Summing up 2011

These last few days I have spent a lot of time thinking about this past year and how different my life was from before. On December 31, 2010, I drove home after my last day at the church office, crying, and feeling lost in the world. Dmitri was flying and the girls were up north with their grandparents. A big chapter in my life ended – my life as I had known it being a full-time working mom. For weeks before January 1st, I was making one list after another, planning out the days and weeks of my new career. My to-do lists got longer and longer but I was convinced that I would finally accomplish all (or most) of the things that I had been yearning to do for years and never had the time. A year later, I looked back and realized that close to none of those things actually got done! What? I was SOOO busy, every day! I can’t believe that 365 days went by and I NEVER sat down to scrapbook Natalie’s or Julie’s albums, I NEVER sat down to pore over design tutorials online or finally learned Photoshop – that I had been eager to have for years. As I started to feel a bit depressed, Dmitri gently reminded me that I actually accomplished a lot last year. For one thing, when I was making all those lists, I never considered (or even imagined) that I would end up home schooling a first- and a third-grader, while nursing a baby every few hours. WOW! That changed my time-management in a huge way…

Now, I do know a few super-moms who are home schooling, blogging, cooking incredible meals, scrap booking, reading amazing books… And I too want to do so much, but in 2011 I spent quite a bit of time getting to know my kids, teaching them about forgiveness again and again, getting to know myself (and not liking it often), and getting to know this new career of a stay-at-home, home schooling mom, AND a wife of a pilot with his crazy schedule.

It is January 3 and my sweet baby turned 11 months… What an amazing time this has been. We have made so many memories as a family, and I have tasted God’s mercy and grace like never before. I am praying for 2012 to be filled with love and gratitude – first in my heart; and may my children see it and learn it from me. I can sum up 2011 with this – I lived that year knowing that there was NOTHING that I would ever regret, even if everything didn’t get checked off of my to-do list. Nothing is more valuable than time with my girls and my husband and I feel that time was spent well last year.