Straightening things out

Happy New Year!

   My first photo of the new year symbolizes many things. It speaks of my desire to live simply and to enjoy what life has to offer. It talks about celebrating the accomplishments of the past year and the hope for what I intend to do in the next. It shows a glass that is half full, waiting in expectation to be topped off.

   Of course, the glass is half full because I am not much of a drinker. But that is okay, we are working on symbolism here, remember? 

   The new year is the time when we work on creating new resolutions, putting together new goals, and setting things straight in our lives.  Indeed, the whole point is an attempt to straighten things out in our rather crooked lives.

    In the past few years, I have tried to set goals to straighten out three areas of my life. I try to work on one goal that focus on my health and well being. One or more goals is to work on physical aspects of the world around me. The last of my goals is to work on strengthening bonds. All the goals or resolutions are inevitably intertwined, some dependent on others, some that will affect more than one of the three areas of my life. I also remind myself that realistically, many of the goals I set out to accomplish will take much longer than the prescribed year to complete. When I do my year end assessment, I mark my resolution as successful if I have been faithfully working to the achievement of that goal.

    Two years ago, one of my resolutions was to straighten out my teeth. They had never been horribly crooked, but they had been getting more out of alignment over the previous few years, so much so that it was getting impossible to floss. No little goal, as braces for adults are NOT covered by dental insurance. Sigh.....

   An assessment with my dentist showed that there were other problems as well. Two of my teeth were partially spun around and the rest of my teeth were beginning to cave inwards. My primary concern was not so much that they were not picture perfect, but that if I were unable to floss and take care of them properly that they would decay and fall out and I would be stuck with health problems that can result from teeth and gum issues. I am one of those rare people who have never had a cavity. Aside from having my wisdom teeth removed when I was a teen, I have  had no real dental work done. So for me, this was a pretty big undertaking.

   I decided that I wanted to use the Invisalign Braces. My resolutions for the year did not include giving up my favorite foods. It would take longer, but I would be able to care for my teeth as I was accustom, AND eat foods that I liked to eat. So I began my journey. I was tickled when saw improvement right away! It was motivating. If I could straighten out this area of my life, even just a little bit, what else could I do?

   Perhaps I could grow a garden? You know, carrots, radishes and even corn (my daughter's idea). So we planted a garden. Fortunately God did a lot of the watering and we had some crops. Not very many, but there was some edible produce. And if I could grow a garden, I could continue to teach religious education, without my friend who I had previously split the teaching responsibilities with. Happily, I had better results than with my garden. I followed up with a resolution to cook more creative dishes.

   It helped that I had someone who was always ready to try my new creations.

   After a year, I had better looking teeth, though still a long way from completed end product. But I was ready for some bigger jumps. In my next set of resolutions,  I vowed to do at least three things well outside my comfort zone. I decided to start a blog. (What? Share the thoughts that wander around in my head with others? Start using social media for something other than stalking my friends and their families?) I would step up my involvement at church. I would plan a vacation (normally my husband's job). And I would try my hand at gardening - again.

   In some ways, I feel that I wowed myself. I did become more involved in church than I ever expected. I love working with the CRHP (Christ Renews His Parish) for women. I have a 4th grade religious education class that consists of 27 kids (YIKES!). I still count my garden as a somewhat success - look, if I had weeded, then the radishes would not have gotten nice and round, they would have been long and stringy - like the previous year. And there were tomatoes - don't forget the tomatoes!

   I even planned out a spring break trip! So there were bumps, like flash flooding and emergency vehicles. 

   I kept my commitment to writing my blog. I love writing a blog! I may not have a complete handle on the social media aspect of this yet, but I am getting there. Slowly. But the writing is what I set out to do, and most weeks I was able to do just that! Yay!

   Other resolutions were not so successful. Doesn't minimalizing the "stuff" in our house mean we should have more space - not less in our closets? All that media was supposed to be digital by year end - not stacked on my desk waiting for me to transfer to my computer and then cloud storage. And is it me, or are the laundry fairies shrinking my pants again? Was this a result of creative cooking that I continue to work on?

   As I set my resolutions for the next year, I try to focus on my successes. I finished my regimen with Invisalign Braces this last December and am extremely happy with the results. I have a very visible reminder of a commitment that I kept to straighten out one part of my life. And with help, I was able to do just that. My desire to live simply and enjoy what life has to offer grows with each success and deepens with each failure.

   My glass is still half full, waiting in expectation to be topped off. As I sit here this morning, I have begun to make my new resolutions for this year to help me straighten out my crooked life. I celebrate with my favorite cup of good cheer... this one I am sure to finish!

Happy New Year Everyone!