new

hi. don't mind me - just geeking out over the new year over here.  I just love it. I love a crisp, clean new planner. I love looking out across the expanse of the whole year's worth of months with binocular-eyes and marking down all the exciting things we have to look forward to (weddings! Final Beer Olympics! Our 10th wedding anniversary! sports seasons! summer break! Bermuda visit!). I love getting all reflective and nostalgic as I flip through last year's planner and see all the wins and losses we had through the months - all the to do list items checked off, the surprise plans (some happy, some terribly sad) that got scribbled in last minute.  How lucky I feel to be living this exact life in all of it's wild, overwhelming, funny, beautiful messiness and with these exact people who make everything better and also easier to bear.  And then new years comes and it's like - look, we get to do it all again together. A little different this time as we are all a little ...

This is my third year of creating a list of 100 small things I hope to accomplish in the year.  I wrote one in 2015 and finished 48 of 100 tasks.  And did it again last year, in 2016 , and finished 38 tasks entirely for the year.   The point is to be intentional about my daily life.  The point is to make my daily life feel, look, and inspire the kind of whole life I hope to live - that I hope to build around this family of ours.  It takes me a few days to brainstorm and reflect about the kind of life I hope to live this year.  The kinds of things that will help me be the type of person I hope to be.  This year, I categorized my list to try to stay focused on certain areas of my life.   Plus, it kind of feels more do-able all broken down in these ten categories (with about ten tasks each).  Some of them aren't small tasks at all actually (1000 hours outdoor attempt #2, Completing my first ever half marathon!, getting our The Hunting Daddies b...

oh, this week between Christmas and New Years has me all off-kilter over here.  Gifts need put away and left-overs galore for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and the feeling like there's so many ends to tie up and so many new strings to grab before the new year.  yeesh.  But I've been looking over my 100 small things list from this past year and feeling accomplished at all the things I finished (and partially finished).  But still kind of bummed that I didn't get even half of my list done.  Brandon and my conversation though went like this -  me: ugh, I only finished 38 of my 100 small things list this year! bud: you did better than I did. me: you didn't even have a list.  bud: exactly, that means you really did better than I did.  he's always erasing my selfdoubt #thanksbabe So in any case, I did finish up 38 full tasks and I kind-of started another 11 tasks.  We also had at least 6 unexpected additions to the list that gave our days some in...

I was inspired by Ginny of 1000 Hours Outside blog and instagram account last year in early spring and I have not been able to get the idea out of my head.  So this year, as part of my 100 small things list , I included attempting to log 1000 hours outside as a goal.  I made this a personal goal after going back and forth and trying to figure out if it was going to be a goal for the kids or our family as a whole - but I started questioning myself about then how would I determine if time counted?  What if one kid wasn't with us because they had school, or practice?  So I settled on the goal being my own personal goal - most times the kids are with me anyway, but if I take the dogs for a walk alone, or a I steal away some morning sipping coffee on the front porch while everyone sleeps in - those are my counted hours. In logistical terms, I try my best to start my cellphone timer when I go outside and then pause it and start again during the day as needed.  At th...