HAPPY NEW YEAR!

For now, we're still in the 12 days of Christmas, but we also celebrate another beginning. Christmas was a time to celebrate the beginning of Christ's life and all that He did to save us, and this new year is a time when most people will make resolutions to make their lives better.

A lot of resolutions are just ideal situations that people would like to see become reality. The problem with most resolutions, though, is that a lot of people don't do what it takes in order to make good on those resolutions, so they end up collecting dust along with unwanted Christmas gifts. In order to make the most out of personal resolutions, certain objectives must be met, goals set and plans made in order to achieve those resolutions.

For instance, one of my resolutions is a very common one among adults: lose weight. Now, that's a pretty general resolution. In order to make good on it, I have established an achievable goal weight, determined what I'm going to do in order to achieve that goal, and will have to make room in my schedule to allow for the exercise it will take in order to meet my ideal weight, along with a date by which I mean to have that goal met.

My second resolution will take a bit of grace from God in order to become reality: find and maintain a good job that I will be happy with and can earn a decent income. I recently realized that one of my problems may be my resume, so I have to make some adjustments. I also was told that maybe I'm not utilizing as many resources as I could, something I thought I had been doing well at, but there's always room for improvement.

Those are the only resolutions I'm going to set for myself. If I set too many, there's a greater chance of not following through. It's also going to take changing myself, something that is difficult no matter what habit you're trying to break or establish. But it's necessary in order to make a real change.

For Christmas, my hubby and I went to my parents' house. We had dinner, some drinks and exchanged a few gifts. (The rest of our celebration will be next weekend at my grandma's house in western Kansas.) My sister and I got a bunch of silicone bakeware and a new cookbook from our mom. We've already put some of it to use! Great gift! My husband and my brother-in-law got "flying saucers" made of styrofoam that are controlled by remotes. My brother-in-law smashed his up within about 10 minutes, taped it up, glued it up, and went back at it! I can't believe it still flies!

My grandma (the one whose house we're going to this next weekend) gave my sister, my brother-in-law, my hubby and me each a gift card worth $50 for Kohl's department store! My husband told me I could take his and use it with mine to get whatever I thought we needed. Fortunately, they were having their After-Christmas sale, so most things in the store were 50-60% off! I saved a bundle!

I got new rugs for the bathroom, a flannel sheet set and a comforter set, all for just under $100 before tax. Wow! And, wouldn't you know it, the sheets I got don't have flowers or animals or anything like that on them: they've got phrases on them like "love and laughter," "all bundled up," "cozy fires," etc. It's just like a journalist to get sheets with words on them, right! :D I made sure to call my grandma and thank her. She said she was really proud of me for getting all that I did at the prices I got them for. I can't wait to see her.

Anyway, I feel bad that we can't really get much for anyone else, but maybe when my hubby and I get better jobs, we can do that more easily.

My prayer for 2006 is that it's better for everyone than this year was. May we live our lives in prayer, depending on God instead of trying to accomplish everything on our own without asking for His help.

God bless us, everyone!