Resolutions Revised

2012: the year of Simplify

To ring in the new year, we spent the evening together... with hundreds of youth at a tri-stake dance. To say I was super excited about this adventure would be, well, not true. But, there was a need and so we postponed our party plans (both asleep by 10pm, like last year), got all fancied-up, and headed out into the cold night. Unfortunately, we didn't get the memo that the dance was starting later, so we arrived an hour early. To stave off boredom, we opted to go for a drive. We might also have been on a quest for ice cream, but anyway...

While we were driving, the conversation turned to resolutions. Dave asked if I had any, to which I eagerly responded with a endless stream of "i hope", "I wish", etc. I heard somewhere that writing your goals down will help you to achieve them; I had a million ideas in my head, but here are a few of them:

Better financial management (cut back & save)

Pay off our truck

Get window coverings

Restructure family scripture time

Cook with whole foods more & smaller portions

Exercise 5 days week

Get something - anything - up on the walls

Consistent family & personal prayers

Early to bed, early to rise

Get Benjamin potty-trained... soon!

Better home organization

Better time management

Be happier now

Be less judgmental and more forgiving

Consider a perspective shift (walk in someone else's shoes)

Revive our long-held tradition of date night

*I also want to SIMPLIFY - obviously, right?*

Let's just stop there; I'm a list-making, goal-oriented kind of gal, but sometimes things get a bit crazy and I need to take a step back.

The other day I was flipping through January's Ensign, but stopped quickly on President Monson's article on living an abundant life. Everyone strives for that abundant life; as I looked at my list above, that seems to be the theme I'm striving for in 2012 but the list is long and complicated. To achieve that abundance, he provides a simple recipe: A) Attitude - have one... that's positive; B) Believe - in yourself, others & eternal principles; and C) Courage - face your challenges with this.

After I read it, I realized that creating such a long list was not setting me up for the abundant life but for failure. My list now contains only two things:

1. Focus on the important

2. Simplify

Oh, and in case you were wondering, we found some ice cream after our nice drive. A chocolate-dipped cone was the perfect way to start our evening of stake dance fun... and I only nodded off once.

Happy New Year to all of you!