I know this is probably a bit cliché to post about new years’ resolutions, but I think maybe if I write them down for all to see it will help me to do better in keeping them! So here goes (in somewhat random order):
1. Become more disciplined spiritually. This is pretty much my New Years’ resolution every year, and I am ashamed to say that most years I fail pretty miserably at it, but I’d like to take a more organized approach this year and maybe that will help. One part of that is to keep a prayer journal. In general, I find that I am more focused in my prayer life when I write things down. I am a pretty bad daydreamer and writing my prayers down prevents a lot of that! : )
2. Make more defined work and family time. As my Etsy business has picked up a great deal this year, I have found myself trying to fill orders and answer emails at random times throughout the day. It’s hard to do with a 2 year old, and a lot of times I feel guilty for not paying more attention to him when he’s playing, etc. I do try to do the majority of my work when he’s napping or has gone to bed, and I know I’ll always probably have to be checking my emails throughout the day in case anyone has an urgent question, but I would like to do better about setting a work schedule. And along with this, of course another resolution of mine is to make more sales next year! I had a good year, but I think next year could be better.
3. Do better about making visitors feel welcome when they visit our congregation, and also have more meaningful conversations with our regular visitors and members. We generally arrive an hour before services to do prep work for the kids’ class and worship service, but even still I find myself working up until the last minute at times. And after services, we sometimes have a hard time getting the kids to leave class and so by the time I finally leave a lot of people are already gone. Add to that chasing around a very active little boy, and it’s sometimes hard to talk to people. But I really would like to do better in this, and I think maybe if I work harder to get stuff ready for services and class ahead of time, I can probably talk to people more before church. And I guess we are just going to have to be stricter with the kiddos to get them out of the classroom! Haha!
4. Make more opportunities to teach Cole about God and the Bible. Cole goes to the children’s class with me every Sunday, but since we have limited space and resources, all the kids (from the babies to about age 12) are in there together, so most of the time the class is geared towards the older kids. I know he does benefit from being in there, and he is starting to listen more as he gets older, but a lot of times he ends up playing with the other little ones. This bothers me a lot of times because I know if he were growing up in the states, he would have an awesome toddler class to go to that would be completely geared towards kids his age and they would be teaching him lots of good stuff. I try to do this on occasion, but I don’t think about it on a daily basis like I should. So I would like to look for more “teachable moments” in our daily routine.
5. Try to find or make less toxic options for the products we use on a daily basis. I guess I probably got more interested in living a “greener” lifestyle when we started using cloth diapers for Cole. Plus, living here in Cusco, a lot of people are into natural alternatives so a lot of stuff like that is easily accessible (and cheap!). But there are other things, like cleaning products, that I buy here that I know are probably loaded with bad chemicals. I know it’s not realistic to replace all of these things, but lately I’ve come across several DIY recipes (thank you, Pinterest!) for natural toxin-free cleaning products, so I’d like to give a few of them a try. I’ve been happy with a lot of the replacements I have tried so far, but I’d like to do a little more this year.
So I guess that covers the major resolutions I have for this year! Oh, and I guess another resolution would be to keep up the blog a little better! I’ve kind of slacked off a bit as this year has gone on!
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
