New Year’s Resolve: it’s the little things

Last night we celebrated a family-friendly New Year with some sweet, new friends.

We had homemade pizza, we made s’mores with marshmallows the size of Eliot’s fist, and we toasted to the New Year at promptly 8:00.

We raised our cups of sparkling wine, and the kids chugged their apple cider. We blew noise makers. It was a beautiful ruckus.

We stopped a few moments later and tried to explain to the kids what it means to be a new year. But they weren’t having it, and who would desire to gain such knowledge when Kung-fu Panda is hopping around, karate-chopping all those bad guys?

And I think to myself, do we even understand what it means?

We trace our fingers over the calendar and wonder what, exactly, is in store for us. Our best guesses are the resolutions we promise to ourselves, goals set to make us better, stronger, more alive.

I don’t really make big resolutions anymore, thanks to that Fear Monster, who reminds me that I’m bad at being disciplined. So I make almost-goals, and they are way back in the back of my mind and heart, tucked away under heavy blankets. And if I happen to reach one of those goals, I pull it out and yell, “Hurray! I did it!”

So while I’m here, today, January 1, 2015, I’ll name a few of them and be honest with myself.

This blog is taking on a new face, and I am putting on my big girl britches to try to muster the patience to figure it all out in the midst of a blogging world that’s changing.These are the moments that deep down I am prostrate, thanking God for my kind and enduring husband, who spends hours designing this site, doing what I don’t understand with a totally sweet smile on his face. Somehow, his encouragement knows no bounds.

And while I’m spending time right here, processing and learning and sputtering out words every few days, I’m working on a book, and I hope to finish it in 2015 (anybody know of a good publisher?). It’s about the span of our lives, the timeline on which we place this event or this moment. We look back, remember, and share each moment across the table with one another, just like we share our stories. And it helps us all endure, because it’s the process of listening and learning more about each other and ourselves.

I’m going to homeschool Eliot this year, and he and I are going to fill our curious minds with the world’s wonders, and I’m wide-eyed just thinking about it. We’re examining light bulbs and pointing at low-hanging world maps so his fingers can touch every continent. He’s tracing the contrails of the planes that fly above us, and I’m googling new things on my phone to answer his curiosities. And it’s the joy of learning all over again.

And I’m praying to become a wiser, self-disciplined, less-fearful mother and woman along the way.

This morning we woke up and went to a doughnut shop that we’ve never been to, a place that I’d been storing in the back of my mind for awhile. We walked in and smiled, and we ordered four doughnuts and two cups of coffee. We laughed at the doughnut with the little plastic baby on it, pronouncing 2015 in white icing.

We stuffed our faces and looked down at the near nothingness left on our little lined silver tray, and we sat back and enjoyed and said Happy New Year with chocolate smeared across the boys’ faces.

We’ve got another semester of Phd-ing ahead, and we’re digging in our heels and preparing for it to be a bumpy road, but one we can handle, nonetheless.

It’s got to be the little things that get us through the big things this year. It’s got to be little kisses and kind encouragements, gentle urgings and constant reminders that we’re not alone, and that we’re being led every single day. I’m going to read and write and find really sweet peace in this space to share my heart with kind people who read these words and encourage me.

Have I said thank you for being here? It means a lot to me.

It’s all adventure, kind adventure.

Look ahead with joy, friends, and let’s welcome the New Year with smiles on our faces, and maybe a little doughnut frosting smeared there, too.