5 ways to rock 2014!

Hey there folks! Now that we're already halfway through January (eek!!), I thought it would be a good time to talk about showing the new year who's boss. Taking 2014 by the shoulders and shaking it, yelling "this is my year!!!"

I know a lot of people who don't make New Years resolutions, and that's totally fine. You do your thing, I'll do mine. Me, I have about 12. Give or take. There are several little ones, such as keeping up with my project life, blog once a week (which is clearly going well....), and to read more books while watching less television. I love to read, so that one should be a no brainer. And I'm sure once I re-watch all 3 season of Veronica Mars to get ready for the movie coming out in March (yay!!), that resolution will be in full swing. There are also slightly more difficult ones on my New years to-do list, such as getting hubby to come to the gym with me several times a week, learning Italian, and writing a novel in 30 days (more about that here).

But not matter which camp you fall into with the New Years resolutions, it's my humble opinion that everyone could stand to do something new in the coming year. Don't make a single resolution, that's totally fine by me!! But there are ways to make the most out of your year without them. I have assembled a short list of 5 ways to knock the socks off of 2014. Since this list is forever long, I'm going to split it up. Ideas 1 and 2 are below, and 3-5 are in the next post. Enjoy!

1. Get Happy!!!! My happy is going to look a whole lot different from yours, and that's perfectly acceptable. Encouraged, even. How boring would life be if everyone was excited by the same thing? According to Gretchen Rubin, author of the Happiness Project and Happier at Home, the steps to gleaning the most happiness possible from an event are to:

• Anticipate the event
• Savor it as it unfolds
• Express your happiness as you're feeling it
• Recall the happy memory

Not too difficult, right? For example, Nick's birthday this year (the closest event I can think of off the top of my head!). We've been thinking about taking a little trip, so once we have the dates, I'm going to mark them on my calendar so I have a visual reminder to "anticipate the event".

In order to "savor it as it unfolds", my plan is to put our phones on silent, bring a 2 person board game or two, and maybe some......other things....to make Nick's birthday fun. Wink wink. I want to be totally present in each moment we get to experience together.

We have kind of a joke saying in our family; "This is fun guys. Isn't this fun? We're having fun, aren't we?" But really, if you're enjoying your time with someone, make sure they know. Make sure you say it out loud and remind yourself that this once-in-a-lifetime moment is pretty cool. I have a brother-in-law who is awesome at this, and I don't even know if he knows it. About a year after Nick and I got married, we were all in the parking lot of Waffle House at about 1:30 AM (cause that's just how we roll), and he randomly turned to me and said "I'm really glad you're in our family". Totally simple, but that was over 2 years ago and I still smile every time I think about it. People appreciate when you "express your happiness as it unfolds". 

It's easy for me to "recall the happy memory", because my camera is never farther away than my purse or back pocket. Photos, scrapbooks, project life, facebook albums, that's what helps me remember all of the awesome things I've been blessed enough to take part in. Find what works for you and make it happen. 

2. Let it go! Easier said than done, and no one is going to struggle with this more than me this year. But trust me peeps......it's totally worth it. Don't let something from year, months, even weeks ago steal a single second of 2014. It's not healthy, fun, or worth it to dwell on things that, more than likely, you can't control anyway! In the spirit of moving on and letting it go, that's all I have to say on this topic. :)

The One who died for all

I've been toying with the ideas of writing devotionals. Not a book, not to try and publish something or make fist-fulls of money. Just because I want to make my spiritual life more of a priority, and I can's seems to make that happen. So in my head, if I'm writing a devotional, I'm probably getting more out of it than if I'm reading one. And who knows, maybe someone else will get something out of it as well.
I was moving some dressers this evening, and after I got the first one off the porch and into the bedroom, I stopped and stood still for a second. I thought to myself, "Red (I call myself Red), you have more important things to do. Go pick up your Bible." I'd taken a walk on my lunch break this afternoon, and tried to just talk to God. You know, like in the country song I've been watching you, or whatever it is, where the little boy kneels down and "talks to God like he was talking to a friend". Now if a 3 year old can do it, I darn well should be able to. It's not like I don't have enough going on to ask His advice about. One of the things I asked today on my walk was that God show me how to fix my relationship with Him. It's not where it needs to be, it's not where i want it to be, and something needs to be done about that. This seemed like a logical place to start. Anyway, back to this evening. I grabbed a bookmark that our awesome neighbors gave me at Christmastime, which has verses listed by topic. I flipped to 2 Corinthians 5:17, which is listed under "salvation". It sounded like a nice topic to start with. That particular verse says "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." I read it a couple times, let is marinate, and decided it wasn't quite what I was looking for tonight. I scanned the rest of chapter 5, and came across verses 14 and 15, which say "...that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again." Now THAT'S what I was looking for. I'm pickin up what Paul is putting down. I'm paintin what he's priming right there. I spend so much time stuck in the "not good enough to get into Heaven" mindset, focusing on what I need to change, what I need to do, who I need to convert, all the stuff that really, when it comes down to it, is just icing on the cake of your relationship with the One who died for all. Did you hear that? ALL. Every. Last. One. Of. Us. On. This. Earth. He wants all of us to come home with Him when He comes back. He died for all of us. To save all of us. All we have to do is accept that. I want to live for Him. I want to share Him, I want to take care of His people that aren't as crazy blessed as I am. There's a song by Casting Crowns called Until the Whole World Hears, and two of the lines are "I wanna be Your hands and feet, I wanna live a life that leads" and "and I pray that they will see, more of You and less of me". That's the life I want to live. Starting today. I want to shrink into the shadows and let Him shine out, to live for Him and not for myself anymore. I suppose the hard part will be figuring out how to do that.....any thoughts?
I know this was super stream-of-conciousness style, and maybe some day I'll come back and edit this to make it read like an actual devotional. But for now, it works for me. :)   

Refrigerator Redoux

Well, apparently the whole blog thing didn't make it into my list of top priorities, since it's been over a year since I've written anything!! I think between not knowing what (or how!!) to blog, getting busy with work, Hubby being in school and working, sprinkle-land just took a backseat. But I've heard that the only way to get back into something you've totally thrown aside (sorry bout that...) is to just do it! So.....for my first post of 2013....*drumroll please*.....I re-did the front of my refrigerator!!! Cue the confetti and applause, right? I know, I know....kinda lame. But I figure if I start with a little post, maybe I'll actually get the hang of this blogging thing and keep coming back for more!!



Before: Clutter Central!!

My fridge, like many fridges I've seen, was a catch-all for every scrap of paper I deemed important, cards from friends, invitations to various events, photos, a magnetic "fridge farm" that made lots of noise and music while trying to teach my god-daughter the alphabet.....you name it, it had a spot on my fridge. The only problem was, I couldn't stand the clutter. It was like tetris, always trying to fit the next invitation on there, deciding which one was coming down, the massive guilt attacks I suffered from taking anything off of it, because what if the person who sent it to me comes over and notices it's gone??? They would think I didn't think their invitation/card/photo/etc was important enough for a coveted fridge spot!! Not that anyone could find anything on that happy little magnetic disaster....but no more!! I pinterested a solution for that mess. Yup. A trip to the dollar store, some paint, some maganet stickers, and BAM! A color coordinated, organized, beautiful fridge door that I can stand to look at now. Sometimes I just stand in my kitchen gazing dreamily at it, imagining that the rest of my house is that organized. And color coordinated. And then I trip over a cat toy and fall onto a pile of laundry, knocking over a stack of dirty plates on the way down, and that dream is shattered. Loudly. But oh well.

After: giant ball of purple and green awesomeness. 

Hubby thinks that the photos should cover a longer period of time. I beg to differ. It's not like I can't change them out, and right now, the photos on there represent our life at this very moment. And I'm all about living in the moment. I think the oldest photo on there right now is from April. And I'm okay with that. I have so many photos in various stages of display all around our tiny little apartment, and I like the thought of the refrigertor, the first big honking thing you see when you walk in the door, being kind of a snapshot of where our lives are at right now.