crafts PTSD just yet).

They both did great. Neither one went for my favorite, the black crayon, but their weapons of choice were the sparkly gold and silver ones. (Which are now sporting bashed-in ends. Another thing that used to drive me crazy as a kid...odd shaped crayons. I told you...perfectionist.) So...maybe I'll just have to start looking the other way while they color.

Check out more shots at The Paper Mama

(The last shot is my pick for this week)

The Present.

I saw a comment recently on facebook about the week between Christmas and New Years being odd. I agree. It's kind of in a category all by itself. Not yet the new, but we are almost finished with the old and ready to move on in a way. It's like the year seems to drag out a bit longer than we expect. Some people are vacationing, while others are back to work.

It got me thinking about how often I'm ready to throw something away and replace it with "the new". Wasting, in a sense, what I've been blessed with. Greedily craving what's next before I've thoroughly used up, filled up, made memories of, lived out the present. I'm not being in the moment. I'm so ready for what may be next that I'm missing what's right in front of me.

I am really ready to learn to be present. To not make hasty decisions powered by discontent, but to wait, be still, and gingerly unfold the time I've been given like a gift so that I can fill up and flesh out each moment. Not in a crazy, over committed, over caffeinated way...but in a way that leaves footprints. I was here, and I'll be here, in the present.

“The facts of the present won't sit still for a portrait. 

They are constantly vibrating, full of clutter and confusion.”

/ William MacNeile Dixon

Glorious Mess.

Christmas is a lot of fun. There's so many warm fuzzies flying around...it's hard to resist. Some people do, but it's hard. I read a quote recently that said, "One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.  Don't clean it up too quickly." / Andy Rooney

I think that says a lot I need to hear. Christmas is a glorious mess, in a lot of ways. My kids make a mess, I make a mess, you're surrounded by your family (who if they are like most families, can be kind of a mess psychologically speaking ;)...and for some reason we love that mess.







We've just finally finished cleaning up the Christmas mess over here. It made me think of that first Christmas, and what a mess we are without God, and what a mess He's cleaned up in me. He still finds a mess often, daily even, but thankfully He sees past all my mess, and calls it glorious. I want to see the "glorious in the mess" around me, too.

Check out more shots at Perceptive Perspectives, 

Sweet Shot Tuesday, Trendy Treehouse, and Simplicity 

(The last shot is my pick for this week)

Ice Cubes and Fortune Cookies

I know I'm infamous for hating snow (which we have several inches of right now...it's been falling for 3 years. Ok, about a day, whatever). But it is kind of fun being stuck at home with nowhere to go (for a limited time...the kids get way too crazy after about a day of that).

Yesterday we dug out (if you're from above the mason-dixon line, please stop laughing...I know it's not much) and drove to my mom's house. It was a long, dangerous, icy drive. Kidding, it was five minutes down the road...which was mostly clear, except for what I think were a couple of ice cubes.

We ate, played a new board game called "Last Word" (as if I need a game to make me try and get that. Ahem, I won. But that's beside the point, sort of.), we ate some more, got some Chinese food from the only place in the county that is open in this "blizzard", and then had dessert cuz we haven't eaten enough the last 3 days.

It was fun, arguing was at a minumum except while playing Last Word, and only one minor altercation broke out. (We mean business playing a board game) And as much as I hate snow, I'm kind of grateful for the chance it gave us to slow down and have one more "day off" this holiday season, enjoying some of our favorite things together..like, eating and being competitive.

Hope you were able to enjoy it too! What are some of your favorite things to do on a snow day?