Month: December 2020

Ramblings

Final thoughts for 2020

ann marie

As we get ready to go into the New Year I wanted to reflect on this last year for just a minute. It’s been a year like no one could have imagined!!! I mean a pandemic is definitely not something anyone would have expected.

Truly, the year seems like only a few months most of it went by rather quickly when we stopped watching the calendar for our next appointments. The days turned into weeks and weeks into months and next thing I knew I was told it was about to be New Year’s Eve.

I’ve truly enjoyed all the extra time with my kids, but I’ve also been overwhelmed, stressed, tired, trapped feeling, anxious. The year I know hasn’t been perfect for anyone and we all handle things differently, but I’m thankful for the health we have had this year! The covid that did come through our house wasn’t nearly as bad as what others have experienced, so I’m thankful for that.

2021 brings a new calendar year and most people set goals and resolutions, which so far I haven’t seen many posted or talked about. I think we all are still wondering how the virus will continue affecting our lives. I know personally making goals seems hard to think about, instead I’m making a New Years motto “it’s all in God’s time and God’s hands”.

I’ve got plans to get back on track with my work outs and to work harder at some other aspects of life, but I as far as goals go I’m not ready to make them. I just want to love each day as the best mom to my girls I can and pray to God daily for His guidance and strength!

Happy New Years everyone! If you’ve got goals I wish you all the best luck on them!!! If you want to create a motto instead I think it’s a great alternative to the typical goals!

Ramblings

New traditions

ann marie

One thing I want to say about 2020 is that it’s taught our family new ways to adapt and bond. While I’ve been a stay at home mom since I had my first daughter over 13 years ago I’ve never actually “stayed home.” We’ve always been on the go be it to appointments, play dates, errands, etc. So much like everyone else, being told to stay home was a huge change for our family.

It took some adjusting for sure, but I think we’ve definitely gotten into a new routine and developed at least one new tradition this last year! A couple traditions, routines, weekly habits (whatever you want to call them) that we’ve been able to continue with throughout this time has been a Friday night movie night and Saturday night dinner picks.

The dinner pick started when I needed to be able to grab food on the way home from church (back when it was safe to go) and I didn’t want to have everyone fight to decide which drive thru. So I decided each week a new family member would pick where we grabbed food from and everyone else either chose food from their or they had to eat something we already had at home. (We did take some time off while we waited for the new safety standards to be in place and it to be a deemed safe to go back to drive thru.)

Letting each member have their day let’s their voices be heard and everyone get a chance to chose their favorites. One other fun thing that was started while quarantined was taken from the movie “Mean Girls”, “we always wear pink on Wednesday!” Let’s face it most of us live in lounge clothes and go nowhere, so having a day to wear something specific helps change up that routine! My girls also decided to add a fun mid-week treat of Starbucks to this!!!!! Secretly, I think they were trying to find a good excuse to get me to take them to Starbucks more often……..and it’s worked!

So here’s to the fun new and old traditions helping us get through this crazy time we are in!

Ramblings

Looking forward

ann marie

I spent November on Instagram posting about things I’m thankful for. I plan to make a post with all my thankfulness posts soon. For now though I want to talk about my plans for 2021, this morning I was asked in a FB group: “What do you want in the new year? What positive changes do you want to make for yourself?”

My answer on the post was: “I want to become more confident in several areas of my life in the new year! I’m always working towards this goal, but while I know how to do things I’m not always confident in my abilities at the same time! “

What I should have written is: “I want to achieve freedom and strength! To do more things on my own and know that I have the strength for my girls to continue moving towards the next chapter of my life!”

Deep down I want to jump into 2021, but I know that I’ll likely be taking baby steps. That’s okay though! As long as we are making steps however small it’s okay!

So here’s to me putting it in writing that in 2021:

I WILL CONTINUE TO TAKE STEPS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL, FORWARD AND FIND MY STRENGTH EVERY DAY!!!!