Why 50 Things in 365 Days?

A few friends have balked at the length of my New Year's Resolution list. So I will explain my reasoning behind "50 Things in 365 Days". It is not because I am a gluten for punishment, or because I have unrealistic expectations, or because I enjoy making lists. It is not because I want to brag about everything I will do this year just to not do any of those things. It is not because I didn't know what to post about on New Years.

Here are a few of my reasons:
1. I want to grow spiritually more this year than last year. Our pastor, excuse me, "teaching elder" :), challenged us the last two Sundays to really focus on the basic spiritual disciplines this year: Bible reading, prayer, witnessing, and scripture memorization - so that next New Year's we can look back and see that have grown closer to our Savior, instead of more spiritually stagnant.

2. I am ADD and need concrete deadlines and accountability to accomplish anything! Any of you seen "Julie and Julia"? Well, I am ADD like Julie Powell - Pete, that is why I have never been good  at housework.

3. I will never have this much time to accomplish the things I want to accomplish again.  After  a string of nightmare nanny and cleaning jobs, with some health issues in the mix, Pete asked me (actually almost insisted) at the end of 2009 that we try to live mostly off of his income, and I work only part-time to pay off debt and save. Well, I had my doubts that such a scheme would work, but by the end of 2010 we had less debt, our marriage was a lot stronger, and we were able to do more ministry together. 
          But instead of getting done the gardening, writing, calligraphy-ing, sewing, general homemaking, exercising, and ministry that I finally had the time to do, I wasted a lot of time looking at other people's blogs envying their fulfilling lives. Not this year! While waiting for God to bring us the child(ren) He has for us, either through adoption or through natural childbirth, I better get busy, because once He does bless us that way, I won't have any more free time!

4. I've been shaken up recently to live intentionally.   (You can read why in the posts titled "16th and Island"). 

5. I want to encourage my friends to meet their goals.  If ADD me can do it, so can you! Each Saturday, I will give an update of how I am doing on my goals - hopefully this will give me some accountability to achieve a few of them! Feel free to post about how you are doing on your New Year's Resolutions/ goals as well. Let's encourage each other this year to see what we can accomplish, for the glory of God and the good of others!

Stay tuned tomorrow for "50 Things in 7 Days"