Getting back on the wagon

Okay, I needed a break to get everything together, take some time just for me.  Man, all you Mamas out there, wouldn't that be great?!  Too bad I didn't take it.  However, I have really missed blogging.  I miss sitting down to document the wonderful memories I have of day to day life, a record of the things you never remember, yet never want to forget.
I want to live my life for passion, for love, to enhance all of the wonderful things that fill up (and often overwhelm) my days.  Not for money, not for everyone else, not to achieve someone else's goal.  Just for me and the things I love.  I need to work on that.  I think every once in a while, we all get caught in that trap, but I am finding my way back out of it.  Finding my way through it I guess.  There are so many things I love.  I need to focus on that: on the fact that they are fun, relaxing, and often productive and stop looking for ways to try and milk it.
Anyway, that is one of my top resolutions for the year.  Now, I don't particularly believe in New Year's Resolutions.  They never last and they are always so generic.  I, too, have wanted to lose weight for about 10 years.  I resolved to quit smoking no less than 38,000 times before it actually happened.  You know how it goes.  However, I think we should take every opportunity to step back and look at our lives, figure out how we can improve it, how we can be better humans, how we can be our best self.  And that is what I have been thinking about all week.  So here are my 'resolutions' if you will:
I want more peace in my life.  I get so stressed.  Seriously, I can go from 0 to 60 in about 3 seconds flat.  I gather up so many things that I end up dropping them all.  Kira has 3 words she says very well: 'no', 'mine', and 'uh-oh'.  I was somewhat complaining about this to my dad while he was visiting this weekend.  He says that it was good.  He liked that she knows how to give a firm "No.".  He was talking about how often we would be better off if we knew how to do that as adults.  It got me thinking.  I mean, he is absolutely right.  My pastor gave a sermon back in October about this exact subject and said the same thing.  He talked about how Jesus himself knew when to just say no.  He knew what was really important.  I want to spend more time centering myself so that I, too, can know what is important in my life and how best to nurture it.  Grouped with this, I want to take more time for me.  Sometimes, especially these past few months with 2 little ones needing so much from me, I feel like I give so much out, I have nothing left for myself.  I am starving for some personal attention.  I definitely don't think this helps me be a better anything: not a better mother, wife, or human being.  It really just makes me tired and irritable.  I want that to change.  I want to feel confident in myself again, at peace with myself.  And I plan to require the time it would take to do that.
We have got to get back on budget.  We took a slight detour this past semester since we had some extra funds, but now it is time to get back on the road.  I am determined to give more and give regularly.  I wanted to do 10%, but this week I sat down and wrote out our new budget and it just isn't there.  I feel conflicted because we work hard for our money and I don't want to deny things to my own family, but at the same time, I know we can live on less so that someone else has a little.  I happened to be reading 1 Chronicles this week and last night the passage was about David ending his reign as king.  He set up Solomon to build the temple to God.  The awesome new Bible my Dad gave me for Christmas explained that the author put great emphasis on the fact that the people gave happily and freely.  If my budget is stretched so tight that I am not sure how we will pay for groceries for a month, I am not going to be able to give happily or freely and I think that is a contradiction.  But giving is giving and we will do better to give what we can, even if it is only 5%.  I am also going full out crazy coupon lady this year!  I will be doing a $5 or $10 challenge each week so look out for those posts!  I have been researching and learning a lot, setting everything up to get started, all there is left is to go for it!  So there will definitely be more on that to come.
Man, this really wasn't where I thought this post was going to go.  I always surprises me when that happens. I sit down to type and my fingers take over.  It is nice to have an outlet.  I have been working on making over my blog, I hope you like the changes so far!  I still have a long way to go, but I learn more about it everyday.  I am also starting to make digital storybooks and scrapbooks.  It's a ton of fun!  I'll be posting about that as I get some things together.  I have been thinking a lot about where I want this blog to go and I am still not entirely sure.  I think mostly it will just be about my life.  I would like to throw in some mama life things, like craft stuff and fun events around Houston, but maybe, much like with this post, I will just sit down every night and see where the keyboard takes me.  Signing off for now.  Good night cyber world.