Happy New Year!

I love, love, love a new beginning!  Why?  Because it's always filled with good intentions and you haven't messed up, YET.  I love a talk that Elder Holland shared several years ago about new year's resolutions.  He was speaking to a group of BYU students in a weekly devotional sometime near the beginning of a new calendar year and said to the audience that he didn't want them to add to their list of New Year's resolutions because he knows they had already made 5 and broken 4 of them!  I laughed and laughed when I heard this because it is so true.  We set lofty goals and aren't able to realistically stick to them for very long. The key word here is LOFTY.  So my goal this time around is to set a couple of un-lofty goals for 2015.  

1.  I am going to finish reading the Old Testament.  Today, I finished the book of Genesis.  I do believe that this is the first time in my life that I have read a book from the old testament in its entirety.  Actually, I know I had to read it for seminary but it must not have meant much then because I certainly don't remember it!  I'm hoping to change that, finally.

2.  Create a journal focused on the Atonement and what I have learned about it.  My goal for 2014 was to look up every scripture and talk I could find regarding the Atonement and read and study it.  I learned so much and want to create a special journal to document this.  

3.  Update my blog completely so that I can get it printed again.  I have a plan for this!  I go on a couple trips per year and am able to spend a lot of that time on the computer.  We finally have the equipment we need for me to have access to all pictures through WiFi, so I'll spend most of my hotel time on the soft bed updating the blog.

4.  Attend the temple at least bi-monthly.  Again, I have a plan for this too.  I'm hoping to swap playdates with other moms in the ward so that I can do this during the day while my other kids are in school.

I suppose these do sound a little lofty.  But I believe they are manageable and I am choosing them for specific reasons.  I'm motivated by my reasoning because I know I need what fulfilling these goals can do for me.  Hopefully, next year at this time I can say "Check, check, check, and check!"