It's A New Year - 2018!

How's that for an original title?

I haven't posted much lately, mainly because we haven't been home and I don't like posting from my iPad or, heaven forbid, my phone. Yikes!  That would be horrible!

I do have a new laptop though...Christmas gift from Gary.   Did I really need a new laptop?  Probably not.  But the old one was getting older.  It was freezing up on me.  It wouldn't work properly at times.  I couldn't play BINGO on it.  I know...that is not really a factor, but I couldn't.  This will probably be my last new laptop ever since I really don't need it for work like the last one or for anything really THAT important.  I am still getting used to it since yesterday was our first day back at home after the NYEve trip and I hadn't done much with it in the one day we were here after I unwrapped it.

Where do I begin?  Rundown of Christmas with the kids?  The Siemens Christmas on Christmas Eve?  The trip to Birmingham?  The 5 days in Gatlinburg?  My thrill of January?  Snow and ice?

All of those are good topics for blog posts, but I think I will wait until another time to focus on any of those.  What I want to do is talk about the new year.

I am really excited about 2018.  Why? Because it started off well.  There wasn't a feeling of dread with a parent being ill or recovering from a death.  There really seemed to be a 'blank slate' and the possibilities of fun things were hovering around, waiting to be placed in appropriate spots.

As we were driving back to Indiana on Tuesday, I was contemplating buying a cheap notebook and just jotting things in it.  Nothing formal.  No journaling.  Not a diary.  But just a place to make some lists.  Jot down ideas for Christmas gifts.  A place to put things I want to remember.

When I mentioned it to Hilary, she said "Oh I do that on my phone" which is good, but I am not phone savvy.  Plus I deleted an important list once on my phone just by mistakenly swiping at the trash can icon accidentally.  I couldn't retrieve it either.  Of course it was really the phone's fault because I wasn't asked "Are you sure you want to delete this?" like I am asked for everything else I want to get rid of!  It just disappeared!

When I told Gary I wanted to look for a small cheap notebook and the reasons for it, he said there were notebooks from Mom's house that were in boxes.  Ok....where are they?  He said they were in the Quonset.  I would have to look through the boxes and find them.  Since it is below 0* most of the time now and since the Quonset is at Sandy's house and not heated, I walked to the office section of Meijer and picked out a cheap notebook and tossed it in the cart. Small price to pay for keeping warm.  

This afternoon I started the lists.  Potential gift items.  These came from gifts that Greta sent me for Christmas (and that we just opened this morning) and from ideas people have mentioned lately.  I never remember things when I need to remember what someone wants or when I need to think about stocking stuffers or other such things.  

Another list is the quilt projects I want to complete.   I take great pleasure in crossing things off lists and I look forward to crossing off lots of these items.

Books read in 2018.  Not only will I see the accomplishment, I will be able to actually recall what I have read and what I have not!  After a while some titles blend into other titles or the subjects escape me.  

I am sure there will be other things to record also along the way.  I am excited about this.

Another exciting thing for me is the "Read the Bible in a Year" challenge.  Deb Parish Sizemore posted on FB that she had completed two years of this, in different formats, and was ready to start a third challenge. Since she invited others to join her, I decided to jump in.  I downloaded the Bible from YouVersion.com onto my phone (since we were in Sevierville at the time) and then on my Nook. Deb and I are 'friends' on this app and she has responded with some encouragement for me.  So far I am really enjoying this process.  There is a commentary (like a daily devotion) followed by a reading from the Psalms, then scripture from the Old and New Testaments.  Usually there are 6-7 segments to complete.  After all of the reading is finished, there is a large check mark on the Day and the tracker congratulates me on staying on schedule.  I like the format of this particular study since the devotional prepares me for the Scripture reading that is ahead.  There is always a story or two, examples of how the verses support the story, then every day advice or something that is easy to relate to.  This makes the scriptures much easier to read and to understand.

The last thing I am doing for a few weeks is re-reading Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst.  I had read this before during an OBS with Proverbs 31.  This time I am reading it with a group from Weight Watchers over 50 that is on FB.  The self-appointed leader posted a reading guide with focus questions from the book and suggested that we post answers to these questions in the forum.  No one had until I took the plunge and started the discussion with answers to a couple of the chapter questions.  More seemed to follow and format as I did.  I like this book. I like the group.  Not I need to like myself more so that I follow what I am reading about!

2018 seems to be off to a good start.  The Christmas tree is still up and probably won't come down until Sunday.  But that is ok.  No teaching to do. No plans for anything really except babysitting with Cooper and Lynnlee next week then Landon's birthday.  

Here's to a great year!  Bring it on, 2018!