12 Months of Kindness 2014

It is a new year and that means it is time to create our list of acts of kindness for each month.

This year, as my first full year of being a 'stay at home mum,' we are trying to focus on saving money and really buckling down on where our limited funds are going.  After an uneasiness feeling that came with e-banking yesterday (yeesh, after Christmas is always the worst time to look at your bank account, no?) we decided that for 2014, our 12 Months of Kindness Project would focus on Gifts of Time.

Each month, we picked a different 'group' of people that we wanted to give our time too.  Obviously, we already spend quality time with most of the people listed, but we want to strive for making a focus on being present and making new memories - going out of the normal to really give of ourselves the one thing that money can't buy:  time.  We sketched out some ideas of gifts of time for each group as well - some of the months are designated for a group because of an annual kindness we do, like May - for young people in our community because of our yearly scholarship and July - for our friends because of Beer Olympics.

In June we plan to give each other gifts of time.  Brandon suggested that we switch one chore with each other to try to better appreciate what we do.  I'll be tackling garbage and burn duty while he attempts to take on laundry (washing, drying, folding, AND ironing! ah!!)

Other months will focus on accomplishing things we sometimes don't make time for that we want to but sadly push to the back burner; Like in March (Grandparents) visiting Grave sites and in November (Home) doing a deep cleaning.

It will be a new sort of 12 Months of Kindness Project for us - but one that I am really looking forward to - I think we might be on to something here:)

Maintaining our commitment to the 12 Months of Kindness Project has been such an important part of our family life.  We started it five years ago and have made honest attempts at completing (at least) one act of kindness as a family each month.  It has given our year such a strong focus on gratitude that helps keep us reminded that we are so lucky to live this life - no matter how difficult or messy it feels at times.  It is easy to get caught up in the everyday hum of adult life, the small disagreements or challenges - but having a monthly goal towards giving out kindness and reflecting on how truly lucky we are has been a key to our happiness as a family.

As the kids continue to grow, it has been awesome to watch them understand more and more about giving back - and this year, with our focus on gifts of time - we hope it will be ever more clear to them that the most important gift of kindness of all is that of yourself; of your time.

I hope so much that other families will join us in this commitment to 12 Months of Kindness Project.  It's so important to make a plan so that you can hold yourself (and your family) accountable to acting out in kindness.  I promise you, it will be a rewarding and inspiring year of gratitude for each member of your family.

Need inspiration?
Check out my kindness pinboard here.
or Read about our past acts of kindness here on the blog.

If you're interested in more information, please visit our dedicated blog at the 12 Months of Kindness Project.

fresh year; another fresh start

oh boy do I love me some new years.  In the words of one of my best friends (Hi, Nin!) I get all sorts of geeked about the idea of plans and goals and resolutions.  It's one of my favorite times of the year.

The last few weeks leading up to the holidays I was feeling particularly weary.  Sure it could have been the holiday bustle and the busyness that comes from being a coach's wife.  Or it could have been that the kids were all hyped up on sugar cookies for weeks on end or the cold weather.  But I'm pretty sure it was my inability to just let things be.  I am a happy person, but I am not one that gets that happiness easily.  I have to work at it each day and I push myself to read, watch, focus, and reflect on gratitude and patience.  I have to do this because I want to go to battle with things that I can't control.  Type A control freak in the flesh, my friends.

So this year, I am resolving to LET GO.
Let go of the things that bring me down.  Of the things that weigh me down because I want to analyze and battle and worry about them even though they are out of my control.  I want to let go of self-doubt and self-belittling.  Let go of comments or judgement that I don't need to carry in my heart or poison my thoughts late at night.

Here are some of the things I hope to let go of in 2014:

1. Beating myself up about having every single thing in my life together.  I want to be able to say without shaming myself that what I do each day is good enough.  I need to be kinder to myself.

2. Describing myself starting with the phrase, "I'm just not" - followed by any of these descriptors:
a runner,
a math person,
a real writer
I am all those things, I just need more practice.

3. of the words and thoughts that for unknown reasons I just don't say them aloud when I feel them.  Like, "You look great in that color!" or "I am having such a great time with you right now."  I want to give compliments freely.

4. Clutter and Junk

5. Anger.  I want to embrace equanimity, like mentioned in Sarah Napthali's The Complete Buddhism for Mothers :

"It's the ability to perceive all aspects of our lives with acceptance and patience rather than our usual extreme reactions...Equanimity is the ability to keep calm in whatever is happening....Practicing mindfulness helps us to be calm and peaceful, to keep all events in perspective....If anger or irritability knock at our door we watch them arise, exist and pass away without giving them power."

As inspiration and to continually remind myself to Let Go of the things that bring me down, I thought about the following Buddha quote and realized that it would be good practice to physically open my palms when I recognized myself holding onto something that makes me feel bad.  Like a symbolic gesture to get myself focused on letting go throughout the year.

Make note that I said I will be letting go of the things that bring me down.  In no way does that mean I'm going to be letting go of the plans, challenges, and the 'filling my plate to the brim' with all sorts of new things to try.

Besides the big one above that I hope will guide my year into mental calm and peace, we also filled out our yearly goals sheets to keep posted on the fridge.  As I am no good at limiting myself in goals, we sprinkle our goals across various facets of our lives to make sure we are striving to be better on all sides for the upcoming year.

My 2014 goals this year are as follows for the various categories:
Image:  take care of my feet/heels
House:  Clean out junk/dump zones
Physical/Strength:  run/walk 35 miles a month
Spiritual:  Joyfully (!) join a new church
Love:  Monthly love letters to Bud
Personal Interest:  Write every day (blog, novel, 750words, morning notes, journal, etc)
Family:  Start weekly extended family dinners
Travel:  take the family to visit baby Hubbard in NC (!!)
Really Ambitious:  Make Individual family member memory boxes

And obviously we still have 12 Months of Kindness Project for the year!  A post on that coming up next week - start brainstorming for your family!

I am so excited about the new year.  We're getting off to a slow start as Gem has been sick for the past two days and we have some serious crunch-time work going on at The Hunting Daddies for our next board book, but looking at my goal list, and keeping my palms open, and filling up my fresh new planner - has me continually inspired to stay focused and march on to a better version of ME.

Happy 2014, all!
How are your new years resolutions going four days in?

2013 in Review

I was planning on writing a big beautiful post about how our 2013 went.  It was going to be an awesome recap of all the stuff we plan with big ambitious hearts, then find ourselves looking at each other in panic while in the midst of mayhem, and then somehow come flopping, tumbling out of with surprised, grateful-that-its-over-and-we-got-the-pictures-to-prove-it smiles on our faces.

That's almost the exact progression of every.single.thing we do during the year.

and we always do too many things in the year.

But then I finally read this awesome post sent to me by my dear friend Jamie a few weeks ago (hi, Jamie- I know you meant for me to read this pre-Christmas, but somehow I read it only just today and somehow that was perfect timing.  so, as always, thank you.) called:  To the Mamas of Littles During the Holidays and realized, ya know what?  forget it. 

it's New Years eve and these kids are still all hyped up on sugar cookies and my husband is off from work today and its blustery cold outside, and um, no.  I WILL be doing LESS today.

so instead to recap our year - know this:

2013 was all of these things here at Team Studer:

tiring

exhilarating

messy

beautiful

too fast

too slow

it brought new things (like this, this, and this)

old things remained

we took trips (this, this, and this)

we stayed home

or in other words - it was blessed.

thank you for being here with me through it all.  

If you need permission (which you NEVER do), please feel free to also do LESS today too.

happiest new year to each of you.

xxxox