Once again, I’m here with my list. I was going to wait until tomorrow, but sometimes excitement gets the best of me. If you missed out on the past few years, well, you didn’t really miss out on much. Just another person being alive. This year will be number 37; so dad, get ready! It’s your year.
- Do a half marathon trail run WITH KYLE!
- Teach my kids to do chores consistently.
- Become excited about something new. 2024 held achieving a lot of my big goals and now I’m over here like what’s next? The word “less” is speaking to me.
- Sabbatize!
- Run a 1:51:00 half.
- Normalize spending freezes. Like extensive spending freezes. Avoid purchasing anything that’s doesn’t clothe the children or fill our bellies or is consumable. I want less in my life. Less clutter. Less distractions. Less chaos. Less stuff. Less money spent on things that I’ll throw away.
- Plant strawberries.
- Lose 22 pounds so that running a 1:51:00 half is much easier and I feel less crummy.
- Go see Nate Bargatze’s Big Dumb Eyes.
- Be more intentional with friends.
- Never return to the AMC and pay $39 for four icees and a bottle of water.
- Read The Year of Less
- Throw away the gray water hose hanging out in my backyard.
- Successfully grow grass in my entire backyard.
- Give away things that are not regularly utilized. The purge has already begun!
- Utilize my new purple water bottle that replaced all of my broken water bottles.
- Post two blogs a month.
- Document my days.
- Finish the Bible reading plan I’ve been going through.
- Run from the south side beginning of the Canyon Ridge (Rim?) trail to the horsetail trail and back WITH KYLE.
- Average no more than 1 hour of cellular device screen time.
- Plan ahead and send snack day snacks on my child’s snack day.
- Order Christmas presents on Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday? Still not sure if I’m at a place where I can enter stores on that day.
- Make it through the next 25 (26?) days of this wretched 30-day-no-sugar challenge my dad has me on.
- As always, don’t get pregnant.
- Learn something new about off-camera flash.
- Create joy and coziness in every day life. Hygge.
- Live off of lamp light once the sun sets.
- Give away the box of toys/blankets I hid from the children last year. It’s been a year and they’ve not asked for one single item from that box.
- Turn my chicken coop into a green house (only if I am gifted the lining I’ll need for my birthday).
- Obtain a rick of wood.
- Determine why I cannot connect with my backyard and remedy the problem. Actually, I think I may know the problem and it might be illegal to remedy the problem so never mind.
- Track how long it takes a toenail to grow back after falling off after running a marathon.
- Normalize guiltless sitting.
- Make roast, potatoes, and carrots at least twice a month.
- Figure out how to get over it!
- Be a good tooth fairy if this is the year J loses his first teeth.
Last year around this time, I wrote the words below. They spoke to me again as I went back to read last year’s list so I’m sharing it once more.
Earlier this week I came across the verse below. Jacob (Israel) is talking to Joseph after reuniting with him despite thinking he was dead for years and years and years.
“I never expected to see your face again; and now God has let me see your children as well” (Genesis 48:11).
Just another beautiful example of God surpassing expectations time and time again.
As I write this silly list of things I may or may not do each year, I remember sitting in a rocking chair writing years ago trying to recap the most difficult year of my life and somehow attempting to put a silver lining on it. Wondering how in the world peace and strength and joy and love would ever make their way back into my life. Wondering how in the world God could take the remnants of a broken me and restore them fully.
He did so much more than I ever expected.
The start of a new year can be exciting, or maybe un-noteworthy, or sadly filled with heartache and simply hoping the next one is not so rough. Regardless of where you are, remember He is able.