As the new year approaches...

The New Year is quickly approaching (like in 2 days) and I am left pondering the reality of yet another year gone by. 2011 will bring many changes to our lives- Squirt will start school in the fall, JR will be in his last year of middle school and our new little peanut will join the mix. Juggling a newborn and a nearly high school aged child should prove to be an exhausting interesting feat to be sure. But for now as 2010 closes I am pondering my goals for the coming year. Some people say you should make a list, some choose a word to live by. Me I need short and long term goals. So here they are...

Short term goals-
1) Pray more
2) Be more patient with my kids
3) Keep my GPA a 4.0
4) Clean my basement out- really you all have no idea what kind of goal this is!
5) Work out more now and after baby gets here
6) Spend more time on me- no really, selfish? maybe- but necessary in order to complete 1-4

Long term goals-
1) Pray more
2) Finish my BS Degree
3) Get a MBA
4) Raise healthy, happy, functioning members of society

One word to live my life by in the New Year- FAITH!
I need to be more faithful to God and my goals both short and long term. I need to have faith that we as a family can survive the stress and tensions that come with farming, kids, work, and life. To faithfully strive each day to live my life properly so that I am an example to my children and others.

So now the question remains- What are your goals and or life word?

Christmas are you over yet?

The radio DJ cheerfully announced this morning that the average American spends $341 per child at Christmas! Seriously?!?!?! Does anyone else think this is a ridiculous amount of money? Yet as I sit back and add up  the receipts and tally everything in my head I discover- DAMN IT he was probably right... And my holiday spirits sink with the dread of the coming year and the debts to be paid.
How did we become such a commercialized mess? Why has the birth of Jesus become national debt day? What happened to the years of some candy and one gift for Christmas or even lovingly made ones? I will tell you where! They have dissipated like morning fog and left behind a generation of spoiled children who have so much already but the over stimulated market is so full of "amazing" things that as adults we want as much as our children that we are willing to bury ourselves in debt to attain them.
STOP THE INSANITY PEOPLE!
I am as guilty as the next of making my list and checking it 63 times with the thought "oh just this one more little thing and I am done," until the madness finally fizzles on Christmas Eve and I am struggling to wrap all the nonsense in time for Santa's arrival the next morning...
So cheers to all of you who make the holiday about the Joy of Jesus Birth without the commercialism attached- because I am sorely behind in that lesson!