Nunca Nada

After almost twenty-two years and I still remember some Spanish! I left San Diego, California after my hubby and I married in the Spring of 1990. After using Spanish on a daily basis to using it very few times a YEAR, I know without a doubt that I've lost a lot of my knowledge of Spanish. However, I do know that when you use a "double negative" it intensifies the statement.



If you look up the words "Nunca" & "Nada" in a Spanish translator you'll see the following:



Never and Nothing



For me, this is the only time of the year I use the two words together. Never nothing to me means that I will never "Resolve" nothing or anything in the "New Year." I get excited about the prospects of new year. Don't get me wrong. The newness, the anticipation of excitement of neat new wonderful plans is absolutely magnificently wonderful to me. (Yes, I used the word "wonderful" twice in a sentence. LOL)



We receive gardening catalogs throughout December that we start looking through around Christmas or thereafter. We start planning what we're going to order for our garden, discussing the changes we'll be making as well as the larger purchases we'll need to make this coming Spring.



Along with all this planning comes the realization that our children are getting older and most of the physical work related to gardening has fallen on to the children, mostly by their own request. This year is going to be a little bit different. All three of our children are hoping to work for our friends at their farm. This means that the morning chores will be up to my husband and I after either of us get back from taking the children to their farm. I think it's a good thing though. It will give us a taste of what things will be like in about 10 years, God willing, when they have homes of their own.



Now, if I don't make resolutions in the New Year, what do I do?



I'm glad you asked!

• I already know that I need to lose weight, so I save myself some disappointment and not resolve to lose weight. I grant myself grace, forgive myself and set smaller, more obtainable goals for myself.  Every day, every week, every month, I work toward eating healthier, moving more and working on my physical body.  My goal has always been to be healthier, not to have an unhealthy view of what my body “should” look like, but working toward better health.  I fall, just like everyone else does, but I also allow myself 2 small pieces of chocolate every day.  Some days I don’t want it.  Other days I do.  Does this mean I eat at unhealthy diet?  No!  I just had leftover chicken, veggie and potato casserole for breakfast!  I love it!  It makes me feel so much better than a “traditional breakfast” of pancakes and syrup, oatmeal, cream of wheat, waffles or cereal would.  I don’t like eating the above breakfasts any more due to the fact that I feel sick to my stomach in an hour and need to eat something with protein in it.  I know it is due to my blood sugar plummeting, so I’m just circumventing that from happening by eating dinner leftovers for breakfast. 

• I already know that I need to work with my children on their school work. I save myself the unrealistic expectations, doing the best I can with each day I've been given, to teach my children what I need to teach them. Do I fall? Yes! I fall every single day! But, to make a resolution that is so very unrealistic for myself and my children sets all of us up for failure. Believe me! I've done it before and it "ain't" purdy!

• I already know that I'd like to grow closer to my Lord and my Savior. I love reading my scriptures! Yes! I do! My wonderful thoughtful hubby bought me an NKJV Woman's Devotional Bible for Christmas. See:

 It is still in the box in this picture, but it is leather bound in a beautiful fushia and tan with scrolling on it. It's beautiful! Now comes the laborious task of going through it page by page with hubby's Bible side by side noting and highlighting the verses I've highlighted and noted in his Bible. He laughed at me when I said that. But he knew exactly what I meant. I just want to do it with a variety of highlighter colors this time and assign each color to a type of verse. I learned this idea from reading Elizabeth George's book,  






 My goal is to begin doing this after I get our income taxes filed.

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• I already know that we have financial goals, which really don't change much with each passing pay period. They adjust a little bit here and there if something comes up needing to be taken care of, like needing to rip out mold covered wood in the basement and putting in French Drains.

Many of our conversations through the year revolve around a "when" timeframe. We have discontinued the New Year's Resolution in favor of simply setting goals, reassessing their progress and readjusting as needed, or if need be...pitching them altogether. LOL

Why not a resolution? In God's word it says to "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." If I need to do this, I need to love myself. If I need to love myself, I need to forgive myself, release guilt and move on. Right? Before I can love my neighbor, I need to let go of all this other unholy, ungodly "baggage", grant myself some grace and stop beating myself up. Resolutions, at least for me, do not lend themselves to the "loving myself" idea, so I've stopped making them altogether.

If Jesus loves me unconditionally and doesn't place unrealistic expectations on me, why should I do that to myself?