Self-Portrait Tuesday

Stop for a minute and take a self-portrait, a snapshot of you in the here and now. What ARE your dreams and goals for 2008? What is your word? What are you thinking about right now as we plunge head-first into the new year?

My MANTRA for 2008 is

Less is More

Less is More...Less of Me...More of Healthy...
I want to start eating healthier. I have been working toward drinking more water and less of everything else. I need to be more active. I'm not getting any younger and I have really been feeling it lately!! I need to start moving more!! So I have joined The Culver Judge 100 DAY HEALTH CHALLENGE in conjunction with Lighten up Iowa

and Live Healthy America.



The Challenge starts January 16th and goes to April 24th...100 days. We have formed a 10 person team in our office...Contracts for Fitness...I was voted Captain. We all keep track of our own weight loss and activiity. Then we each have a 'dashboard' on the website to log all of our information into weekly. The program is full of helpful tips on eating healthy and staying active. It even gives us recipes to try. Maybe it will motivate me to do more to get healthy and MORE Active. Remember TEAM is ...Together Everyone Achieves More... that's even more true in this endeavor!!

Here's to getting fit and feeling great!

Less is More...

Less Clutter...More Houshold Space.
I'm going to clean out my storage closets and clothes closets. I have stuff in my storage closet I haven't seen since I lived in the mobile home in Ankeny!! It's time for some of that stuff to go! If I haven't seen it in 7 years I probably don't need it!! I have started on my and Mike's clothes closet...I sent 5 Large garbage bags of clothes to an adult group home in Osceola. I have too many belongings and most of it is unnecessary. It's time for it to go.

Less is More...

Less watching TV...More Family Time.
This one will require help from the husband, but I'm going to give it a try. We watch too much TV and we don't go outside and do something active...this gets back to raising my activity level!! I want to spend more time with the two boys I have at home. After all, Hunter is 9 and in 3rd grade...it seems just yesterday he was in pre-school. And Alex, already 12...I just want to slow him down and I want to be able to watch him grow into himself...he seems to be in such a hurry to be an adult. They are such little men (and babies too).

I also want to spend more time with my older kids and my grandkids. The little ones won't be little forever. Rhonda's kids are growing so fast (& multiplying!). Brighton is 2 and Tate is 5 and Savanah will be arriving in a few months, Shannon's little ones, Joshua just turned 4 and Josie is 5 now. Soon they will be in school and half- grown before we know it. I don't want to miss anymore of them growing up than I have to...anymore than I already have.

Less is More...

Less Procrastination...More 'Do It Now'.
I have things around the house that need to be done. Example...I bought blinds for all the bedroom windows this past year and they are still in the boxes and waiting for me to get them hung. I have to polyurethane all the window sills first but it really needs to be done. I have a tough time getting things started too. We have to paint all the rooms in the house...just one of those things I hate to get started and then have a room torn up for months on end (like the laundry room was). I have a tough time finishing things, as well, obviously! I have been very guilty of not completing a lot of things...sewing, knitting, quilting and such, these things need to be finished, as well. This is the year I'm going to get a lot of it done!

Less is More...

Less Stress...More Calming down.
I read somewhere that our mind can only handle so many stressors (things left undone), before we feel the stress of knowing it's not done. I will try this year to finish a lot of those undone things and relieve my stress as much as possible. I will try to be less stressed when things don't go quite the way I want them to. I will hope for the best and settle for what may come. It's pretty much in God's hands anyway and I will learn to accept that and not be stressed about every little thing. I'm sure the boys will appreciate a Mom who's not freaking out over the little things all the time. Take a deep breathe and Calm Down!

So, in a nut shell, my New Year's Resolutions/goals for the year 2008 are:

I want to enjoy more time with my family at every opportunity.

I want to be a smaller, healthier version of my present self with the energy to complete the tasks I have set before me.

I want to end the procrastination in my life and complete my many projects and in doing so, lead a stress free life!

Pray for me!!!

Some exciting news

Rhonda had an Ultra-sound Friday the 11th and the great mystery of boy or girl has been solved. It's a GIRL!! Her name will be Savanah May and she is due June 11th...give or take a few days! I am so happy and excited...now I have to start on that pink baby blanket I almost made when Brighton was born!! And I only have 21 weeks to complete it. And I can tell you, the time will go by so fast! Go to Rhonda's Blog (the link is on my blog) and see the Ultra-sound picture of our little Savanah. And thanks to all of you who did THINK PINK with me!!!













I thought I'd share a few pictures from Christmas Eve. All the boys were together at Grandma Newsom's house and we had a great time. I made Clam Chowder for dinner and we celebrated Grandma's 83rd Birthday too!!

Mike had to do inventory at work on the 29th so we had to wait to have Lisa and the rest of the kids over for Christmas on January 5th. They were here for 6 wonderful hours. It's always great to spend time with the Grandkids. Here's a few pictures of that happy occasion...you can tell the little ones don't like Papa Mike too much!!

We hope you all had a great Christmas with friends and family too!

Happy New Year!!

WOW! 2008 is here. Crazy! I'm still trying to figure out what happened to 2007! We hope you all had a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve. We traditionally stay home and watch movies or whatever is good on TV. Too many crazy folks out there on the road.

We've survived the Caucus...hope you did your civic duty and went to the Caucus...I did. Now we just have to wait to see who gets nominated in a few months!! It's also Tax Time... God has blessed us this year with good incomes and now we have to go see just how much Uncle Sam & Uncle Culver get to keep!! Maybe if the right person gets into the White House, the taxes won't be so much in a year or two. Yeah right!! No matter who gets voted in for President and all the 'promises' made about change or whatever...that person still has to get their wants approved by Congress...and there won't be a darn thing done!! It's going to stay the same and the 'Good Ole Boy Club' will get what they want done and nothing else. It won't matter what the people really want or need! Sorry...sometimes it's hard for me to be an optimist about this stuff. I guess we hope for the best and expect the worst. Keeps one from being too disappointed about everything. Enough about politics!

January is a busy month for us. Lots of birthdays in January...including mine!! To celebrate, this Friday I'm having very minor foot surgery and will be gimping around for a week or two. Not really looking forward to that!! But better to get it done before spring and summer when I'm going to want to be wearing sandals and be outside in the yard doing stuff! Mike's daughter, Lisa's birthday is the day after mine, so we are planning to go to Lunch at El Rodeo in Des Moines on Saturday the 19th. This has become the tradition every year and we have a great time getting together with everyone. That I AM looking forward to!

The boys started their 2nd semester of school. Boy, that 1st semester seems to have gone quickly! It will be Spring and Easter before we know it. Time to start thinking about getting ready for Easter since I heard it is the earliest Easter in like a 100 years!! March 23rd! I must admit the earliest I ever remember was like April 8th or something like that!! The boys usually get a 4 day weekend for Easter, but looking at our school calendar, this year it falls during Spring Break!! They get March 14th through the 24th off. That's 10 days, almost the same amount of time they had off for Christmas!! And then School will be out for the Summer, May 22nd!! Now, there were about 4 days for the ice storm, so the end may not be until May 30th, but that's still better than June 4th like last year!!

Backing up to February...The boys and I leave Valentine's Day evening for Orlando, Florida!! Disney World, Epcot and the Animal Kingdom...Sea World, if we have time and the last morning we will be at the OCEAN!! This is going to be a very exciting thing for the boys, I hope. They have never flown anywhere and then to see the ocean! WoW! I'm very excited just to be able to share this with them. Hunter likes to travel in the van on long trips, but we will see how he does flying!! Alex is a little nervous, but that's just Alex! We will only be gone until the evening of the 17th, so we will have to pack as much FUN into our trip as we can. The boys don't even have to miss any school because the Friday we will be gone is a day off from school! Yes, I planned it this way!! And flights were cheapest for us then too! I just realized it's only a month away!! But trust me, we will fill you all in when we get back!

For now though, we hope you all have a healthy and prosperous 2008!