I have one more resolution to add to my list. Perhaps it’s foolish to add more and it will simply set me up for failure. But I think my resolutions have been simple and obtainable. This last resolution is a musical one.
I’m not going to aim at becoming a guitar virtuoso. I’m simply going to attempt to try the things I’ve been afraid of and have continually found a way around.
I’m going to stop running from barre chords.
Here goes nothing.
“There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fill the void.”
– Oswald Chambers
I hate waiting. I try to be patient, but honestly, I am an impatient person. So often I get that little kid mentality of “I want this and I want it now!” As a Christian, I know that God’s ideas are often different from mine, and that it often involves waiting for something better. Sometimes I’ll think I know better and will try to rush ahead and force something that seems like it will work but in the end is not such a good idea.
I think I need to remind myself of some things that have been well worth the wait.
– Marriage. So worth the wait. Sure, I could have married at an earlier age, to the wrong person, and I wouldn’t be enjoying the marital bliss I am now. Waiting was definitely the way to go.
– A job offer right after college. I didn’t get that. I applied and looked and applied and just didn’t find anything. What I did stumble upon was an offer to travel with the African Children’s Choir, one of the best experiences of my life. A job offer could wait.
– Our house. We actually got this in a pretty short time, but it felt like forever. We had a couple different houses that we could have jumped on, but would not have been as good as the house we ended up with. When we wanted to just buy something already, we both realized we needed to wait just a little longer. So glad we did.
Waiting never seems so bad on the flip side. I need to remind myself of that when it starts to suck.
Drew and I took our annual trip to the site of our engagement, St. Mark’s Lighthouse. We had planned to go on the 31st, like usual, but the evil chocolate fondue that we consumed at 9 p.m. the night before wouldn’t let us. We were both wide awake until about 2 or 3 a.m. and since we had to be up early (earlier than the rest of our week off) to drop his mom off at the airport, we decided we would have been exhausted and wouldn’t have really enjoyed the trip. We postponed it a couple days and went on the 2nd instead. Kind of a shame, as the 31st was an absolutely beautiful day and the 2nd was quite a blustery day. Oh well. We made the most of it. Here’s the story in pictures.
We tried to find a new route and ended up on a muddy dirt road that we almost got stuck in. Had to turn around.
Found another road that we thought would cut through. No such luck.
It was rainy.
Finally on the right track.
Here we are!
Found a nice spot right by the water.
Found a belly up stingray in the water in front of the car. Still breathing!
Our carving is still there.
The view from where he proposed. We tried to eat our picnic lunch here and the wind chased us back to the car.
We took pity on the stingray and Drew found a stick and flipped it over. It didn’t seem to appreciate it much, and didn’t swim away, even after the tide was going out.
We took a walk on the beach for a bit.
Drew threw some bread on the beach and we caused quite a stir.
On our drive, we saw several of these. Someone has been Rudolph-ing a lot of deer signs in Florida… (if you can’t see it, the deer has a red nose)
We were too cold to stand outside and get any good pictures together. The only one we took was in the car.
We’ll hope for more sunshine and less wind next year.
Last year I made the typical New Year’s Resolution; get in shape. I strived toward this by doing yoga and building up flexibility, stamina, and strength, and by walking. I did really well for awhile, but suffered some setbacks as I always seem to do by getting sick. Colds and sinus congestion prevented me for a couple months from doing any intense, inverted yoga poses. It’s hard to hold a pose with your head upside down when you can’t breathe.
Rather than give myself a guilt trip, I’m choosing to look at how successful I was at working toward this goal, and try to get back there again. I’m also aiming for some different resolutions this year, and have been pondering them the past few days. The first one that came to mind was a rather random one, but as soon as it rose to the surface, I knew it had to make my list. I stumbled upon a book by JRR Tolkien in my favorite bookstore this past week and it dawned on me that I have yet to read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It’s been on my bookshelf for far too long. It’s the usual story. I bought them with the intention of reading them and just never got around to it. Well, enough stalling. As soon as I finish my current book(s) and as soon as I unearth them from whatever box they’re residing in (I think I even know which box), it’s time to start reading these classics. I know as soon as I do I’ll wonder what took me so long.
Another resolution is to snack more. This sounds counter-intuitive to most resolutions, I know. I have found that my body works and feels better if I eat several small snacks throughout the day. I usually don’t eat huge meals, and often find that I’m hungry again within a couple hours after eating. Keeping small snacks like nuts, hummus, or fruits on hand makes me feel better. In my continued quest of meal planning and couponing, I need to start planning for snacks too.
My last resolution is kind of several rolled into one, but they all fall under the same category. I’m resolving to spend more time doing things I enjoy and that refresh me. This includes: writing, scrapbooking, and photography. Throughout the last couple months, I’ve slacked on journaling and writing and I think my mental and emotional health have suffered. My brain processes emotions so much better when written down, and while my writing has been waning, my brain has been overloaded. Time to fix that. Hopefully that means more blogging too.
I love scrapbooking, and I’ve done so little of it in the past couple years. Every time I pull it out, I wonder why I’ve taken so long to do it. Part of it has been trying to find a place to put it all. I spread out when I scrapbook. Another part is actually going to get the pictures developed. I finally went this past week and developed lots of wedding photos, so I can finally start on my wedding album. When I mentioned to a sweet, well-intentioned, high schooler that I had not started my wedding album, she gave me a funny look and said, “Wasn’t that two years ago?” I love her, so I resisted the urge to slap her. All of you married, working women out there can relate. Life gets busy and gets in the way of getting those treasured wedding albums done. But I am getting it done this year. I don’t care if I have paper scattered across the living room floor (sorry honey).
In my last creative endeavor, I would like to take some sort of photography class this year. I’ve been wondering where to start; if I should do online classes or take them in a classroom, or perhaps just get a book and work through stuff on my own. Drew found an article in our paper this week, of a notable photographer who will be in the panhandle area of Florida to do some workshops on nature and landscape photography. Perfect! I’m still looking into details, but it look like a good place to start.
Happy New Year everyone.
