Three Hundred and Sixty Three...

So it won't be right to finish up this 365 challange without reviewing my word for the year. Potential! I feel like I did some things this year that I might not have done unless I had this word to focus on. Here is a little list:

• I tried to be more thoughtful and follow through with it. Sometimes I am think of something nice to do for someone and then I don't follow through.


• I tried not to be such a home body. I opened up my home to lots of people throughout the year. At one point this summer we had the boy scouts in our pool tipping canoes.


• I really pushed myself to get better at photography. I was maybe a tad too focused in this area.

I think I could have lived up to my potential more in some areas. I would make steps forward and then fall back on those goals. But that is life, I suppose. I have 2010 right?

Fifty-five...

I used to be into learning how to cartoon. And I used to wear scrunchies.

Fifty-one...

Tuesday mornings Avery, Bodie and I just hang around the house doing chores. Most the time in our pajamas. Avery doesn't really like the chores part. It is a standing appointment I have with myself so that I don't get too behind on the deep cleaning. If Avery helps me willingly she gets to watch a little show or play her Wii Princess game.

The game is really cute and makes the player problem solve to find things in each of the princess worlds. You can make your own character and choose all the things she is wearing, right down to the earrings. Above, she is exploring the market place from Aladdin. She is trying to find the little monkey (Aboo - sp??). The bottom two pictures show her using her wand to perform "magic" to make things happen on the screen.

It is a shame that the Wii remote won't perform "magic" on my toilets.

Thirteen

I have heard of people thinking of a word for the year. They use the word as kind of a theme or a direction. They choose words like love, hope, change. It is something that is meaningful to them. I have NEVER thought that I would be able to do this. To choose one word to focus on for the entire year. I just thought to myself, how nice for them, but I can't commit to one word. I didn't even try to think of one.

Then unexpectedly as I was driving around the other day dropping kids off here and picking this up there (you know the drill). Like a ton of bricks a word came to me. I kind of ignored it for a minute. Then the more I thought about it I couldn't get it out of my head.

For me this word will help me strive for the next level. I find myself just kind of going from day to day and not challenging myself. It is easy to be challenged when you are younger because you always going to the next level; kindergarten to first grade, junior varsity to varsity, high school to college and college to your first real job. As you get older there is not as many natural levels in life. You have to create them yourself or you are stuck.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of responsibility to live up to with motherhood, wifely duties, church, preschool and such. However, I feel like in some ways I have settled into a pattern of taking care of things on mediocre level. And you know what? That is just not my style. Ron and I sometimes discuss that it feels like we are getting a lot done but only half way. Well, I don't like halfway.

I had no idea that I would blither on like that just to introduce my word for 2009. Here it is:






po·ten·tial

adj.
1. Capable of being but not yet in existence; latent: a potential problem.
2. Having possibility, capability, or power.
3. Grammar Of, relating to, or being a verbal construction with auxiliaries such as may or can; for example, it may snow.
n.
1. The inherent ability or capacity for growth, development, or coming into being.
2. Something possessing the capacity for growth or development.
3. Grammar A potential verb form.
4. Physics The work required to move a unit of positive charge, a magnetic pole, or an amount of mass from a reference point to a designated point in a static electric, magnetic, or gravitational field; potential energy.

My favorites are in green. I just feel like every aspect of my life can be brought up to the next level. I feel like I can apply myself more. So look out 2009 for you are full of potential.