We’re a quarter of the way through 2014 and I just celebrated my birthday, which means it’s the time of year when I typically do some extra reflecting and evaluating.

This year I didn’t set super specific goals – which is new for me.  I simply took some time to evaluate what I wanted more of this year and set a theme to focus on.

Rooted is my word.

I planned on setting monthly goals, and maybe I should.  It’s fun for me to see measurable progress and to hold myself accountable for what I didn’t accomplish.  Instead I’ve just kept this over arching theme in mind.  Not every day, but often enough.  And here’s a little update:

Part of my reason for choosing Rooted as my word, was because we have big changes coming this year.  So I want to establish some family rhythms now that will hopefully carry over  and keep us grounded when the change comes.

We’ve started a Saturday night pizza and a movie night.  We make the dough after lunch, let it rise for a few hours and then roll it out, load it up and bake it around 5.  We eat while we watch the movie – well, the girls are still learning how to do that.  The movie is usually more entertaining than the food. Nick had this tradition growing up – his was on Fridays.  I like the idea of having a weekly “thing” .  And pizza every week seems like a perfect thing.

We also light candles during almost every weekday meal.  A simple thing to add some warmth to the table.  Although now that the sun stays out longer and streams in on our table, I keep forgetting to light them.

I’m hoping to improve our bedtime routine in the next few months.  I want to find a way to make it more enjoyable.  Right now there are a lot of orders being barked, children whining and running, and we rush through stories and prayers.  I want to work to change that.  Any suggestions would be helpful.

As for my personal goal to be more rooted in Christ, that’s always a work in progress.  I’ll never achieve any sort of perfection in that area here on Earth, but I can spend more time learning about God and studying the Bible in order to continue to grow deeper in my relationship with him.  I’m walking through the plan to read the Bible in a year as well as a Lent plan until Easter. I’d like to journal more again – making myself sit and write out my thoughts and prayers really helps me focus.

And as I’ve been reading this past month – I’m now up to 5 books in less than a month and I don’t know what’s taken over me –  I have a new area where I’m working to become rooted.  My neighborhood.  I’ve spent the last few years wishing we could move. Dreaming about a back yard.  Thinking if we got out of this place I’d be happier.  But I’ve readjusted my thinking. Yes,  bought this house in a rush (we didn’t even sleep on it – put a deposit down the day we saw it), and we expected to be moved out by Nick’s company after a year or two, AND of course we couldn’t predict the market crash.  So all this time I kept looking at being here as being “stuck”. But maybe we need to shift our view.  We’re here to stay for quite some time, so let’s make the best of it.

We always said we didn’t want a yard to maintain (read: shovel and mow grass).  We have a grocery store and bank we can walk to. We have a pond in “our backyard” and a big lake with a swimming beach we can walk to. There are tons of restaurants we haven’t explored yet. We need to open our eyes to where we’ve been placed and make the best of it.  Grow where we’re planted.

Mariah will go to school a half a mile from our house – at a school we would never have considered if we didn’t live here. I’m hoping we can connect with families in our area to avoid the 30 minute drive to playdates.  Just another way to be rooted in our community.

So there’s a little update on how I’m becoming more rooted.  Still lots of room for growth in the coming months, but some steady progress for this first part of the year.