Further Exploration of New Years Resolutions

Wow. So I just did a quick review of the posts I've made this month, and I'm still so surprised and struck by how early I began thinking about 2019 Goals... I NEVER think about my resolutions this early!! Yet here I am again with another post exploring the concepts of 2019 Resolutions...

So to recap what I've already published:

One goal I have for 2019 is to train and prepare for my first ever half marathon. I'll be going from pregnant to post-partum to half marathon in 10 months. I've already registered, so this is something I'm definitely doing, but I want to try and be as prepared as I can be and not just "wing it" or show up without training and settle for "just" walking it.
     Another goal I have is to eat out less. That probably seems small or silly, but it's a habit I need to break/reduce/minimize. It has a very negative effect on my budget!
     I'm toying with a couple of words to define my year -- debating between Thankful and Grateful. I know, basically the same word. I just haven't decided which one I want to really settle on. But a part of that is extending my gratitude to others for their roles and impact on my life. I want to make at least one person a month feel special, appreciated, valued for who they are in a way that maybe they haven't been recognized before. It won't be a big gesture -- just a nice hand written card, but one that comes deep from the heart.

So what kind of self care do I want to gift myself next year?
- More hiking!! I want to go to Hanging Rock State Park and explore more parks in the mountains. There is something about being in the mountains, in the peace and quiet, beneath the trees (and sometimes above the trees when I reach the peak), that grounds me...
- A trip out West to visit some of the National Parks Dad loved and had planned for us to see together. I dont know if this is a realistic goal for this year, but it's one I want to cross off in the near future!
- More yoga. I'd like to try and find at least five minutes a day to practice yoga. Maybe as just a breathing/meditation exercise. Maybe stretching. Maybe a quick flow. Or maybe I spend five minutes breathing and it grows into a full on hour long practice. But five minutes is the goal I want to set. Five minutes because yoga is an act of self care, and I want to keep it in that realm and not turn it into a fitness goal. I want yoga to remain calming, transformative, quiet, and a haven -- mentally, emotionally, and physically.

         My Sunday School class and I are doing a study together: Facing Your Giants by Max Lucado. At first I was not too enthused about this study, but it was the one everyone wanted to do so I didn't say anything against it. But oh man has it been good so far!!  One of the themes of the study (the obvious theme lol) is identifying the things in our lives that are Goliaths (road blocks, intimidations, fears, failures, etc) to our spiritual growth and faith. This last week, the concept of how I use my time and what I focus on were the Goliaths that came to my attention. I realized just how much time I waste watching mindless TV that I really don't care about. And it stirred a deep desire within me to be better with my time and what I focus on.
          So in 2019, I want to spend less time looking at TV/computer screens during my free time and more time doing everything else. Quilting. Home-making. Mothering. Reading. Reading the Bible. 

        Maybe "be more intentional" is a good summary of all my 2019 goals. Because when you look at everything I want to do, that's really what it comes down to. Being more intentional with my time! Being more intentional with my self-care. Being more intentional with getting outdoors. Being more intentional with my running. Being more intentional with my eating. Being more intentional with my Bible study and time spent with God.

Vacation Reflections

Today is the last day of our 11 day long vacation from work. I had honestly under-estimated how badly I needed this time off and this time away from the daily grind. But now that it's coming to an end, I'm so NOT ready to go back to work. LOL.

Daniel and I originally took this time off with the intention of taking a few days for a road trip to Pennsylvania to explore Gettysburg and Amish country. We'd not taken an actual vacation all year, and Daniel and my Dad were supposed to visit Gettysburg this fall. But with Dad's death, that obviously didn't happen and I volunteered to go with Daniel to Gettysburg in Dad's stead.

But the closer we got to our time off, the less confident we felt about making that trip. Financially we're STILL recovering from the last year (paying to move my sister, the added expenses of my sister/nephew on our utilities, Dad's death and all the driving/moving/eating that went with that, putting down the new flooring in the house). And with me being pregnant and finances will only get more and more tight, we really didn't feel confident to take a road trip/vacation. Not to mention we hadn't done any Christmas shopping so were facing the financial pressures and stresses of the holiday gift giving season. So we agreed to cancel our road trip and to just enjoy a stay-cation.

The second reason we took this week off was because our Christmas Celebration calendar was insane this year. We had 11 Christmas gatherings this year. ELEVEN!! To help mitigate stress and allow us to (hopefully) actually be able to enjoy the holiday season, we needed to take the time off to prepare and have time to breathe in between events. And I have to say -- what a difference it makes to be on vacation with all these gathering responsibilities.

For the last five years, I've been sick every Christmas. In hindsight, I'm attributing it to the fact that I wasn't on vacation during Christmas and was rushing from gathering to gathering while working and getting minimal sleep.

This was the first year I successfully avoided getting sick for Christmas! It was glorious!

We were also able to attend 9 of the 11 gatherings and be prepared for all of them. If we had not taken vacation, we would only have been able to attend 5. Although I think next year we will need to curtail our attendance to ALL these events. It's just so much!

But Christmas gatherings aside, we were able to get some real REST. Which was amazing. And we were able to get some things done around the house. We got all the furniture out of the guest room. Daniel finally got all his work gear out of the guest room. We purchased paint to transform the guest room into the nursery, and starting the painting process.   But mainly, we were able to rest.

After a year of insanity, crisis after crisis, stress, emotion, and pregnancy --  having that time to rest was so desperately needed. Every other time we'd taken off of work this year was to manage a crisis. First my sister -- moving her from Upstate SC in with us. Then my Dad's death in May. I took off two days in July to emotionally decompress from Dad's death. Then I took a weekend off in October to go to a quilt retreat that ended up with me leaving early because the beds were SO BAD that it threw my back out and I had to go home. So yeah. Not much fun this year. Not any real time off this year.

Self Care: intentional/preventive vs last minute

Have you ever heard of Mirna Valerio?

Okay, if not, you need to check her out:
National Geographic introduces Mirna Valerio
Mirna's Facebook Fan Page
Mirna's Website
Mirna's Instagram Page

She is pretty much amazing and basically my hero. And I follow her on every platform I can. Mostly because she is inspiring, real, relatable, and encouraging. I love having a woman who is big like me doing big things in the world of running. No longer do I feel alone about being a big girl who wants  to run. THERE IS A WHOLE COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE LIKE ME. We are called the Fat Girls Running, and yes we have a facebook group. ;)  Where we come together with passion for running, a place to express our insecurities, a place to ask questions we would otherwise feel awkward asking, a place to encourage one another and cheer each other on. It's basically the best -- and so inspiring to see women like me achieving goals and running long races. I've never been so motivated to run in my life. And I've been doing it more and more regularly. :)


Any way, today Mirna made a post on her instagram that caught my attention and made me stop and think. Mirna asked: "Have you figured out what kind of self-care you'll be gifting yourself [next year]?"

I've literally never asked myself this question. Ever.

I fully believe in self care. But it's often a last minute, what am I going to do today for self care? kind of question. I don't pre-plan or goal plan my self care. It's literally me trying to figure out how to pamper myself on whatever leftover time or money I have, and usually this problem solving venture is when I am far beyond stressed out and overwhelmed. It's not a preventive/pre-emptive practice.

So maybe Mirna has a point -- maybe I'm approaching self-care all wrong.

Maybe I need to make self-care intentional. Planned. I need to approach it as more of a gift to myself instead of just one more box to tick off my to do list for the week.

So what kind of self care do I want to gift myself next year?
- More hiking!! I want to go to Hanging Rock State Park and explore more parks in the mountains. There is something about being in the mountains, in the peace and quiet, beneath the trees (and sometimes above the trees when I reach the peak), that grounds me...
- A trip out West to visit some of the National Parks Dad loved and had planned for us to see together. I dont know if this is a realistic goal for this year, but it's one I want to cross off in the near future!
- More yoga. I'd like to try and find at least five minutes a day to practice yoga. Maybe as just a breathing/meditation exercise. Maybe stretching. Maybe a quick flow. Or maybe I spend five minutes breathing and it grows into a full on hour long practice. But five minutes is the goal I want to set. Five minutes because yoga is an act of self care, and I want to keep it in that realm and not turn it into a fitness goal. I want yoga to remain calming, transformative, quiet, and a haven -- mentally, emotionally, and physically.

God sends evil spirits?!

My Sunday School class is working through Max Lucado's Facing Your Giants Bible Study.  We're early into the study (Chapter 2), which talks about when Samuel goes to Bethlehem to search for a new king to replace Saul and finds the young David, who God anoints as the next King (1 Samuel 16). The study itself focuses on the first half of 1 Samuel 16, but I continued reading the second half of the chapter, which is where David becomes a part of Saul's service as a lyre player:

14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.”

I feel like these are verses that I've read many many times and just kind of glossed over. But tonight, verse 14 really caught my attention. An evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. Wait, what? God sent an evil spirit to Saul? God has evil spirits??? I was confused. I was stopped in my tracks. I needed to understand this deeper.

Since I'm at work, I didn't have my Bible with its handy dandy foot notes and references. (sigh). So I turned to Google (which admittedly can be very dangerous) and came across an excellent resource that helped explain this to me: Apologetics Press


They brought up a few excellent points:

- God is the ultimate judge and is capable of and justified in punishing people who have done wrong. So it is possible that God was punishing Saul for his consistent refusal to obey God. "(God) uses evil to chastise evil." 
         We focus so much on the loving God, that sometimes we forget that God is our only judge and jury, and that he is also an angry God, one who destroyed mankind and his own creation with the Great Flood as a punishment to long standing patterns of improper behavior.  Often times I think we focus on punishment being doled out primarily after death (going to Hell), and forget that God is perfectly capable of punishment during this time on Earth.

- God may not have actually sent the evil spirit to Saul, but rather permitted it to happen (think about when God permitted Satan to tempt/torture Job), again as a consequence of Saul's disobedience.

- The authors also more closely analyze the ancient Hebrew words that were translated into this verse, and note the two main words used for "evil spirit" were ruach (spirit, life breath, disposition of mindset/attitude) and ra'a (bad, unhappy, sad of heart/mind). So while these two words used together can certainly refer to an evil spirit, they could also be referring to Saul's own bad attitude or being plagued with depression!
         Which makes insane sense to me when Saul's attendants suggest a lyre player to help Saul feel better when the "evil spirit" were to come around and affect Saul. Music therapy is a historically well known method to combat depression/anxiety/mental instabilities!


I think I am most intrigued by the concept that Saul suffered from mental instability/depression due to my own struggles with anxiety and mild depression. And when you're in the thick of an "attack," it indeed feels like an evil spirit tormenting you.

So interesting!!

Christmas Apathy

We are knee deep into the Christmas season now. And this is the first Christmas in a LONG time where I just haven't been in the spirit. I didn't care to put up lights or the tree or any decorations. And when Daniel and I finally did put up lights, we did the basics. And when we finally did put up the tree, I honestly didn't even care that there was an eight inch wide swath of the tree where the lights were dead, and I didn't even bother to hang any ornaments on the tree this year. To complete the "I don't care" Christmas mood, gift shopping has been scaled way back. I'm talking smaller budgets and simpler gifts. Lots of gift cards this year (which would normally annoy me as they're "impersonal" and "lazy" -- even though I love to get them). And we're just doing baked goods for extended family members. $10 gift limits on the kids in the family (all 10 kids in the family). So yeah. Simple is the name of the game this year.

I think a part of my apathy for Christmas this year has a lot to do with the Christmas schedule. Christmas has become out of control with the number of events and gatherings. Daniels family alone has four -- TWO for his parents (I admire that they want to include my brother in laws new girlfriend and have to have a separate gathering due to custody agreement, but it's just more pressure/stress on Daniel and I; not to mention the now added social pressure to purchase gifts for someone we've only met three times). Then a whirlwind road trip (4 hours each way) to my grandparents for the day (because they're grumpy and don't do well with overnight visitors and we're too cheap to get a hotel room). Then two work Christmas parties (one for each of our departments). Then our Sunday School Christmas party. That's eight Christmas gatherings in about 2 weeks. And doesn't include Daniel and I doing something together for Christmas.
     It's just too much. We took off a week of work between my birthday and Christmas with the intention of being able to enjoy Christmas. But our schedule has become so full, there really won't be much time off. Not to mention we'd planned on using that week to really get some serious work done in the nursery. But there won't be much time for that either.
     That's a lot of complaining. And to balance it out, I do want to have it mentioned that I am so grateful for the people that we have in our lives and how blessed we are that so much of Daniels family is close and wants to get together frequently. There just doesn't seem to be much balance... I'm seriously considering skipping the work parties and one of the in laws gatherings.  That will make it feel much more manageable and way less stressful.

While we're knee deep in the Christmas season, my mind keeps drifting and focusing on New Years. Which is kind of surprising to me. The thought of New Years doesn't usually hit me until after Christmas and then it's a last minute mad dash to figure out what I want out of the new year. But apparently not this go around!
     My mind is so full of the possibilities of a fresh start in 2019. I keep asking myself what I want my goals to be, what I want to focus on, what I want to accomplish, what word(s) I want to declare as my "Words of the Year."
     One goal I have for 2019 is to train and prepare for my first ever half marathon. I'll be going from pregnant to post-partum to half marathon in 10 months. I've already registered, so this is something I'm definitely doing, but I want to try and be as prepared as I can be and not just "wing it" or show up without training and settle for "just" walking it.
     Another goal I have is to eat out less. That probably seems small or silly, but it's a habit I need to break/reduce/minimize. It has a very negative effect on my budget!
     I'm toying with a couple of words to define my year -- debating between Thankful and Grateful. I know, basically the same word. I just haven't decided which one I want to really settle on. But a part of that is extending my gratitude to others for their roles and impact on my life. I want to make at least one person a month feel special, appreciated, valued for who they are in a way that maybe they haven't been recognized before. It won't be a big gesture -- just a nice hand written card, but one that comes deep from the heart.