Hello 2012- nice to finally meet you.

My hopes, determination, and goals for 2012:

• "Excuse the mess, we are making memories here!"  I want to finally put a sincere effort into remembering what is the most important job and priority of being a mother is. I so easily get frustrated with my children just because they are being kids and my house isn't the way I feel it should be. I am grateful for people in my life that remind me of this principle.. I have one friend that just had a baby and I was over at her house and her kids were running wild and she just smiled and said, "I just try to remember that it won't always be this way and this is why we are here is to be mom's and I just want to have happy children." Really inspired me. Just to help remind me, I got a pendent made with a little child's hand in the middle and the saying, "making memories."
• Boundaries. Reapplying the boundaries I have made in the past that have made my relationships stronger and not so easily forgetting how black and white they should be. My emotional health is just as important to me or more than anything else! If I am not in a good place emotionally, it's hard to function in life. 
• 10k. This past year I have fulfilled things in my life I never saw myself doing. It wasn't planned nor thought about it as I rang in 2011 however by the end of this year, I was able to add things to the list I made. I never have considered myself a runner but I pushed hard and did my best to find the positive side of running and pushing through. I ran my 1st 5k on Thanksgiving Day and I felt like I did great. So for this year I am preparing mentally and physically for my 1st 10k. Not sure when it will happen but it will happen before the years end.
• Read. Prioritize my life so that reading can happen and it can help balance my life a little bit! I'm always happier when I have a book to dive into.
• Eat to live. My dad has always told me to only eat to live, not live to eat. Not sure why he felt that was important until now. I think it is important way of thinking. Our bodies need fuel to have the energy we need to get through our very busy hectic crazy lives and in order to do that, we must feed ourselves with the right kind of food. So I hope to not only do this for myself, but secretly implement this into my children's lives as well. We are what we eat and I have learned that the very hard way.
• Gratitude. 2011 I caught myself being more gracious than previous years but I want to continue on with this and watch how it changes my life and the people around me.
• Learn to love me for me. Cheesy and cliche as that sounds, it's true. I've lived too many years in darkness because I never was happy looking in the mirror for all sorts of reasons. It's not worth living that way just because I never will live up to my own expectations. It will never be enough and that isn't okay anymore. I need to look at the many advantages I do have and the beautiful qualities that make me, me. 
• Surround myself with people that bring out the positive in myself. I've wasted many years trying to make everyone like me just to learn that they weren't even true friends and I didn't even enjoy being around them. So this year is to true friends, as few as they may be I know they are true.
• Laugh. Laugh through trials, heartaches, and pain. Laughing has cured my soul and I don't want to lose my sense of humor! It's one of the only drugs left I CAN take. 
• Learn something new about my kids every single day and notate the cute, smart, funny things they say so I can always look back and remember the details of their lives.
• Any item in my house must have a home. This basically equals to not stop the battle in organization. An organized house makes a happy mama. ** As long as it doesn't come in the way of resolution #1**
• Everyone is fighting battle. Continue to not forget that we all have our own trials in life and I have no room for judgement. Treat everyone I meet nicely and think of their feelings more than my own selfishness.
• Service. I have an amazing support group in many areas of my life. After all the time they have spent with me by either laughing, crying, advising, helping, listening, funding, or merely just loving me, I want to give back. I am a true believer in karma and it is important to me that I can learn to help others in ways special people have helped me.