"To begin, begin."

Happy Wednesday, January 1st!! I hope you all got to have a memorable evening and are feeling well and optimistic this morning!

I found a fun blog post about New Years this week and decided to share the questions posed. Here are the questions, what are your answers?

1. What would you like MORE of and LESS of in your life? What hurts the most and what do you feel is missing in your life?
2. What are your big achievements from this past year (include academic, personal, spiritual or professional)?
3. What you are most excited about for the coming year? What do you really, really want this year? Why is that important to you? What excites you about it? How would it change your life?
4. What do you want to say “yes” to this next year?
5. If anything were possible, what do you want to be/do/have in this next year?
6. What did you learn this past year that you can use to accomplish this year’s goals? What do you need to learn this year that will help you accomplish this year’s goals?
7. What is the permission you need/want to reach your desired goals?
8. Who are your allies/support/partners in helping you reach your goals?
9. What negative self-talk gets in the way of reaching your goals? What can you say to yourself instead?
10. What is the secret, wacky and wild goal you want to achieve this year?

Here are some timely Wednesday Time Wasters for you though!

5 Ways to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick

24 Rejuvenating Ways to Spend Your Lunch Break

New Year's Traditions and Superstitions

So long, 2013

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! You can see my resolutions for this year - I'm pretty excited about them ... I even made them pretty for you! 2013 was a rough year for my family, but it had some wonderful moments as well: I saw my best friend get married, met a host of new beautiful babies in my life, celebrated my littlest one's first birthday, and had a thousand wonderful memories with my family. I read 12 books this year and enjoyed a new kind of motivation playing Book Bingo with a friend (I lost because I'm a slow reader and read without strategy, but it's a really fun way to keep track of your reading for the year!). Here's my bingo card for 2013 - the black are squares I completed and the grey are squares I was in the process of completing. I'll also give you my 2014 blank bingo card if you want to play too!

Along with my own personal resolutions, I have resolutions for my family and new plans for Law of Bambi! My resolutions for my family are to get outside more with the boys, to read more books together, and to be silly together (and make sure I'm not spending too much time being the mean mama). For the blog, I have a few new projects that I'll be doing this year.

First, I have plans for interviews with some organizations that I think everyone should know about and consider supporting, so Tuesdays will continue to spotlight causes worth supporting. I will be writing about healthy living ideas on Mondays as I have been working to lose weight and live better for a few months now and plan to continue it. Thursdays will have regular confession posts about things like parenting or life in general.

Wednesdays are going to start a new project that will go for the entirety of 2014. I will be trying to live with the fruits of the spirit in mind. There are 9 listed in Galatians 5:22, so I will spend one month focusing on each, and 3 will get a special two month focus. The plan is as follows: January & February will focus on Love, March on Joy, April on Peace, May & June on Patience, July on Kindness, August on Goodness, September on Faithfulness, October & November on Gentleness, and December on Self- Control. I think it lined up perfectly and am really excited to spend a year focusing so intently on living mindfully and considering values we can all agree on.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and spend some time thinking today about what kind of year you want 2014 to be! Who do you want to become? What about yourself do you want to improve? What adventure are you going to go on?