The past two weeks have been good. Christmas was wonderful and hopefully I’ll upload some of those pictures before Valentine’s Day.  😛

We enjoyed a blissfully restful break between Christmas and New Year’s complete with sleeping in, no outside activities, and no exercising. For the first time in quite a while, I didn’t feel utterly exhausted all the time.  The sleeping in and breaking from exercise did bite me in the tail this week as my body readjusted to real life. I maintain, though, that the rest was worth it.

Matt and I started doing the 30 Day Shred this week. For the first few days I was convinced that Jillian Michaels was trying to kill me. Finally on Friday (day 5 for me), I was able to walk without pain. I don’t like exercising everyday; I believe the body needs to rest. I am, however, going to attempt to do this for the full 30 days and see what kind of results I get. After that, or when the weather warms up for more consistent running, I may adjust it a bit.

We went back to school on Tuesday. The first day was as I expected: slow and somewhat painful for all. On Wednesday and Thursday, though, there was some sort of transformation in our second born child. I’m still delightfully baffled by it. It was as though, all of a sudden, she “got it”. She worked through her school quickly and with focus. She did everything that was asked of her cheerfully. She even CHOSE to get up early on Friday morning to finish up some corrections before Friday classes. I am thankful for those two days and for this glimpse of what she is capable of and I’m praying it’s a lasting change.

We had Chandler’s first Upward basketball game today. Oh my, what fun!  Our sweet child had no idea what was going on, but she hung in and tried hard. By the end of the game you could tell she was starting to figure it out, at least a little bit. I can’t wait to watch more games!  🙂

I need to start using more photos in my posts again. I have a few hundred pictures on my computer that  need to be sorted and edited, dating back to before Thanksgiving. I just haven’t had time. I guess I had time the week after Christmas, but we were all really busy resting. 😉 One of my goals for January is to get through those photos.

I have developed what I have self-diagnosed as a repetitive stress injury in my right shoulder. It seems to be the equivalent of carpal tunnel and is made extremely painful by lengthy periods at the computer. Yet another reason for my unedited photos.

I decided last week, after our pastor’s message at church, that I am going to read all the way through the Bible again this year. As I’ve been working my way through Genesis and Job this week, I thought of the last (and only other) time I’ve accomplished this feat. It was 1997, and it turned out to be a pivotal, life-changing year in my walk with the Lord. And it never occurred to me until this week that it was the sheer amount of time I spent in God’s word that made it so. That led me to wonder what this year will bring!

I have also been contemplating the role of blogging in my life. I find the exercise of writing extremely beneficial and almost a necessary part of my life. I find that when I am writing a  lot, I am more attentive to the details of life around me and I’m more purposeful about  lot of things  But it takes a lot of time to write every day. Last June, when I moved over to WordPress, I challenged myself to post five times a week, and I think I met that goal pretty well all the way through the end of the year. That it still a goal of mine, but if I am honest with myself, I know that two to three posts per week is much more realistic right now, especially during the school year.  So, just know that I will still be posting regularly, but maybe not quite as often.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the weekend. We are headed out for dinner tonight with some really great people.  Can’t wait!

For His Glory ~

~ Sara