Halfway Through 2012

I'm stealing this from momco3, so go over to her blog and check out her mid-year reflection on her New Year's Resolutions.

How am I doing on my New Year's Resolutions?
It's over halfway through the year, and time for a check-up. So, how am I doing?

Well, better than I thought I might be. Last year, I had about 20 resolutions. This year, I only have five. (Some year, I might decide to be sane and only have one.)

Here's what I wrote in my journal before I made my resolutions:

I’m wondering if my word for this next year, for this upcoming year, ought to be “faithful”. Last year it was “attend”, and I still don’t feel like I’ve come to the end of that.

But “faithful” came to me tonight, and here’s the fleshing out of that: I know what to do, and I just need to be faithful to do it. I know what my priorities are: I’m for loving God first, then for loving Adam, then for loving our children, then for writing, and then for taking care of my house (which really is a sub-section under loving Adam and the kids), and then . . . then I get a bit more confused. Extended family, friends, and church probably come in there next. But the first four are very clear: God, Adam, kids, writing. That’s me, those are my duty.

And I do all of those, but not faithfully. Not like breathing. And not in the right order, always. Or even often. So, “faithful”. I want to be faithful. I want to do the things I know I’m supposed to do, and do the most important ones first, and then let the rest fall into place.

The resolutions
-Love God. Specific ways I’m going to try and show this love:

            -use the St. James devotional to read the Bible

            -use the St. James devotional or the BCP to pray, including Prayers of the People.

            -pray the Jesus prayer throughout the day.

            -pray and read Bible stories with the kids.

How am I doing on this one? Well, I've kept up on the first one, and on praying with the kids, but the rest have been spotty. Not non-existent, just inconsistent. So, I want to be more mindful of them for the rest of the year, esp. with reading Bible stories with the kids.

-Love Adam.

I think this one is going pretty well. :)

-Love the kids:

This one's interesting, because it's the one that takes up most of my time in day-to-day life. I've been noticing how much time I spend taking care of the kids' physical needs (bigger bodies mean MORE food prep and MORE laundry and BIGGER messes), and thinking that - especially while they're home in the summer - I need to include them in more of that work. This might, eventually, have the benefit of taking some of the weight of the household chores off my shoulders, but honestly the reason I want to do it is so that I can spend more time with them, not just taking care of them.

All in all, I think I'm doing well on this one, though as the kids continue to grow and change, I continue to see more and better ways to love them (the above just being one specific example).

-Write.

This is going well. I had a list of nine specific things I wanted to do in my writing life this year, and I've already accomplished five of them. That's really encouraging! If I keep working well, I think I might actually hit everything under this category this year.

How about you? How's it going past the mid-point?

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell