Me in 2017

I usually use this blog as a place to talk about the kids and about motherhood and the stories of our family. I love that it is a place where I can store our memories, and it has been such a gift to have recorded little day to day moments and stories that would otherwise get lost in the big story.  But as I get ready to embrace 2017 and the newness of it, I'm writing today about me, and what I want to be able to say is true at the end of this year.

I love new things- I get it from my mother.  Not large materialistic things like new cars (they scare me, as do their payments) or new houses.  But small new things bring me great joy.  The first words written in a new tablet, a brand new pen, new soap in the shower.  So maybe that's why I love the clean slate of the first day of the new year.  In business, I am on that day, ranked exactly even with every other Agent in our company.  No one has done more than I have on that day.  In everything, it is the opportunity to do well, the chance to make changes and see progress in things that the previous year had worn me out on.

For the past two years, really, I have been focused on personal goals of losing weight-- the baby weight from three pregnancies that had just hung on for way too long.  In 2015, I dropped about 40 pounds.  It was a struggle, but it worked.  In 2016, I still was looking at about 20 more I would have liked to have lost, and so I made an investment in a treadmill and a Fitbit and committed to using them almost daily.  I don't know how many days I worked out, but I know it was far more than I didn't.  My early morning workout routine became my favorite part of the day.  It was also the time that I focused on my spiritual health, watching podcasts and listening to talks that challenged my mind and my heart while I was working my body.  I'd like to tell you that the 20 pounds I hoped to lose had fallen off along those miles that I walked.  Instead, I ended 2016 about 5 pounds lighter than I started it.  That's a frustrating admission because for all of those miles I put on my sneakers (I actually wore a pair out for the first time in my life) I surely should have dropped the 20 pounds and then some.  But I had gotten into my own way...again.  All of those very solid healthy eating changes I had made in 2015 that led to my successes had been ignored and justified by the "treadmill excuse". 

And so, in 2017, I am vowing to stop beating myself.  I won't let me beat me.  And I certainly won't waste all of those early morning, pre-dawn hours when I would love to be snoozing away by putting things into my mouth without counting them and planning for them.  I know I won't be perfect, but I can be better than I was last year.  I am really hoping that, by the time 2017 ends, I will be able to say that I have reached and maintained my goal weight.

I am hoping for MORE of a lot of things-- more writing, more time studying the Bible, more connection with the friends who fill my soul.  More family time, more presence with the people I love the most in those little moments, and more cups of tea.  Mint tea, to be exact.  More water, more walking, more sleep, more date nights with my husband. 

But I'm also committing to LESS of a few things.  Less wasted time sucked up by my phone and whatever rabbit trail I get onto scrolling social media looking at people's lives that aren't mine.  The more I think about how to find time for the "more", I realize that I need to figure out where my time is going-- and mornings and evening time spent with my phone in my hand are the biggest culprits.  And so I'm trying desperately to be mindful of that. The goal is for less distraction.  Less stress.  Less rushing.  I'm not so naïve as to think that I can keep the stress from coming, but I do believe that I can minimize some of it, and I'm going to do my very best.

2017 is going to be a good year.  I can just feel it.  I'm sure it won't be perfect, but I love how it has started.  Tonight, I am tucked in at home with my people, all of us decked in our PSU gear watching our Nittany Lions capping off a fantastic dream of a season.  Although I wish we were cheering loudly with our friends tonight like we did for the Big 10 Championship, I guess we'll count our blessings that we have one more night to be together before the crazed school night schedule begins again tomorrow.