Here It Is 2012

I was in my first yoga ball class this week on Wednesday and the instructor was talking about setting goals for the new year.  One of her goals this year is eating an apple a day for 30 days. Of course I was thinking that was a bit crazy but then she started reading these statistics regarding studies on resolutions and goal setting.  Apparently you are 83% more successful in keeping the resolution if you right them down but you are 92% more successful if you share them or as she said in her new agey yoga talk "speak them into the universe".   So universe - or whoever is reading this here are my big plans for 2012.


1.  Spend more time and more quality with the Lord. Deepen my relationship with Him.  Be open to new ways that God might use me or allow me to serve. Pray more, give more, love more.  I am already SUPER excited about joining MOPS Bible study and also that my church has started a Thursday morning women's bible study that I can go to while the boys are at MDO.  I am praying that I meet some really great women to study with and God uses this to grow me. 


2.  Be healthier!  Obviously not skinnier or things like that (don't have a heart attack those who think I am too thin.. Ok. Dad you know I am talking to you :-)  But just overall healthier. Eat better, incorporate new eating in our lives since I am staying at home, going to the gym which is already working fantastic since the YMCA has great childcare! Maybe do some "clean" eating.  Definitely live on a healthier budget with more fresh produce, etc. Cook our meals, clean with more natural products, and just improve overall quality of life. 


3.  DECLUTTER my house.  I am serious about this one.  Life has been in fast forward since we moved in.  I was hugely pregnant with twins, then had twins, worked 60 hours a week for almost 3 years since we moved into this house and the drawers, cabinets, closets, and overall STUFF is driving me insane.  Since this is my new work environment I need it to be efficient and organized.  When I pick things up or clean up, it needs to have a place to go.  I have to say 5 days into January this one is going well.  Look at my latest nap time project!  Whoo hoo!  No more frantic search of the right ingredient.  Do you love the note I left Justin on the pantry?

The top of my pantry

New shelves and organization to the spice cabinet!

4. Have FUN!  Enjoy my little ones daily.  Find new fun things for us to do.  Savor these moments. Live in them.  Learn in them.  Find JOY!  I have to share this with you.  I might have blogged about one of my favorite books 1000 Gifts.  If you haven't read it, do it now. Buy it. Go online, order it, read it, savor it, reread (like I am doing now) give away copies.  It is a blessing.  I also follow her blog and facebook.  I have signed up for the 1000 Gifts challenge.  Being the Apple lover that I am, I put the app on my phone and I am going for it.  If you haven't read the book, here is a Reader's Digest version - Focus on the Gifts that God gives freely each day. Not what you don't have but what you do have!  As simple as the sun rising.  The smell of the ocean.  From the largest to the smallest, finding JOY comes from focusing on what we have not what we don't.   Here are some of mine that I started with -


Thankful for green grassy hills that we can play on and roll down that bring JOY to my little ones. 

Another was "hot water on a cold morning" I mean really when you think about it, how many people don't have water at all much less the luxury of a 15 minute hot shower?? 


I love this!  I have the January challenge and I am hoping to complete the 1000 gifts this year.

It’s only the 4th day of the New Year, when this woman cups my face in her hands and draws me right close to just say it. “It’s changed my life.” I’ve been trying to shake it for days, as I set the table, read with the kids, watch the snow come down — shake these fear’s long forgotten that have been stalking me hard. And she’s been trying to get it together for years. She’s had a few husbands. More than a few heart shatterings. It’s like she’s shaking the hope of change right into me.

“The bottom line is…” She takes my shoulder and I can see how her wrinkled face lights up. “It’s brought me closer to God.“ That’s what I want. Always closer to Him, the way He alone can ignite you, put all the broken pieces together, shake the enemy off. Isn’t that the habit the new year always needs?

Whether a grandmother or not a mother, that’s what changed them: Love. Keeping a list of His love. His Love is the only thing that changes any of us and living loved — wouldn’t this change everything? The fears I’d been feeling, the overwhelmed and uncertain — Is every failure to experience joy because I made an excuse to not give thanks? The radio host, she’d invited me early on the 3rd of January to join her and co-host in daring their listeners to Count 1000 Gifts in 2012 and I had said it, that I should do it with them too. Taking up the dare all over again — the dare to slow down and wake up and receive all God gives for what it is — a gift. Take the the Joy Dare. Isn’t that what Aristotle said– “We are what we repeatedly do.” Then Christianity isn’t an act — but our faith is expressed only in our habits. A habit of not complaining, but the habit of giving thanks; the habit of not worrying, but a habit worshipping. The habit of repeatedly giving God praise that our lives might become a prayer. Small is always the leverage of large. It’s one moment after the other, the small moments that turn a life. It’s the small actions that can change a life. It’s habits that can imprison you and it’s habits that can free you and when thanks to God becomes a habit, so joy in God becomes your life. Maybe a life needs change over and over again — that constant turning to God? Not so much resolutions but revolutions. And in this keeping habit of keeping a gratitude list?

So I write it down – This crazy Joy Dare to do it all over again because I need it, to make this the habit before all the other habits — the joy habit — and count a full 1000 gifts in 2012. He deserves all my thanks and it’s impossible to give thanks and simultaneously feel fear.Woman with the soul amnesia — she keeps remembering and needing to remember again. Just three gifts a day. The whole earth is full of His glory. And maybe I could make it crazier — by hunting, seeking, looking for specific gifts from His hand? A Joy Dare to give all glory to Him? And share the joy?

So visit her website at  A Holy Experience and print January's guide.  It's amazing!


There they are!  The 4 things I want to do in 2012.  This is the first year in 3 years that I have written them down.  "Spoken them to the Universe"  I am praying lots of growth for our family in 2012, lots of fun and mainly lots of JOY!  I wish the same for you and yours.


Happy New Year!


Love,


The Riley's