December Daily - December 31

This is the December 31 assignment from the Holidays in Hand class I took from Jessica Sprague.

I really did not like the quote on the prompt for today and so I changed it. :)

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12 (ESV)

Write: What are your New Year's resolutions? I don't ever make resolutions. The years I have, I've not kept them and they've usually been forgotten by March 1. In at the end of 2007, I came across Ali Edwards' blog post about her word for the year 2008 (her post about her word for 2010 along with links to her 2007, 2008 and 2009 word posts can all be found here). Since much in my world was going to be in a state of upheaval in 2008, I decided to join those choosing a word and I chose FOCUS. I did pretty well focusing on being a wife, a mom, a full-time employee, and a kindergarten teacher. However, my life was lacking something significant with my family - gentleness, especially in my speech. So, I decided that my word for 2009 would be GENTLE. There were days and times that I was anything but gentle - but I never forgot day-to-day that my goal was to be more gentle. I wish I could say I was successful and saw a great increase in gentleness. I did see some improvement in my interaction with my kids when I was irritated but not enough for me. I can and should do better - and I have had some conversations with friends to help me in that pursuit. I was more quick to seek forgiveness from them and the Lord when I was not gentle. So, knowing how 2009 went, and knowing how I struggle and what qualities I need to cultivate in my life - my word for 2010 is KINDNESS. And, thanks to Jennifer I have the verses I am going to use for 2010: Colossians 2:12-14

So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

And not only does it hit on kindness - but compassion, gentleness and patience -- things I need to work on as well.

Photograph - take a photo of yourself in the mirror or pose for a photo. We'll see about that... :) We are going out for a while, so I may take one while I have hair fixed, make-up on and am in something other than yoga pants and a sweatshirt!

Our do today is to go to the store for sparkling cider for the kids. I'm making the Saltine Toffee candy for tonight, too.

Remember - recall a significant New Year celebration -- of course, that would be New Year's Eve 1999...awaiting the "doomsday" that would bring the Y2K bug and the collapse of modern civilization when computers rolled to using 00 as the year in MM/DD/YY. {wink} My beeper didn't go off (I worked in hospital IT at the time). I called in to see if I would have to go to the hospital - we were scheduled in shifts, just in case we were needed to keep things functioning through the night. I called in, things were fine. Perfect, even. No need to come in - at all! The clinic system I supported had seven very small, very fixable Y2K issues that weren't covered by their Y2K update. They installed a patch and everything went smoothly from that point forward. How do I remember something crazy like "seven small issues"? Because we had to predict - written and signed - how many issues our supported system would have with Y2K. The winner got a large (very large) AmEx gift cheque (this was in the days before gift cards, you know). I guessed 5. I was closest. I won. :) W00ts! That ushered in what turned out to be a very good year for me - despite turning 35 and still not being pregnant, it was a good year.