WHAT WILL YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THIS YEAR?

Last November, I did a fairly extensive life review.  I spent time considering each of the major facets of my life from several angles.  I looked backward, I looked forward and I looked at right where I was.  It was a great exercise and really helped me to think about how I wanted to spend my time as I moved into the new year.

Before I got started, I read through several articles with varying ideas on exactly how to conduct this sort of life review.  Fitting with my "Questioner" personality, I did a lot of research and then just used the ones that made the most sense to me or really resonated with me in one way or another.

Out of all that, one question has really stuck with me.

"What will you remember about this year?"

This question feels like THE QUESTION.  My days are often filled with monotonous tasks and urgent concerns, but those aren't the things that I will remember.  I fill our family Project Life album with all the photos and lists of what we do and some of the funny things the kids say.  All that is good and I enjoy looking back through the albums from time to time, but most of those things aren't the things I will remember.

It is amazing to me how big and important things feel in the moment and how little of them I can recall a year (or even just a month) later.

The things we remember are the new things, the big things and the things that happen on repeat.

For the first half of 2018, here's what I will remember:

• Sam's love of the presidents and crazy ability to memorize all of their birth and death dates
• Eli's love of Sweetcakes (his plush rat)
• Maggie yelling "Yijah!" and never calling her brother Eli
• Creating a new identity for our family as "campers" and our first few camping trips
• Eli's interests in guns and volcanoes and weather and talk of fish
• My adoption of "The Rule of Six" and all the ways it has helped me be (and feel like) a good mom
• Reading a lot of books - on my own and also to the kids
• Brian's summer of school (with the knowledge that this is the end of his classes and all future summers will be school-free)
• Brian's listening to Jordan Peterson on repeat
• Spending time with Brian's parents in the weeks before and after Ken's surgery
• The 40 Days of Prayer series
• Maggie's talk about ice cream flavors (every single day)and how happily she plays independently
• Sam finishing kindergarten
• Still not knowing if Eli will go to public school or stay home 
• Joining my small group through church and finding kindred spirits 
• The boys talking about our 2017 vacations on an almost daily basis
• Maggie saying, "Hi mama.  How doing?" twenty times a day.
• Running and singing and laughing our way around our kitchen and living room
• Maggie and Eli watching Charlotte's Web and eating Lunchables

I think this list does a fair job of summing up our last six months and I like it.  

Life is good.  God is good.  I can't thank Him enough for all of His blessings.