Happy New Year 2011!!!!! AND a Giveaway!!

WOW!  We made it ANOTHER year!  haha

Can you believe it's 2011?  Unbelievable.  It seems strange every year.  I am so excited for this year and can not wait to see what it holds!  I've never been one to conform to what everyone else is doing.  You know that when the new year rolls around what everyone is doing:  making those resolutions!  I hate to put something out there and know that I might not make my goal!  I hate failing!  Soooo, with that said, I am making no resolutions this year!  I am however going to ATTEMPT to make some lifestyle changes.  Does that count?  haha

I am a typical woman with typical desires and those typical desires turn into the typical "resolutions".  As usual, I have to pursue to be a woman of excellence in my entire life!  Work, homelife, marriage, relationships...  I have to get my eating in control.  You notice I didn't say weight...hahaha!  I believe if I can get my eating under control that my weight will cooperate....lol.  I am going to start another workout regime.  I have to do that to motivate myself.  It's just super hard with my schedule to fit it in all the time.  I have to take time out during the week and cater to my marriage.  I also have to take time out to cater to me once in a while.  I ran myself to death at the end of 2010.  I've got to get creative and figure out how to do that.  I also need to be more diligent with meals.  With our crazy schedule it's hard to get something cooked every evening.  Am I the only one out there that has these issues?  Sometimes I feel like I'm a broken toy all alone in this great big world!  Speaking of being broken and feeling alone...I HAVE to make a major focused push to take time daily to fellowship with my Creator!  The ONE who truly knows me inside and out.  I have neglected that relationship way more than I should.  I hate to admit it.  It hurts me to know I have pushed God to the side many times in my life and only picked it up when I was in great need.  More study time, more prayer time, more focused ministry time!! 

Looks like planning will be a HUGE part of my 2011!  What's your plans for this year?  Would love to hear from some of you!! 

I'll be doing a random draw for a $10 Target Gift Card.  To qualify, all you have to do is leave me a comment and let me know what your great plans are for this great 2011 year!  I'll draw on Friday, January 7th.  Can't wait to hear from my friends!!!

God bless!

2010

It's Official!!!!  It's 2010!! 

I was reading one of my friends blogs this morning, Girly Muse, and she was saying how 2010 (back when we were young) was one of those sci-fi sounding years that seemed forever away and we would all be flying around in Jetson cars.  I too thought that when I was small.  Look at us now!!!  We're not flying around at all.  Sometimes the technology that we have makes me wonder how much closer we are to flying ourselves around.

Speaking of Girly Muse, Lori and I went to college together.  I haven't seen her since we returned from our 1993 Choir Tour.  It has been 16 years (WOAH)!!  I recently caught up with her via facebook and blogging.  She's still the same Lori that I knew in college - Funny, Quirky, Cute as a button, talented and So Super Sweet!!  I am soooo excited to say that I will be having lunch with her tomorrow (on my turf!!).  Don't even have to travel to Minnesota in January!  She emailed myself and Loren, another blogger and real life friend of mine, to let us know she would be in our area. We are going to have a fabulous lunch at Olive Garden and catch up on old times and new times!!  I CAN'T WAIT!!!  Can you say excited????  She doesn't even know how great this timing is for me to have something like this happen.

Moving on - 2010 is here and the resolutions are flying out of people's mouths left and right.  I'm not a great resolution person.  Reading other blogs this morning, I find myself not an unusual one conerning resolutions.  I have made many over the years and have yet to stick to one.  This year I am not doing the typical cliche resolution of weight loss or anything like that.  I am, however, joining a weight watchers group (TONIGHT) with a few other girls from my church.  We have decided to make this a group effort so we can be accountable to each other and also becaue it's just more fun that way!!!  I am needing to lose some wieght but refuse to call it my resolution.  I want my resolution to show a healthier lifestyle with my eating and exercise.  I don't want to put limits on myself.  I don't want to say I want to lose this much weight as my resolution and then fail.  It really kind of gets me down when I can't do things I want to do.  Soooo, I figured that Maybe, Just Maybe, this would be the way to do it!!

Another Improvement I pray to make this year is with my blogging, meal planning, tv time, spending habits, family time and home.  As I'm sitting here typing this I'm realizing that I want to change a lot of things.  Is this going to overwhelm me and I will come screaming out of January with hands pulling frazzled hair hollering, "I GIVE UP!!!!"?  Surely not!  That, my friend, is how I have actually felt though over the past 3 months.  I feel like there are millions of things floating through my head  all day long!  Too much to do....too many places to be...too much, too much, too much!!!!  I could probably add on to that list that I want to read more this year and that I want to simplify how we live.  To tell you the truth, I could sit here for hours and add to the list...there I go getting overwhelmed again!!  I'd best stop right there!!

On to other things:  We had a wonderful New Year's Eve.  It was actually pretty uneventful.  We were invited to join another family at Osaka's for dinner.  That turned out to be quite entertaining.  They overbooked the place and we had to wait for an hour and a half (even though we had reservations).  There was a lot of mad, screaming people and at one point a fight was about to break out.  Interesting night!  All in all an uneventful new year's eve.  Jeff and I were home by 11 and in bed by 11:30 watching the NYC festivities.  We left the next morning for a fast and furious trip to Kansas.  We had to deliver a smoker to his uncle and decided to make a short weekend vacation out of it.  It was just okay for me.  Sure missed my bed, my chair, my recliner and just being home.  I'm such a home body at times.  It's rather sad!! 

I have added something new to my schedule this year.  I am going to be reviewing books on my blog.  I am so excited about being a part of 3 different programs.  Stay tuned - more to come on that!!

I pray that everyone has a blessed 2010!!  Cheers!