Invest

Last year instead of doing a New Years resolution, I decided to choose a word to focus on for the year. I'm sure you've heard of this idea, it seems pretty popular in the blogging world. But I must say, it was seriously a great thing for me. The word that I chose last year was Joy, and I can honestly say it was the most joyful year of my life. I think it was always in the back of my head that it was supposed to be my focus for the year, and I just really embraced the idea of looking at everything that happened with a joyful heart. I loved it. So I decided to do it again this year.

Joy came to me easily last year. Almost as soon as I decided to choose a word I knew joy was the one. This year has been much harder. I have a lot of things I want to work on this year, but I just couldn't come up with something that would really include everything I was thinking. After going back and forth on a few, I decided on Invest.

Invest will allow me to really focus on everything I'm hoping this year will be. Instead of a few goals here and there that I want to accomplish, it's really more of a new mindset, a new way of approaching life.

I want to invest in my family - I have a lot of new things I want to do as a family, like dinners around the table instead of one of us feeding/watching G while the other eats, I want to make it a point to read to Grayson every night at bedtime, I want to establish a better day-to-day routine for us that makes life simple.

I want to invest in myself - I almost chose health as my word, because I really want that to be a big thing this year - healthier eating, healthier habits, regular exercise, etc.

I want to invest in my own and my family's spirituality. I don't know that I've really touched on it on the blog, but I've got some major hang ups with religion and Christianity, but I feel like I'm finally at a point where I can look at things with an open heart and try to make some changes.

I want to invest in my relationships - with the husband, with Grayson, with my parents, friends, family, and so on.

I want to invest in my community - I have some ideas for how I want to give back, and I'm sure I'll do a future post or two about how it goes.

So that is my word for the new year. I feel good about it. I feel like I'm already on the right track in a lot of ways. Life certainly has it's challenges, but things are pretty dang good at the moment. I just want to make it all as good as it can be. I feel super blessed to be where I'm at, so I want to pour myself more into the things and people that matter most to me. So here's to a fabulous year for everyone! I hope you're all as excited about getting started on 2015 as this girl.

Joy

I've never really been one to make resolutions at the start of a new year. I know myself...I know I would just be setting myself up for failure if I made some grand proclamation like "I'm gonna work out three times a week, every week!" or "I'm giving up coke for six months! (I mean coca cola, btw. Drugs are bad, kids.). So I tend to just stray away from the whole thing.

But this year I decided to jump on what seems to be a bit of a blogger bandwagon and choose a word for the year. A word that will motivate and inspire me, that I can focus on in order to make this year what I want it to be. Of all the words in the world, the one that immediately came to mind was joy.

I want to be joyful in all that I do. I want to truly appreciate every little mundane detail of my life for the amazing gift that it is, and to feel the joy that I should with every action. I've always, always hated saying anything when things were going good because I felt like it was tempting fate or something, but seriously...I have no complaints right now. Life is good, and I want to feel that goodness every day.

Instead of feeling frustrated when I'm trying to get Grayson to fall asleep for the third time that night, I want to feel joy in the fact that I have a beautiful, healthy, amazing little boy in my arms...and to cherish the moment, because before too long I won't have the chance to rock him to sleep every night.

Instead of being annoyed when Addie wants to play during Grayson's nap, the only "me" time that I get in a day, I want to feel joy that she's here with me, that she still loves her mom, that she is young enough and energetic enough to want to play every time she gets the chance. I want to appreciate every second, because someday that sweet little pup won't be here with me.

Instead of going through the motions with Arsen, I want to really focus and rekindle some of that joy, some of the pure silliness that we have always had in our relationship. It is so, so easy to get through the day, collapse on the couch after Grayson has gone to sleep, and just zone out to a show on Netflix. He works so hard every day, and I exhaust myself chasing after G. But the core of what makes our relationship so great is that we communicate so well, and we have so much fun together. I want to find a joyful moment with him each and every day.

I love my life. I love my family. I love this little home of ours. I love that I get to stay home and spend every day with my sweet boy and my silly dog. I want to embrace my life for all of the goodness that is in it, and I want to feel that joy in everything that I do. I want to radiate joy to others, to hopefully inspire some good in the world somehow. I have so many hopes and dreams and aspirations for my life, and sometimes I get caught up in the fact that my day to day right now is basically chasing a baby around the house and trying desperately to accomplishing just one thing before the day is over. But this season of my life will be all to short, and before I know it all my babies will be in school and I will have so much free time to accomplish those goals and aspirations and my heart will break that I don't have a tiny baby to chase. So I am going to soak it up while I can and let myself feel the love and happiness and joy until I think my heart might burst.

That is my "New Years Resolution". And I couldn't be more excited to get started.