Happy January! It’s hard to believe that it is a New Year. I have to admit: I completely missed the boat on feeling all “new year, new me” on January 1st. We had a VERY exciting weekend on our homestead with our sow giving birth to her first litter of six piglets! I’ll write a separate post about all of that, but basically our weekend was consumed with all things PIGS. Haha.
But it is a new year, and every year I love to reflect back on the year before and think ahead to the year that is approaching.
First before I dive into 2023, let’s check back on the year 2022. I wrote a blog post with 22 goals I wanted to accomplish and here is a recap of that:
- Finish my 10 butterflies cross stitch project (I did NOT finish the butterflies, but I did make lots of progress! I have five done and have started on the 6th one).
- Memorize 1st John as a family (Nope. Theo’s schedule shift changed in June and our family devotions routine went 100% out the window)
- Memorize Proverbs 3 for myself (I also did not do this)
- Visit 5 OH state parks as a family (Also nope- we visited one at least 5x, though)
- Spend 1000 hours outside (Yes! We for sure accomplished this one!)
- Theo Guys weekend (Nope that did not happen)
- Suzanne Ladies Weekend (Yes, I did get to go to Cleveland with some of my lady friends in March!)
- Theo and Suzanne couples trip (Yes, we went to FL in June to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary!)
- Family vacation (We did not take a family vacation)
- Teach Kiah how to read (Not yet, but he is getting there and making lots of progress. Although I don’t think I can take credit for the progress he has made haha)
- Establish a workout routine (Nope. I was doing really well with consistently running until I got pregnant and very sick and then all that went out the window)
- Finish my continuing ed credits (I don’t think I did a single credit)
- Theo 1 year on HNT (Hostage Negotiation Team) (Yes! Theo has hit one year on HNT)
- Continue to invest in CHESS and establish my classroom (Yes, I would for sure say that I have done this in 2022!)
- Learn to play a song on the piano (Nope. Our piano was put in the barn when we moved here in May and it hasn’t been plugged in even once since then)
- Write to Reagan 1x a month (I also did not do this. We have supported Reagan through Compassion International for 12 years now but my letter writing has become abysmal)
- Read 100 books (Yes! I read 130!)
- Save a $% for down payment on land (We kind of skipped over this goal and went straight to borrowing the money to buy the land ha)
- Profit on Airbnb (Again, this plan was when we were living next door to our rental. That changed when we moved in May and I only ran the Airbnb for one month of 2022. I wouldn’t really call that a “profit” haha)
- Teach Sunday school for 1x (Theo and I did teach Sunday school from January-March and then things with our church started to go downhill very fast and we stepped away from that. We have not yet completed membership at our new church and haven’t been able to get too involved yet).
- Host guests 12x (ideally 1x a month, but sometimes it will look like 3 one month and none the next) (I didn’t track this at all, so I’m not sure if we ended up hosting 12x. I know we had overnight guests at least 6x, and we had quite a few people over for dinner and we really enjoyed bonfires on our new property, so I think we may have at least gotten close?)
- Write 100 blog posts (I published 85 blog posts in 2022, which is actually closer than I would have thought, given how the year unfolded for me!)
2022 was the year of my absolute most difficult pregnancy and so as I look back I realize that I barely accomplished anything that January me had intended to do. But December me is a can look back and see what I did accomplish NOT from this list. And even though 2022 was a year of a lot of hard and a lot of eating humble pie for me, I think overall I am starting to feel at peace with that.
And so as I step into 2023, I feel a complete need to let go of goals and accomplishments. I’m not saying this in a way that I’m “giving up”, I just am learning that I have no idea what will unfold this year. I have no idea if it will be a “successful” year or if it will be a “difficult” year, but I suspect that it will be a little bit of both. It sounds passive to say that my goal for 2023 is to survive and to just open my hands up to letting go of all the things that I want to control, but at this point it’s kind of where I am at! Are there habits I would like to build? Yep. Are there things that we would like to accomplish? Yep. Have I made some cutesy lists of the things that I would like to accomplish? Of course I have! But I will not be publishing any of them here this year. Instead, I’m approaching this year with more of a “Jesus, take the wheel” mentality.
My three top goals are general and not as specific:
- have a baby!
- spend time enjoying my family and bringing joy back into our household. Live like I enjoy my children, and make sure to communicate that to them, too.
- work towards paying down our house debt
I have picked a word for the year and still enjoy spending time studying where this word is found in Scripture and how it can apply to my life throughout this upcoming year. My word of the year is:
“Not to us, Oh Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” – Pslam 115:1
May I be steadfast this year, no matter what comes my way. If it’s the highest mountaintop or if it is the lowest valley’s, or if it’s a wild ride of both.