What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree?

The boys head back to school next week, so we thought we’d take the opportunity to head down the coast to Mollymook for the Australia Day long weekend for our last hurrah of the Summer holidays.

I was expecting it to be really busy with 80% of the rest of Canberra doing the same as us, but it really wasn’t bad at all. A pleasant surprise.

With the economy the way it is, we decided to take my little car rather than the family truckster, and save some money on petrol. I was sceptical at first…my little car (his name is Jeff) is …shall we say… very compact and I didn’t know how he would cope being loaded up and asked to drive up steep winding mountain roads. But I was pleasantly surprised, Jeff was a trooper!  He did so well!

In typical Australia Day fashion, the temperaure spiked in the high 30s and we sweltered on the beach, but the boys had an absolute blast body surfing and building sand forts. (we thought Shel had broken his thumb on Thursday, we were grateful that it was only a sprain and that he was able to surf and swim and have fun at the beach )

How beautiful is the colour of the sky?? It was so nice to just sit and unwind and not have to do anything. I didn’t even have to cook! It was wonderful!

Did you do anything special this Australia Day?

Michelle

Sorry guys, I’ve been swamped with deadlines and preparing for a job interview…I’ll be back to regular posting shortly.

Michelle

Time for some fun to start the year. You ask, I’ll answer. Any topic (remember this is a family friendly site), you put it out there and I’ll provide you with an answer.

C’mon now, don’t be shy. Ask away

Whadayawannaknow?

OK, so I managed to track down my specific goals from last year, and I achieved two of them, made good progress on one more and completely missed the final one. Not too bad. Now it’s time to look at 2009.

The year ahead looks like being one of change for me. I’ll be looking for permanent full-time work, as opposed to the sporadic full-time short-term contract work that I’ve been doing in the past couple of years, so that will mean that I need to make some changes to the way I operate and get things done across the year. I don’t know how that is going to work in practice yet, so I am not keen to make too many specific goals and plans at this point.

After praying like mad for the past month or so, what I have decided to do is take a slightly different approach to 2009. It is an approach based on setting priorities and focus points for development in conjunction with my personal mission and values statements. By doing this I should be able to make decisions and plans throughout the year based on these values and priorities and achieve a degree of peace and maintain purpose in my life even though I’ll be going through quite a bit of change and re-organisation.

So, let’s lay out my priorities for the year. These will help me to decide what activities I can say “yes” to and what activities I need to say “no” to throughout the next 12 months.

1. God
2. me
3. husband
4. kids
5. church/work

There must, of course, be balance in these priorities and no single priority will take so much attention that any of the others suffer. I should also note that placing myself ahead of my family is an acknowledgement that  I cannot be the wife and mother God wants me to be if I fail to look after myself physically, mentally and spiritually. It does not mean that I will be running off to do whatever I want whenever I want (no matter how tempting that may be )

My focus points for 2009

These four points have been simmering in my brain for the past couple of months and have been brought to my attention from a bunch of different sources.

1. Relationships — I never have been big on developing relationships being the monster introvert that I am, but I am coming to the understanding that relationships are important to God and therefore they should be to me too….what I need to figure out is how that fits with the way God wired my brain.
2. Sustainability — As a naturally short-sprint, workaholic-type operator, I need to look at how to ensure long-term impact and usefulness in everything I do.
3. Balance — I think this one goes hand in hand with sustainability and is vital for emotional and relational health in all aspects of my life. I need to develop an awareness of balance (or lack thereof) in my life and look at how to fine-tune the way my priorities are played out.
4. Leadership — I believe that I have been gifted for leadership. This needs perpetual development and depends on the previous three points to be effective. I also need to explore specific vision in this area be be sure that I am leading where God wants me to be leading.

That’s a lot to think about in a year!

I have just three specific measurable goals for 2009…

1. I want to be able to run 10km by September so that I can do the Canberra Times Fun Run.
2. I want to write at least three chapters for one of my book projects.
3. I want to update my personal mission and vision statements (I’ve nearly finished this one already…woohoo! I’ll post about this process soon.).

I am excited about this year! Now that I have all of that out of my head and down in writing I feel much more peaceful and relaxed about getting on with the tasks I’ve been given in life! Bring it on!

How do you start a new year? How do you decide what will occupy your time? Do you think about it ahead of time, or just let it wash over you as the year rolls by?

Here’s to 2009!

Michelle