New Years Resolutions...

My number one New Year's resolution is to make God more present in my daily life and the daily life of my family without being overbearing. I want to make it a lifestyle change as opposed to a fad/obsession. As most of you know, I am a fairly religious person who attends Mass every Sunday, prays regularly, and attended Catholic school from K through college, but I still feel a void in my life and want that to change. In my efforts to be more proactive and make it a family effort, we make sure we pray before dinner and Jared is reading from his Children's Bible for 20 minutes a day. So far, it has been a complete success! Jared is showing a lot of interest in Jesus and Moses in particular and keeping me and Ryan on our toes! It has been a little while since I studied the bible, but I am amazed at how much I have retained!
What amazes me most is that Jared is magically better behaved and there is an overriding feeling of peace in the house.
Our next step is to rent The Ten Commandments to make everything much more visible for Jared. While he has not had any religious schooling to date, he is attentive during Mass and asks questions about statues, things the priest says and stories he reads in his Children's Bible. It has been amazing to see a little mind who didn't know about Jesus want to learn and retain information about God, Jesus, Mary, Moses, the Ten Commandments, sin, etc. Being raised in a strict Catholic family and attending Catholic school from kindergarten on, I do not remember a time when I wasn't aware of God, going to Church every Sunday and praying every night before getting tucked in for the best bedtime stories told by my loving and insanely imaginative father!

I see the moon

And the moon sees me

God bless the moon

And God bless me

When I think back to my childhood and the influence my parents had on my life, I think of daddy's bedtime stories, mommy's lullabies that she made extra special by changing the words to "Sarah" "Sweet Little Angel" etc. and my mom doing the sign of the cross on my forehead while saying "God Bless You, Sweet Dreams, I love you!" It is memories like these that I want my children to cherish for their lifetime and strive to give to their children. Thank you Mom and Dad!

New Year’s resolution number two goes hand in hand with number one…to worry less and to trust in God. I know everything will be ok, but I tend to want to resolve everything myself. I am a perfectionist and I am working on taking the back seat and letting life run its course. All I can say is that I am working on it and it is a challenge, but I think in the end I will succeed!
My third and final New Year’s resolution is to be thrifty! While I am generally pretty thrifty, I still enjoy shopping and I really need to only purchase the items that my family or I need. When it comes to decorating, I am going to try to be extremely crafty – refinish furniture, make headboards, find things at thrift shops and go for the country/homey feel where you can leave your shoes on and not worry about a little dirt. I think that feel is easier to achieve when you are working on a budget and will most likely have mismatched furniture for a while, plus, I love it!

Happy New Years to everyone! I wish you all the joy, love and peace the world has to offer!