Resolute

It has been a while since I've blogged, and I have a TON of stories and pictures to share from our trip to Alberta. I will get there, eventually. I've been spending my time having fun, or totally exhausted from the fun, instead of blogging. But today, since it is New Years Eve, I thought I'd take a moment.

I have been thinking a lot this month about what sort of New Years Resolutions I wanted to plan, if any. I just really couldn't come up with anything. Not that I like to be stagnant, because stagnant = stinky, right? I just couldn't come up with anything good enough to put the "New Years Resolution" stamp of approval on it.

As a family this year, we have completed the Book of Mormon (which we started long before this year), the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants, finishing the 2nd declaration on the evening of the 21st, before we flew to Alberta. It was our goal to finish before the end of the year. That's the whole Triple Combination this year! It's a pretty major triumph for us. Then, we all agreed that we would go back to the Book of Mormon and start again, trying to finish it before Lucy turns 8...hopefully more than once (that gives us 17 months). Wow, that's a surreal, thrilling and terrifying thought all in one!

So I already knew that reading the Book of Mormon was on the list. That was for family resolutedness...but what about me? I must admit, I haven't put hours of thought into it, just moments here and there, pondering. A friend of mine spent all of 2011 setting and accomplishing goals. A different goal every month. Every month accomplished. Amazing. I thought of copying that, but worried that copying wasn't the same as resolving. And I wasn't sure if I could come up with 12 different goals...let alone just one.

Then, tonight, as I was pondering and mostly killing a few minutes of time while my little one was falling to sleep, I fiddled with my phone. I was up-to-date on Facebook status updates, and I had already checked the weather forecast. I wasn't much in the mood for sudoku, so that leaves me with one option...scrolling through photos on my phone. So I did. The very first photo I saw was the most recent one I took. A shot of me and Lucy smiling just before Beauty and the Beast was about to begin today. Man that was a fun afternoon, me and my girlie. And as I looked at the photo I thought, 'does she know how much I love her?' So I quickly uploaded the photo to Facebook and asked the question to the anonymous void...not expecting an answer, just throwing it out there. And it was in this moment that my resolution was born.

Maybe it sounds simple for some, or most, but this one will take some effort on my part. This year, I resolve to express love more. I love my family, DEARLY. Chokingly. Like, tears in the eyes, lump in the throat at the thought of it, kind of love. Like, wrecking my back (quite literally), trying to DO for them. Cooking, cleaning, caring, cleaning, changing, scheduling, cleaning, saving, cleaning, all out of love for them...but I'm constantly wondering if they've heard the words, "I love you" enough to make it stick. Does a 4-year-old know that when his mom does laundry for him or makes his lunch for school, or buys his favourite juice boxes, it's because she loves him? I'm not sure if it translates, and I don't want to leave this life...and now, consequently this year, without being SURE that they KNOW.

So, my resolution is small and simple. 3 little words. My husband and children will hear "I love you" WAY more often this year. I'm not sure how to go about measuring this to make sure that I am keeping up, because I didn't keep track of how often I said it last year, except that my heart knows it probably wasn't enough. I'm hoping that my mere acknowledgement and desire to achieve this goal will somehow work in my favour. But as of today, my strategy is this: I will say "I LOVE YOU" 5000 times this year. That number may sound huge, but here's my reasoning. There are 365 days a year, which means I should be saying those words 365 times at least. But, there are 4 people in my family...so I should be saying it once a day to each of them. So that's 1460 times a year. But surely I can say it more than once a day...even twice a day (morning and night), would be 2,920 times a year. And I want to say it MORE than I have...so more than once a day. More than twice a day. If I say it 5000 this year, then I will be expressing my love to each member of my family 3.4 times a day. That number, is not so big. 3 "I love you's" a day, plus a "love ya" to cover the 0.4 and that gives me 5000 verbal expressions of love this year! I think I can do it.

So there you have it. I will be reading the Book of Mormon with my family everyday this year. And I will be saying I LOVE YOU 5000 times this year. And I figure, if I do those two things, everything else will be pretty much right as rain.