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Any­one with a child knows that bound­aries can be hard to main­tain, but they make life so much sim­pler in the long run.

I gave up New Year Res­o­lu­tions years ago. It was just another dis­ap­point­ment that I had to over­come.  I thought doing away with res­o­lu­tions made me a super cool rebel­lious chick. Lame, I know. #shaddup  It occurred to me this past year, that hav­ing no set res­o­lu­tions isn’t rebel­lious, but actu­ally quite smart. It was just miss­ing one key item…boundaries. Bound­aries keep you in check with motives, goals and dreams. There’s noth­ing wrong with not set­ting spe­cific goals, but you bet­ter have bound­aries in place so you are at least mov­ing for­ward towards something.

The right wall along my path stops me from wan­der­ing into the Field of Unhealthy Lifestyle. The left wall keeps me out of the Pit of Too Many Yes’s.  Along the way there are stop signs which remind me to pause and reflect on my path and recent deci­sions. There are also yield signs that allow peo­ple and ideas to join me on my path. If those things become some­thing that does not belong on my path, I send them on a new path at the next stop sign.

These bound­aries help me feel so much more con­fort­able with deci­sions. I don’t get nearly as dis­tracted and frus­trated. Obvi­ously this is my moti­va­tion path. My per­sonal path looks a bit dif­fer­ent. I have a lot more yields…it allows me to open myself up to oth­ers that sharp­ens my spirit.

I hope the path to your goals find you with many flex­i­ble deci­sions and won­der­ful sur­prises along the way…

Happy 2012!

For the first time in almost a year, I was able to work the entire day on just what I love to do…social media strat­egy. I bought a com­pany to be able to do this every day, as a job instead of as a hobby. As most busi­ness own­ers know, you always end up doing what­ever it takes to get the job done. I feel like I’ve been doing every­thing. I don’t mind it entirely, but it’s not my love.

I read a quote on Pin­ter­est the other day that said (kind of sort of in a way):

Want to know where your heart lies?…what do you think about when your mind wanders…that’s it.

I think of Twit­ter chats I’m miss­ing, short-term and long-term goals for social media clients and Bound­less, and how to tweak those goals weekly. It actu­ally sounds a bit geeky in writ­ing, but it’s what I love.

And today felt ful­fill­ing for the first time in ages.

Before the guilt of “what about your fam­ily?” comes in — my fam­ily will thank me for doing what I love. They know what’s like being around a frus­trated momma who is work­ing like a dog doing some­thing that just needs to be done.  Don’t get me wrong…as I teach my boys…sometimes you just have to do what needs to be done because that’s life.  So when you do get to do what you love, it’s so much more rewarding!

~My back doesn’t ache — I got up about every hour and stretched/taught Londin/rough-housed with the dogs.
~My headache went away with­out med­i­cine - Adren­a­line is an amaz­ing thing!
~My patience with Old­man was actu­ally present — Yeah!

I look for­ward to more of these days in 2012!

Every Christ­mas, start­ing in Novem­ber, I choose to see the best of the hol­i­day season.

I don’t hear the ‘I wanna have..’-whines —  I hear the oohs and ahhs of the won­der of Christ­mas.
I don’t see the angry, impa­tient dri­vers — I see the hus­tle and bus­tle of hol­i­day cheer.
I don’t feel the cold, hard wind of win­ter — I feel the mag­i­cal sen­sa­tion of snow in the air.
I don’t smell the exhaust fumes from cars rush­ing here and there — I smell the rich aroma of Christ­mas meals and desserts.
I don’t taste the typ­i­cal bit­ter Amer­i­can mate­ri­al­ist waste — I taste the sweet fla­vor of a giv­ing soul.

What are you choos­ing to hear, see, feel, smell and taste this year at Christ­mas? We don’t need a New  Year’s Res­o­lu­tion to make the right deci­sions today.

Make a dif­fer­ence in your­self and in your family…now.

• Grow­ing up, I loved Lucy but as an adult I want to bean her in the head. Then adopt Pig Pen and Linus.
• Flour is like sand. It gets every­where and no amount of vac­u­um­ing will clean it all up.
• If you get caught up in danc­ing to Feliz Navi­dad and put the crum­ble on your apple crisp before the apple filling…it still turns out ok. But next year, I need to stay focused.
• A Thanks­giv­ing with­out sweet potato pie is no Thanks­giv­ing at all. {dang it!}
• Lip-synching artists on the Macy Parade floats are lame. I want to hear the real deal!
• It may be a hol­i­day, but strep­to­coc­cal pharyn­gi­tis could care less.
• Skip­ping Black Fri­day after years of get­ting up at mid­night felt like play­ing hooky and I’m bet­ter for it!
• I’m feel­ing crafty and homemade-y…save me.

In 3 days, it would’ve been my Grandmother’s birth­day. We cel­e­brated it last year, but then she died a cou­ple of weeks later. My heart imme­di­ately aches for my Grandpa. They were able to cel­e­brate 70 years of mar­riage before she passed away and I won­der how heavy his heart was this past month as year 71 passed with­out her. He’s a strong, strong man — phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally but I don’t care how tough you are…loosing the love of your life is a soul cruncher.

Junia was a beau­ti­ful, ele­gant lady who could sing the socks off the moon. I can’t hear a 1940s song with­out hear­ing the swoon of her alto voice. She loved to col­lect recipes. She could sure cook, but she always col­lected more recipes “to try” than she could ever do in a life­time. She was a lover of Jesus with a soul that was com­pletely His.

I’m so very thank­ful for the char­ac­ter and lessons she engraved into my life before leav­ing. I gig­gle at some and tear up at oth­ers. I’m a so much more a bet­ter per­son because of being a part of her life.

If my posts reach Heaven…I love you, Grandma…and miss you.…

I can’t think of another Day­light Sav­ings period that has thrown me so out of wack! You would think that “falling back” is the bet­ter of the 2 evils (spring­ing for­ward), but that extra hour of sleep has put me into hiber­na­tion. HA…I’m sure the rainy weather and cooler temps aren’t helping.

I’d like to curl up with a good book, a comfy quilt and read like I have no respon­si­bil­i­ties. Mwa­ha­haha… or bet­ter yet: Yawwwwwwwn.

Chris Bro­gan made a com­ment on Google+ yes­ter­day about tak­ing time to stop. Stop blog­ging, stop talk­ing, stop doing…just stop…and play. Sat­ur­day night, the boys got ready for bed early, piled on our bed and we had a Mahjong show down. J and Grem­lin against me and Old­man. A bed-full of nerds hav­ing iPad wars before drift­ing off into our own sub-conscious bat­tles called dreams. We laughed like morons. We taunted like the pathetic war­riors we were. It was fun.

We didn’t go to bed with wor­ries of the next day, we just set­tled in for a good nights rest (and an extra hour to boot.) Maybe that break is what is mak­ing me feel fat and sassy enough to hibernate.

I stopped. I rested. I won.