Ready, Steady and Goal-ing Through Life
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the month that starts every new year for us. Some of us love welcoming the new year, other's dread ending the month of December, which is usually filled with love, peace on earth, special one-time-a-year nostalgic music, and cozy fires crackling next to some form of holiday decor for Christmas. Some of us don't want to give that feeling up so we try to ignore that number 31 coming speeding towards us off the page.
Never the less, January always comes. Each year millions of people set out to plan their lives, to change. They do this through goals, making vision boards, their Bullet Journals (BuJo), yearly planners, even just plain old college lined paper inked with pen, or in my case all of the above and even this computer I happen to be typing on.
What makes one set goals? Is it the realization that something didn't go the way we wanted the previous year? Is it the need to grow and extend ourselves farther than we have already? The fact that we see what is happening in the world around us and don't like what we see? Or is it the even more tangle understanding, after a loved one dies, that life is short and what have we done with it so far???
I didn't start making yearly New Year goals until after I married Matt, we had our two boys and Mckenna was being carried nice and warm inside the womb. I think maybe Matt had been doing them all along, but I hadn't.
My procrastinating, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, spontaneous personality had me doing these things without a set plan in mind. Which meant my goals were done creatively. Don't get me wrong, I wrote things down: I was a Post-it Note type of gal, with eye-rolling patience of my quirkiness from Matt. Ask anyone who came to our apartment at Tallavilla in Tallahassee, they were all over the back hallway closet door and walls reminding me of Devin's school activities; Games I wanted to teach the boys; Kyler's preschool lesson prep; places I wanted to visit; book titles someone mentioned that I wanted to read; doctors appointments for monitoring Mckenna's growth and pregnancy progress; things I wanted to accomplish for the week, month and/or year. Go ahead, I gave you permission: ask my Tallavilla friends, you can find them on Facebook. They are super amazing people. I wasn't a planner girl yet, not sure completely that I really am today.... I digress, this was about goals, right????
My procrastinating, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, spontaneous personality had me doing these things without a set plan in mind. Which meant my goals were done creatively. Don't get me wrong, I wrote things down: I was a Post-it Note type of gal, with eye-rolling patience of my quirkiness from Matt. Ask anyone who came to our apartment at Tallavilla in Tallahassee, they were all over the back hallway closet door and walls reminding me of Devin's school activities; Games I wanted to teach the boys; Kyler's preschool lesson prep; places I wanted to visit; book titles someone mentioned that I wanted to read; doctors appointments for monitoring Mckenna's growth and pregnancy progress; things I wanted to accomplish for the week, month and/or year. Go ahead, I gave you permission: ask my Tallavilla friends, you can find them on Facebook. They are super amazing people. I wasn't a planner girl yet, not sure completely that I really am today.... I digress, this was about goals, right????
My way of celebrating the new year was to pick out a song that I felt would guide me to better myself. My song for the year is a throw back to my childhood: Chariot's of Fire's theme song. Can't you hear it, speeding you down the path of life, egging you on to the next achievement and the next one after that? I sure can. A carefully chosen word, this year it's FEARLESS. I happen to be a skittish dog when it comes to taking on new challenges, especially when it deals with heights or stressing my body out, to help cheer me on throughout the year and a forecast as to how many books I would read in that same year, 50 -consisting of all genre's except romance- yuck. I would do this for a new school year in High School too. I didn't think life needed to be so complicated, so I kept it simple.
When you have kids, that changes. Kids complicate your life if you allow yourself and them to challenge themselves through after school activities, friendships through play dates, church events; without even throwing in the school stuff: homework, studying for tests, choir performances, art showcases, history competitions, and/or band concerts. This is when I learned to plan and set goals formally. I didn't want to miss appointments I consistently forgot about when they were tiny; I didn't want my kids to outgrow me: I didn't want them to think I didn't have a clue what was going on in the world and just stay in my dreamy book reading existence socializing to my hearts delight with written characters or even the characters of our own town.
I needed to grow as they were. It's in my DNA to want to learn, it's handed down to me from Grandmother, to my Father and Mother and self preservation. I feel happier when I am learning. Goals tend to be focused more on that then anything else in my life. The learning goals deal with spiritual growth, book reading and taking free online courses from colleges that provide such things. Apple has a great app that helps you find those kinds of classes. I think I am wearing it out. I think that is what happened to my iPad 2. I just educated myself way too much and it got plain old stinking tired. Righhhttt...
Each New Years Eve our kids, their spouse, right now it's just beautiful Aliza, which is fabulouso !, and even a boyfriend/girlfriend participates in our annual ritual of writing goals, places we want to visit and predictions for each family member's life changes. This year Mckenna did it while we were on the phone with her and her boyfriend Ryan. We even had him do the ritual too. It's fun to open up the previous year's paper (marked with a Do Not Open until December 31st and whatever year it is) and see what we all predicted about each other and if we accomplished our set goals. This past year, I didn't read as much as I would've liked. I didn't lose the weight I set for myself, well lets be honest, I did lose some of it and then gained it all back and then some. Grrrrr.... stupid, Ediiot... Yes, I say negative things super drawn out for impact. It's a fault. Deal with it if you like, or not, I really don't care. It makes me happy. 😎
I needed to grow as they were. It's in my DNA to want to learn, it's handed down to me from Grandmother, to my Father and Mother and self preservation. I feel happier when I am learning. Goals tend to be focused more on that then anything else in my life. The learning goals deal with spiritual growth, book reading and taking free online courses from colleges that provide such things. Apple has a great app that helps you find those kinds of classes. I think I am wearing it out. I think that is what happened to my iPad 2. I just educated myself way too much and it got plain old stinking tired. Righhhttt...
Each New Years Eve our kids, their spouse, right now it's just beautiful Aliza, which is fabulouso !, and even a boyfriend/girlfriend participates in our annual ritual of writing goals, places we want to visit and predictions for each family member's life changes. This year Mckenna did it while we were on the phone with her and her boyfriend Ryan. We even had him do the ritual too. It's fun to open up the previous year's paper (marked with a Do Not Open until December 31st and whatever year it is) and see what we all predicted about each other and if we accomplished our set goals. This past year, I didn't read as much as I would've liked. I didn't lose the weight I set for myself, well lets be honest, I did lose some of it and then gained it all back and then some. Grrrrr.... stupid, Ediiot... Yes, I say negative things super drawn out for impact. It's a fault. Deal with it if you like, or not, I really don't care. It makes me happy. 😎
Anyhoo- today I started a plan to get myself healthy again. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired AND overweight. I made a phone call a month ago to a sweet couple who coach others on the Take Shape for Life program. We are going to get to know each other really well after all this is over. I went to the doctor yesterday to make sure I was doing what I needed to do with my autoimmunity situation. I wanted to make sure I was ready, steady and GOaling on The Turtle versus the Hare race of change- focusing on my plans. "Be a turtle" I said, don't get sucked into the Hare's thinking. Slow and steady is the key.
My bloodwork will be completed in a few weeks. My "tired blood" as my grandma Field called it, is being made strong by the miracle of medicine and nature's hand: iron tablets and delicious lean steaks.
Life is going to be Golden, like my glowing skin hydrating with the appropriate amount of drinking water for my body. I mean after all- I don't have the luxury of that oft complained about by others, yet not by me, humidity that I used to have in Florida. We can't have our Sierra Nevada mountains to hike in AND humidity at the same time or EVERYONE would want to live in California.
Seriously, I love you all and like to host fun-blasted parties for my family and friends, but, it would get super crowded, polluted and the traffic would cause me to have road rage. Besides, I happen to like the small town feel and openness of Lincoln with the beautiful blue sky sprinkled with white animal-shaped clouds hovering over me; so thanks, but no thanks, stay where you reside please...
Over the next few weeks and months the goals our family put together on New Years in our various homes, will be complicated by birthdays, holidays and community related events but I can do this, I just need to remember my mantra: "Slow and Steady is the way"... will you remind me when you see me reach for that cleverly disguised by-the-prettiest-pink frosting you ever saw sitting on a donut which is a bane to my plans?
Will you cheer me on when I am slowly approaching the finish line on my second Mudrun For Life? (okay, truthfully, it will be more like walking over the shoe sinking & sucking them into squishy mud-filled trails and sliding on my butt down the walls and hills all the while getting down right filthy like a pig in his pen and smiling that huge smile only accomplishment can produce... You know, legally I have to call it a Mudrun when it's title is Mudrun For Life but you get the drift)
My sugar levels might be off, I might not be my super sun-shiney self. Do you notice the word hiney in sun-shiney? Yea, me too. Funny word hiney; my brothers used to laugh when they heard it. Did you know there was a song called Shiney Hiney by the Fleshtones? Yup, I didn't either until a few minutes ago. So forgive me if I act like a butthead. It's temporary. I will resume my originally aired happiness programing after a few cranky sugarfree ad days.
What, if anything, do you have set as a goal for 2017? I really want to know. Come one, tell me. I promise not to tell anyone else if you don't want me to...
My bloodwork will be completed in a few weeks. My "tired blood" as my grandma Field called it, is being made strong by the miracle of medicine and nature's hand: iron tablets and delicious lean steaks.
Life is going to be Golden, like my glowing skin hydrating with the appropriate amount of drinking water for my body. I mean after all- I don't have the luxury of that oft complained about by others, yet not by me, humidity that I used to have in Florida. We can't have our Sierra Nevada mountains to hike in AND humidity at the same time or EVERYONE would want to live in California.
Seriously, I love you all and like to host fun-blasted parties for my family and friends, but, it would get super crowded, polluted and the traffic would cause me to have road rage. Besides, I happen to like the small town feel and openness of Lincoln with the beautiful blue sky sprinkled with white animal-shaped clouds hovering over me; so thanks, but no thanks, stay where you reside please...
Over the next few weeks and months the goals our family put together on New Years in our various homes, will be complicated by birthdays, holidays and community related events but I can do this, I just need to remember my mantra: "Slow and Steady is the way"... will you remind me when you see me reach for that cleverly disguised by-the-prettiest-pink frosting you ever saw sitting on a donut which is a bane to my plans?
Will you cheer me on when I am slowly approaching the finish line on my second Mudrun For Life? (okay, truthfully, it will be more like walking over the shoe sinking & sucking them into squishy mud-filled trails and sliding on my butt down the walls and hills all the while getting down right filthy like a pig in his pen and smiling that huge smile only accomplishment can produce... You know, legally I have to call it a Mudrun when it's title is Mudrun For Life but you get the drift)
My sugar levels might be off, I might not be my super sun-shiney self. Do you notice the word hiney in sun-shiney? Yea, me too. Funny word hiney; my brothers used to laugh when they heard it. Did you know there was a song called Shiney Hiney by the Fleshtones? Yup, I didn't either until a few minutes ago. So forgive me if I act like a butthead. It's temporary. I will resume my originally aired happiness programing after a few cranky sugarfree ad days.
What, if anything, do you have set as a goal for 2017? I really want to know. Come one, tell me. I promise not to tell anyone else if you don't want me to...
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