Looking Forward (And Looking Up)

2017 was a big year! A crazy year filled with surprises, answered prayers, changes, consistencies, joy, tears, happiness, heartache, learning, lots of parties, and so much more. I guess that could describe any year to almost anybody, but I think that’s kind of awesome. We are all in this thing together, learning and loving the best we can. I think it’s pretty awesome how God puts people in our lives to be there for us when we need them. We can take what we learn from the shoulders we had to cry on and the arms we had hugging us and the hands high-fiving us, and go be better tear-catchers, huggers, and high-fivers for others! Learning, building, growing… I love it!

It’s neat to just sit and reflect on… I mean, to think that little things that go wrong for me, and how my friends and family helped me through it, give me the words and love I need when someone else close to me experiences something similar! Isn’t it neat to think, “Oh, I know exactly what to send her to brighten her day, because when someone sent me that, it meant the absolute world to me!” Friends and fam make the world go round! 🙂 I’m thinking specifically about my miscarriage, then the two tremendous blessings that followed it, and how I can’t imagine life any other way! 🙂 These are my favorite pictures of those two babies of mine!

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Now for some resolutions… I’ve never been very good at keeping my resolutions, so I figured I’d make a list of challenges for myself instead of any official resolutions. “Challenge” and “resolution” are probably synonyms, but I like the word challenge better so… 😉

Here they are:

Look up more. Our pastor at our church preached the best sermon this Christmas season about the wise men and how they were good at looking up. They studied the stars, and knew the heavens really well, so as they continually looked up, they noticed that one star changed! It got brighter. They knew to follow it and it brought them to the feet of the savior of the world. Had they been looking down, or looking around, they would’ve likely missed the change in the sky. But because they looked up and followed a God-placed nudge on their hearts, they got to meet Jesus face to face. For me, looking up means praying more (maybe by setting more silent alarms on my phone as reminders), memorizing more scripture, and speaking positively to others and about others and trying to keep myself from getting sucked in to gossipy convos.

Drink more water. This is always a good idea. The holidays were not good for my water intake. Totes fell off the eight-glass-a-day wagon and my skin and waistline are paying for it! Doing infused water was fun when I did that more often… I need to get back on that!

Infused Water // www.thehiveblog.com

Read a book for fun. There is one definitive season in my life where I read a lot for fun and I loved it! It was when my friend Lindsey and I lived in England for a few months after we graduated college. We were constantly traveling (read: sitting on trains) and I probably read 10 books for fun in those few short months. I’m not much of a reader, and I haven’t read anything that wasn’t a bible study or other spiritual enhancement book in YEARS. But I want this to be the year where I just read a freaking piece of fiction! Taking suggestions for a particularly great book!

Create more phone-free family time. This is a must. Price and I agree. We’re buying a phone basket soon and plan to put our phones in it for a period of time each night when we both are home from work.

Try more recipes. I’m in a total recipe rut! Gotta spend some time exploring and adding to my regular rotation! (Speaking of my regular rotation, here’s one of my favorite snack items if you’re looking for something healthy to add to your rotation!)

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Double my Instagram following. This is my loftiest goal. As I write this, I have 3120 followers. I would love to be at 6240 this time next year. I LOVE this thing called blogging, and Instagram is an integral part of blogging success the way I want to do it. I don’t know if I’d ever be comfortable with thousands upon thousands of followers, but to expand the reach of each post (which I pour so much of myself into!), I would like a larger engaged following. This will not be easy, but it’ll be a fun challenge. (Hey, I just had an idea! If you don’t follow me on Instagram, would you be interested in doing so?! You can click here! You can also tell your friends if you feel so inclined! Thank youuuuu!) 🙂

Not weigh more on Jan 1, 2019 than I do right now (unless I’m pregnant). I, like most chicks out there, feel better when my weight is in check. As life becomes more and more demanding, time to eat healthy and work out becomes harder and harder to find. Gotta keep some sort of focus there!

Continue using my BEST YES and saying NO to some good things. This book by Lysa TerKeurst changed my life!

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Ok that’s all I got for now. Have y’all set any challenges for yourself? I’d love to hear how y’all plan to make 2018 a great year! I’ll leave y’all with a link to my most popular post from the year 2017 about my cousins that I wrote back in October. I hope it inspires you in some way! Life just is not guaranteed!

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Thank you SO MUCH for visiting today! Y’all are amazing and I’m SO grateful for each and every one of you who reads this ol’ blog! XO!

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