Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2013! It's our first day without company in how many days/weeks? Talk about a let down from adrenaline and sugar! Unlike most years, I don't have Christmas put away yet. Oh well. It will happen. Part of me doesn't want to let Christmas go. Although we had some very difficult and painful extended family drama that overshadowed our entire December, I feel like the month also yielded so many other joyful, special, memorable, and relationship-building times. I hope I remember that next November when I'm dreading the "Christmas mountain climb" once again. It was certainly worth the effort.

It was fun to post one picture a day for the month, along with our daily diary. But it will also be nice to go back to a more normal blog posting menu. There were so many pictures I didn't post. And now there is so much to look forward to! Downton Abbey is about to air!!! And did you know there is a Downton  Abbey mystery Knit-A-Long? I can't wait!!!!!

I can't wait to clean my closet where I do my crafting and start into a bunch of new knitting projects! I'm looking forward to planning in earnest for our trip to Scotland later in the year. I'm also looking forward to getting the school planning done and heading back into that taxing but rewarding work.

I did take time to stop and write down some goals for the year. I always enjoy doing that and it is interesting to look back and see what I was thinking last year or the year before. I also added a prayer list this year -- some major things that I don't know how God will provide or work out now but I fully expect I will look back next December 31 and see what He did along the way. He has never failed to provide or work things out -- perhaps not in the way I would have wished, but nonetheless, worked out. It will encourage my faith to look back and see what the year has brought forth.

It's funny how my goals this year are so much a result of what I learned last year and they are much more about "being" rather than "doing" although the "doing" flows out of the "being", if that makes sense.

And now it is time to go and put my goals into a little artistic reminder and then do some pottering about the house and begin the task of getting the laundry under control, etc.