One Word 2010

One little word change your life. I discovered this concept at Ali Edwards blog and decided to take the challenge myself. The challenge (or tradition as Ali refers to it) is to choose a word that could be a catalyst for enriching your life. A word to focus on, mediate on, pray about, and reflect on in my every day life.

I have thought about this a lot. Prayed about it a lot. And even discussed with James what he thought I should choose as my word. While I didn't choose any of the words he suggested I did incorporate his thoughts into the word I chose. I have already journaled about this in a beautiful journal I was given years ago.

I decided that this year my word will be FOCUS.

Focus ~ on God, growing myself spiritually by reading my bible daily, studying the Word more consistently and having a consistent, focused prayer life. There are times that I fall short in these areas and so I want to renew my commitment to my Lord.

Focus ~ on my family, by being calmer, more compassionate with the boys and James (when they hurt or are sick - trust me I am no Florence Nightengale :O)) Keep the tone of my voice less sharp especially when irritated. Do all things without complaining or disputing comes to my mind when I think on this. Be present and in the moment when I am spending time with them.

Focus ~ on health and wellness. Mine, by exercising 3-5 times a week, eating less junk and processed food. Eating more whole clean foods, more fruits and veggies and making more from scratch (I get better at this every year which helps with my family's health as well)

Focus ~ on growing myself in my craft. Trying new techniques, step out of my box, make my craft pay for itself. Update my etsy shop with new products frequently, make my display for our local Art Center and keep it up to date. Make at least 1-2 projects a week - not just cards. Work on being published by submitting to magazines or websites. This will challenge me to learn new techniques and continue to improve.

Focus ~ on our finances. Manage our money better, put more in savings, spend less on crafting (hence making the crafting pay for itself) and junk food (eating whole foods and those made from scratch). Less waste in our home, do without if it is NOT necessary. Think about purchases longer - no spontaneous spur of the moment purchase, especially high-ticket items. We don't usually do these things but with Christmas just barely behind us I always resolve to improve our stewardship of the monetary blessings we have received. I will also substitute teach 2-3 times a week to give us money for eating out, trips and crafting.

Focus ~ on less clutter. Continue cleaning out the house, taking things to the Thrift Store that we no longer need or want. Organize better so we know what we have. Keep my studio desk clean - this should also help me to be more productive when crafting.

Focus ~ on mentoring younger women with kind words and actions. No complaining about where we live, how small the base is, how much air pollution, how bad the school is etc. Really easy to listen to one person complain and add your own. So I am resolving to Focus on the positive and stay away from the negative. In doing this I hope to encourage those young women who are going through deployment or deployements with young children at home and living in a foreign country away from family. I want to encourage others by offering Crafting classes, sending cards, and freely giving encouraging words and prayers.

These are my thoughts for now. I will continue thinking on this, praying about this, and probably dreaming about it as well. I will do my best to work on being FOCUSED this year. What are your thoughts? Is there a word that comes to mind for YOU to implement? Think on it and let me know - we can keep each other accountable.

Thanks for sticking with me thus far.

edited to add I forgot this one thought when typing up my thoughts on One Word.

Focus ~ on digital scrapbooking. Record more of our memories with journaling, take more pictures including everyday life, not just the special occasions. My wonderfully sweet, loving husband got me Photoshop Elements and gave me a HOMEMADE gift certificate good for and digital scrapbooking classes of my choice. So I have no excuses not to learn how to do this. My software came with a class and I signed up for two Jessica Sprague digital scrapbooking classes. I am ready to go - just need to take the time to start.

Tesla - the MANX...

Meet Tesla, our new beautiful addition! Isn't she gorgeous? Our landlords finally agreed 2 days before Christmas that we could get the boys a cat for Christmas. We adopted Tesla from a soldier in Aviano that decided he couldn't care for her anymore. He actually adopted her from someone else that was leaving Italy and didn't want to carry her with them. The soldier we took Tesla from is anticipating going back to the US for a "Compassionate Reassignment" due to a surgery his wife just went through. He knew he wouldn't be able to take care of all the necessary work to get her back to the States is a short period of time so he put an ad in the paper. We were the first to respond and picked her up last Saturday.

here she is sleeping on one of the boys' computer chairs.

She is still a bit skittish but has only been here a week. Tesla, who was named by Caleb, is a Manx cat, which means she naturally has no tail ~ just a little nub where the tail would be and a curved spine. Makes her backside look a bit hunched over. She is a VERY vocal cat and loves to talk to us. She walks around crying and talking a lot. Particularly when she wants to be in the room with us but is still too scared to just jump into our laps. She has slept with both boys so she is sharing her love with them and adjusting just fine. She is still a bit jumpy and can run pretty fast if we scare her by getting up too quickly. Even though she is quite fluffy she doesn't shed very much at all. I have held her and petted her and brushed her and have had only a stray hair or two on my sweaters. Not bad - so far it looks like I shed more hair than she does.
Tesla is trying to ignore the camera here - silly girl.

Our gift to the neighbors and our landlords

Here is the gift we took to our neighbors and our landlords.

You can go to my crafty blog HERE and see what all we did for them. James and I took the basket over to our landlords and had to sit and taste some of the goodies with them. They were quite pleased with the treats.

Buon Natale from our neighbors

Sunday afternoon James headed out to shovel off the sidewalk and driveway. He was trying to clear a pathway for our English bible study guests. While he was out there our neighbors brought this huge arrangement to us. Isn't is lovely?
It is full of traditional Italian christmas goodies ~ Prosecco (sweet Italian wine), Panetone (traditional cake) cookies and candies. Amazing! They are such a sweet family. I didn't get to talk to them but James said they struggled mightily trying to wish us a Merry Christmas in English. God bless them for their kindess!

I didn't have my goodies ready for them yet. But rest assured I have something planned!

Saturday's Snow

On Saturday we woke up to a White Wonderland. Really was quite pretty and peaceful. We putted around the house for the morning. Then we showered and got ready to head to the base. Jared had a birthday party to attend so we needed to get going. We arrived at the base only to find that everything was shut down due to weather. No commissary, library, birthday party (bowling alley closed) etc. The only thing open was the shoppette (convenience store for those non military readers) and it was obvious. That place was packed! Pretty funny to see everything shut down like that for just a few inches of snow.

On Sunday temps were colder and so it was icy and they still kept everything shut down. We didn't even go to church because our route is very narrow, circuitous and out in the country (no plowing there). The base remained shut down.

Definitely would have seen lots of people going out in this weather had it been Germany or the US.

AIM visitors

Evan and Brandon took the train from Prato to come and visit us. Tracie went to the US to visit her family so she wasn't able to make it this time. We missed her a bunch but understand she needed recharging.

We had a great time just hanging out with the guys. The boys held their WII tournies downstairs. E & B also introduced my guys to new computer games - Ninja Wars I think it is called.

On Monday, my boys had to head to school. So I just hung out with the guys for the morning. Then Brandon and I left for the base while Evan waited for Caleb to come home from school. Caleb rode the bus home so he could visit with Evan. Unfortunately, Evan couldn't find his passport so we couldn't sign him in on the base. Otherwise, Caleb would have waited for us to come to base instead of riding the bus home.

Since I was calling the boys in sick on Tuesday, Jared decided to sleep downstairs in the taverna. Evan hauled the queen sized air mattress (already air upped) downstairs and set it up for Jared. Caleb decided that he didn't want to fall behind in school and he had homework to turn in so he wasn't going to stay home. (Very proud mama and papa for that decision). After everyone hit the hay (mama, papa and Caleb) E & B taught Jared to play many different versions of poker. Man was he stoked. He LOVES that kind of special attention. Couldn't wait to let us all know what he had learned.

We really enjoyed visiting with Evan and Brandon and will probably be making a trip to Prato to visit them soon.
Evan munching down on Taco Bell with chipotle tabasco - I think he went through an entire bottle. Had to buy him his own to take back to Prato with him.

Decorating the Tree

Forgot to post this as well. Shows how far behind I fell. On November 30th we put up our Christmas tree and the boys got it decorated.