Chinese New Years Resolutions!!

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone! It is the Year of the Dragon! I am sure that you are impressed with my knowledge of Chinese culture considering I have absolutely no Chinese in my genetic lineage (although Anna did look Asian as a newborn...so maybe there is something somewhere.) :-) However, I am not that well versed in Chinese culture (other than the fact that I think their food is delicious), but I have mad skills when it comes to googling something. :-)

Anyway, you may be wondering where I am going with all this Chinese New Year stuff. I have found that it is helpful to me if I publish my New Year's Resolutions/Goals on my blog as a way holding myself accountable to the throughout the year. However, we are already 23 days into 2012 and most people have already given up on their resolutions and I haven't even started or articulated mine. There are plenty of good reasons for this including being sick with a sinus and ear infection since January 2.... on top of the fact that we had house guests and a funeral in the midst of this 3 week illness. If I had tried to blog about my goals during that time, the goals would have been something like:

• "Make sure to have tissues, Advil, Mucinex and cough drops on your person at all times"
• "Take a nap"
  
• "Invest in Kleenex corporation"

So, I decided to hold off on the blog until I felt a little better. While I am still nowhere near 100%, I finally feel like I am beginning to recover from this crazy bug and can begin to formulate and work toward my goals in this area so I am declaring them my CHINESE NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS for 2012: The Year of the Dragon:

1. Exercise at least 3 times per week-This will probably be a goal for me every year for the rest of my life. I was doing well with this in 2011 until the holidays hit and then I got sick. Definitely need to get back into the habit.
2. Develop a will-With the hundreds of millions of dollars that I have, I really should allocate where it should go. Seriously, we don't have much and have the proper beneficiaries listed on things and have talked to who we want to care for Anna in the event of our untimely demise...just need to make it legal (and I realize this should have happened already.) :-)
3. Organize/Improve My House-I was not blessed with the domestic gene so I am very challenged when it comes to decor and home organization (which is weird because I think I am a fairly organized person overall.) However, I know I don't like any space in my house right now so hoping to rectify that. I do not have a huge budget for any major projects, but I know I can do some things like paint, organize closets and spaces, and pitch/purge/sell things we don't want/use/need. I also want to convert our junk room, I mean office, into a playroom so that every room in the house isn't overrun with toys.
4. Read 100 books-Last year, my goal was to read 40 books and I far exceeded it so going to try to challenge myself on this one.
5. Complete 2 digital scrapbooks-I have not started on Anna's 2 year old scrapbook and she is almost 3 so I want to finish Age 2. I also have several recipes that were my grandma's that I want to make into a cookbook (if you are related and want a copy I will post the link when it gets done...even more motivation to finish it.) :-)
6. Unplug-I love my electronic devices!! However, I have found that there is almost never a time in my life when I am not using something electronic and I am not sure that is healthy. I had jury duty a couple of weeks ago and cell phones were not allowed in the courthouse and I think I might have been twitching a little by the end of the day because I was away from my phone. :-) Because of this, I want to make a commitment to unplugging from everything for at least 1 hour a week (and it cannot be while I am sleeping.) :-) I also want to take at least 2 days where I unplug for the entire day.
7. Read through the Bible in a year-I love YouVersion as tool to do this.

I also have 2 more areas that I want to work on but I haven't quite figured out the details on how to make it happen yet.

1. Some sort of Sugar Fast-I don't struggle with things like alcohol or recreational drugs, but sugar is my drug of choice. I need to fast from sugar at some point. I am not sure if I give it up completely, fast one day a week or do something like a lenten fast. Still trying to work through this.
2. Financial Goals-I want to figure out how to spend less and save more. We do an OK job at this, but I want to do better. Not sure if that is through couponing, eating out less, selling non-essential body parts, or some other manner.

I think that is it!! Happy New Year and enjoy an egg roll in honor of the Year of the Dragon!

Happy Birthday!!!

This is my AMAZING Husband, Mark. He turns 39 today (yep, I am cougar and got myself a younger man.) :-)
These are some many things about this man that you may or may not know and that I love about him:

• His friends in college called him "Oster Monkey" because of his tree climbing skills (hence the sock monkey hat he received from my mom for Christmas.) :-)
  
• He has taken in upon himself without being asked to take responsibility for the dishes, laundry, trash, cleaning the bath tub and taking care of our cat (including the litter box.) Ladies, I know you are jealous!!
• He is an AMAZING dad and will even be "Princess Daddy" when Anna is playing dress-up.
  
• He is an incredibly talented musician.
• He likes to go Disney World (not as much much as me, but still likes it.) :-)
  
• Every year he WANTS to be the one who frosts his birthday cake.
• He has incredibly high standards as to what he will watch/listen to in terms of entertainment.
• He loves Jesus!!
  
• He puts up with all my crazy (which can be extensive at times.) :-)
  

Happy Birthday Honey! I LOVE YOU!!!

I Am Second

Hello 2012! I have several posts for floating in my head for 2012, but have had several things happening that have kept me from posting (house guests, illness, funerals, playing "Words with Friends", etc.) I promise they are coming! :-) In the meantime, here is a book review thanks to the folks at booksneeze.com:

I was very excited when I saw that I AM SECOND was offered in book format. I became familiar with I AM SECOND when our church did a series of the same title in 2010. We based that series off the the website that features videos of people who have faced adversity and how they overcame it by putting Jesus first and themselves second. I really enjoyed the stories when we did the series and was hoping I would enjoy the book. The book did not disappoint. It was very inspiring to read the stories of many different people....from musicians to athletes to everyday people. It was amazing the read the stories of how their faith helped them to overcome many trials in their lives. This book was a quick and easy read. One feature of the book that I really liked was at the end of each story there was a web address as well as a QR code for your smartphone that linked you to the video of the story you just read and ones that were similar.

I highly recommend this book and if you are not a reader at least check out the website to hear these amazing stories!!

Happy Reading!!

How did I do?

As we are closing in on the end of the new year, I wanted to blog about how I did on the New Year's Resolutions I shared on the blog at the beginning on 2011. You can read that post here. So here we go:

1. Exercise at least 3 times a week-Mark and I actually signed a contract where we get rewarded and punished for meeting or not meeting our goals. The reward for the person who exercises the most minutes this week is a SLEEP-IN Day. If that doesn't motivate me to get my butt moving, then I don't know what will. :-) -It depends on when during the year you asked me on this one. I would say I sort of met this goal at times. I still was not consistent EVERY week with exercising at least 3 times during the week, but I was more consistent overall with exercise. I did not have long periods of time where I did no exercise (except for the 6 weeks I was laid up with an ankle injury) which has been my pattern in the past. I am thinking this will continue to be a goal for 2012 for me (and 2013, 2014, 2015, etc.)
2. Read the entire Bible this year. I signed up for a plan at youversion.com that helps me track my progress. My OCD brain LOVES this! :-) They have lots of great plans to choose from for everyone.-I met this one. I am on schedule to finish this on December 30 (a day early...I am such an overachiever.) So as long as I don't totally abandon this goal in the next couple of days, I am good! :-)
3. Blog on a more frequent basis.-Met this one as you can see by looking at my archives.
4. Have a weekly family devotional time with Mark and Anna.-Sort of. We didn't do this in the traditional sense. However, we did purchase a daily toddler devotional book that Anna absolutely loves and will not go to bed without her Bible Story Book. We still need to work toward this in 2012.
5. Read AT LEAST 40 books this year. They have to be a combination of personal/spiritual growth, professional growth and pleasure reading.-I read WAY more than 40 books. I definitely need to up the stakes for 2012.
6. Complete Scrapbooks of Anna's 1st 2 years of life. Since I have started doing digital scrapbooking, I might actually be able to accomplish this. :-)-I have completed all of her books up the age of 1. Her 1 year old book was partially completed when my computer had an untimely death so I had to start over. I am not sure if it will be finished before the end of the year, but hoping so. However, since it was a technology issue that causes this goal not to be met, I am saying that I met it. :-)
7. Memorize 2 verses of Scripture every month. I stole this idea from my friend Tracy's blog who is doing Beth Moore's Siesta Memory Verse plan. I am not going to Beth's plan, but love the idea of memorizing more scripture.-As with any Beth Moore thing, I did not complete this. I have started several Beth Moore books, Bible studies, etc. and have never finished one.
8. Fit comfortably into a pair of pre-pregnancy pants. :-)-Nope...still hanging in my closet. There is always 2012.

So there you have it, I completed (at least made progress toward them) 6 out of 8 of the goals. Not too shabby. Looking forward to 2012 and new goals.

71 YEARS!!!!

These are my grandparents, Dallas and Edna Mae Foster. Aren't they cute! :-) Today is their 71st WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!! I can barely fathom living 71 years, let alone being married for that long. What an amazing legacy and example of long lasting marriage!

Here are some things that you may or may not know about them:

*They have 9 children, 25 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren (with 2 more on the way), and 1 great-great grandchild. (I may be a little off on the numbers...when I have to count that high I can get a little confused.) :-)
*All 9 of their children have college degrees, as well as most of the grandchildren. Most of the great grandchildren are not old enough for that yet (although we think Anna may be ready for early college admission by the fall.) :-)
*Rites of passage as grandchild included being old enough to go on a tractor ride with Grandpa and being taller than Grandma.
*My sister and I had the pleasure of taking several road trips with them when we were younger. There are few things that we learned. First of all, at one point we knew the numerical code of every county license plate in the state of Indiana. Secondly, Grandpa liked to drive fast and Grandma had an inborn speed detector that went off the moment Grandpa started driving over the speed limit.
*My Grandma probably knows more about Indiana History than anyone I have ever met.
*They were recognized by the Governor of Indiana for their 70th anniversary. Wondering if the President will recognize the 71st.
*They have a deep and abiding faith in God and tried to instill that in their children and grandchildren.

I am so blessed to have these wonderful people in my life. Happy Anniversary! We LOVE YOU!!

Cliques, Hicks and Ugly Sticks

How is that for a blog title! That is what I thought when I chose this book from the booksneeze.com library as a free book in exchange for an honest review. Who wouldn't be intrigued by that title? :-)

I really enjoyed this book. I think it is classified as young adult fiction, but would recommend it to tweens as well. The story is about the adventures of a 6th grade girl named, April Grace Reilly, who is working through the growing pains of moving on to Junior High School and all that entails. She also has lots of interesting adventures involving many of the quirky characters that surround her (which I will not go into here in the event of spoiling the fun for anyone who might read it.) One of the many reasons that I would recommend this book, particularly to young girls, is that while April is wrestling with the issues of 6th grade she seems to have a good sense of who she is and what she stands for.

I did find this book a little bit hard to get into at first. However, I discovered after I finished the book that this was the 2nd book in a series. I am guessing I would have jumped right in had I read the first book. All that being said, I was still able to enjoy the book without having read the first one (although I do plan to read it at some point.)

I enjoyed this book and if you are fan of young adult fiction or have a child of that age, I would definitely recommend it.

Happy Reading!

You Can't Out Give God

This month in Kids Kanyon the virtue which we are teaching the kids is Generosity. Each month we focus on a different virtue and the Biblical principles behind it. There are several months where I look at the virtue that we are teaching and think, "Oh Man, I really still need work on that." A perfect example of this would be that the virtue of the month that is coming in January is Self-Control. I definitely struggle with self-control a lot of in particular areas of my life...i.e . Most things involving food or sugar. :-)

However, as I think about generosity, it is an area where I think I do OK. In no way am I trying to say how awesome I am (although I am awesome) :-) or brag about how generous I am. Nor do I think that I have arrived and cannot possibly grow in areas of generosity. All that being said, I do think that I have a natural proclivity toward generosity in my personality. If you are familiar with the 5 Love Languages, my predominant love language is receiving gifts (so that means that if you want to show me love...or even that you like me a little bit... buy me lots of gifts and presents.) :-) Because this is my love language, I also like to give and find it somewhat easy to give whether it be gifts, financially, whatever.

In my experiences, I have discovered that the more you give, the more you receive. I know that may sound weird, but it actually happens. Let me give a recent example. At our church, we are doing a huge project to bless all the kids at 2 local elementary schools with Christmas presents and do some much needed construction on our youth building. Mark and I discussed it and decided upon an amount that we would give toward this project. However, when I was writing the check for this project, I was considering writing it for less that we had agreed upon. My reasoning for this was good. We have had several unexpected expenses in the past couple months, the extra expenses that Christmas brings and the fact that we already give financially to our church and other charities and agencies that we support. I was concerned about whether it was a wise financial decision to give the extra money. I was still planning on giving...just thinking about giving less. However, I did take a step of faith and go ahead and write the check for the amount that we had agreed upon. Guess what happened...the very next day we received an unexpected check in the mail as a gift.

In my own thinking, I would often just chalk that up to coincidence. However, this is not the only time that something like this has happened. I find that whenever I give...especially when I give in uncertainty...I am always blessed by it.

So here is my encouragement for you, just try it and see what happens. Give sacrificially to something that is important to you whether it be your church, a favorite charity or a local philanthropic organization. I am not saying that you will receive a large check in the mail the next day, but I promise that you will be blessed in some way!!