Again, for the 25th time

Happy New Year, dudes! I don't know about you, but I had a wonderfully refreshing, fun holiday time. Aaron and I were in New Jersey for the Christmas week to see my family and in Pennsylvania over New Year's weekend to hang out with his. The week was filled with gifts, merriment, manual labor (painted one of my parents' bathrooms as part of their Christmas gift!), pajamas, and delicious delicious food. We arrived back in Illinois last night in order to regroup today... and now I don't think I'm yet ready to go back to work!

my family, l to r: Brittanie (sister-in-law-to-be), Stephen (brother), Mom, Dad, me, Aaron

As I am wont to do, today I wrote down my list of personal goals for 2012. I almost scrapped the idea entirely after listening to the beginning of the sermon at my in-laws' church on Sunday; the youth pastor began his message by reading a couple of Jonathan Edwards's 70 resolutions which, mind you, he wrote by the age of 20. For example...
"Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God."
or 
"Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live."

Aaron's family, l to r: Ashley (sister-in-law-to-be), Ben (brother), Mom, Dad, Aaron (a.k.a Pork Pockets), me, Kurt (brother-in-law), Bethany (sister), Tyler (nephew)

Somehow, my goal of "exercising more", in comparison, pales in importance to the point where I may as well have said "watch more TV". Nonetheless, I know that even though they're not as spiritually mature or whatever, I have made my list of now seemingly silly goals, some of which I will share for the sake of a sense of accountability....

• plant a vegetable garden and a butterfly container garden. Pictures hopefully to follow in the coming months!
• write daily, with at least 2 days of the week devoted to the blog. They say it takes 21 straight days to form a habit, and it's by far the skill I most want to improve on. That, and not ending my sentences with prepositions. Or writing fragments. D'oh!
• get our basement main room and guest room in order without spending a lot of money. I'm expecting this a year-long project because of the money aspect, and I am looking forward to making the basement very usable. Perhaps I should start a Pinterest board to get me going...? 

I have way too many others, but these goals are good ones to track on here. Though feel free to yell at me if you somehow find out that I've gone three days without doing any strength training!

In conclusion, here's a good beginning-of-the-year thought from ol' Ozzy... thanks to a friend from high school posting it as his Facebook status:

"One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question – 'What do you expect to do?' You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder – you do not know what God is going to do next."

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