1999 to 2019

January 15, 2019

Well, its 2019. Did you know that? I mean we are one year away from a new decade! WHAT?! I feel like I can still remember starting high school back in 2000 and thinking that 2020 seemed SO FAR AWAY! And now here we are and I am blown away that almost 20 years later this is my life. I feel so blessed to be here. In the year 1999 my little sister was born… She, and my other little sister, are the answer to my longest prayed prayer. At that point in my life I was almost 14 years old and I can honestly say that for a solid 10 years, once I realized what having a sister ACTUALLY meant, I prayed for a sister. (– yay for a Barbie and My Little Pony play partners!)

My oldest son with my oldest little sister at her grad party!

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my brothers, and now that I’m older, they have given me 3 of the best sister-friends a girl could ask for…but let’s picture me at the age of 4. My baby brother had entered the world 2 months before I turned 4 and I couldn’t be more excited. However, I quickly learned that I wasn’t supposed to dress him in my old dresses and bathing suits (sorry bud), nor was I supposed to put bows in his hair and the rip them out when they didn’t match his outfit…yep, sorry again bud! I was starved for someone to dress up and play dolls with, I assumed he (as a baby) would be that piece I was looking for! WRONG! I have 2 older brothers and 1 younger brother. The houses next to us consisted of 1 only child boy who was the middle age between my 2 older brothers, and the other house had 2 boys, one my older brother’s age, and one my younger brother’s age. I was surrounded by 6 boys day in and day out. We even celebrated Christmas together…SO MANY BOYS!

Anyway, fast forward 20 years and I can tell you, that the 13 year old version of my self could not have dreamed up this blessed life if she had tried. I didn’t know this could exist! Here I am, 20 years later, anticipating the adoption of my own daughter while I spend my days with my 2 little guys and their amazing papa. However, in that anticipation, comes A LOT of waiting. We have filled out paperwork and applied for grants. We have made profile books that now look out of date because my children won’t stop growing! We have seen cases, and had to pull back from cases…this is a roller coaster I did not anticipate, but I feel blessed to be on.

So, 2019…I’m coming for you – with full anticipation that you are going to be our best year yet! However, that can’t happen on it’s own. I am SUCH a visual person. I mean…I think it might be a disease. I need to see things written out, spelled out, and figured out on paper or in some other visual form before I can claim it. Here is where POWERSHEETS from Cultivate What Matters comes into play. You guys, I know I mentioned these in my last post, but I am OBSESSED with these sheets. The first 40 sheets is all about helping YOU get to know YOU! My hubby and I often say that we are really good at knowing each other and really bad at knowing ourselves! So, this is super helpful.

After those first 40 pages, there is still more thinking and planning. You take all that you are thinking about and put it all in to categories and from there you begin to see your goals building. Once you set your goals and make plans, then you can use the months to keep track of your progress as well as the seasonal check in points to see where things are and what needs adjusting to move forward. I have some pretty tangible goals for this year (PURGE ALL THE THINGS!) as well as some goals that will take time and development. I want to see progress in each of those as I move forward through the months…which means I need a solid place to go back to…Powersheets are AWESOME for that!

And BONUS…each section has these awesome inspirational quotes to help you feel excited to move forward! If you want your own, you can snag them here…on sale! I was not asked to do this post by this company, just putting a plug out there for a business I love and believe in! Enjoy!