January 7, 2012 Greetings my Friend, I am thinking about goals. In general I am a goal setter. Goals help me do life. Goals give me that moment to check off and feel a sense of accomplishment. The start of a new year is often a time to begin to think on what I want to do with my life. As I reflect on my walk with the Lord I tend to also want to discern the direction I want to take. To me they go hand in hand. Since beginning my faith journey later in life I tend to not want to waste my life with too many wrong turns. Goal setting helps me to focus and move in a direction that will help me accomplish as much as I can. The retirement process as I have stated has been a challenge for me. I’ve been working hard at doing day to day life in general. The move has kept things in a state of flux. The one thing I wanted to do was write while in retirement. I am doing that with this blog with the book I wrote. I’d like to write other things as well. Part of my process is trying to figure out what I want to write. I have several pages to a book started. I’d like to write the polio story. I believe there are many ways to go with this story. My main goal would be to show how God has worked in all of this. It is amazing really. The doctors told Dad he would not live. He did. They told him he would not walk. He did. Then there is the struggle to survive in a day to day way. When I look at it I can’t help but believe God was in the midst of all of this. I am toying with writing another blog. This one I’d like to aim at the young people in my life. I want to impart some information on life. I want to introduce them to Jesus. I want to have the conversations I wanted to have with my children and now these grandchildren. I remember as a teenager my Dad told me I wasn’t to have sex. When I asked why he said because the Bible said so. I wanted him to show me where and he couldn’t. I believe in my heart that if he could have talked to me about the “why” I would not have entered into a sexual relationship. We will never know if this is true or not. It is something I do believe though. I felt inadequate with praying. I would like to teach kids about praying. I would like to try to help them to choose to enter into a relationship with Jesus. Each generation must find Jesus. I would like to open that door so they could choose wisely. It is strong in my heart. Part of our goal when we moved to VA was to reach out to the community. SW VA has many 3rd generation people on welfare. Many don’t know how to work. Now that we are settling into a neighborhood my heart asks how does this look. In Haysi most of the neighbors were transient and on welfare. With a more transient area the new people to encounter is greater. In a more established area that chance to encounter the un-employed is smaller. Still there may be ways to reach out. It may be new ways. I’m not really sure. At one point I thought I would like to do a Bible study for the working women. In this church the Bible study I go to is during the day when most of the women are at work. We are all retired as well. The working woman is out in the world more with those who do not know Jesus. So I have a desire to help the working women. Right now though the house is still in a state of flux and I have never been the ‘teacher’ type. So I am still thinking on this. I am thinking again about writing. I’d like to develop a writing routine. I am thinking something like I write on certain days. I also need to learn how to market my book more. I need to learn how to keep track of the money that I make as I sell this book. Lately I’ve started praying that someone would step beside me to help me process these aspects of writing. I want to look at this as my career. I want to take it seriously and to do it well. As the house continues to be more finished I’d like to settle into a housework routine. I remember my mother-in-law about now. She was always busy with keeping her home nice. I loved seeing her in her business. I had thought that doing housework would be something I would spend hours doing. I am realizing that housework for the most part would be minimal. It may require a quick pick up, some sweeping; making the bed and keeping the sheets clean etc. Junior loves to do laundry and has done it for most of our marriage. He is doing dishes. I grew tired of that routine and my skin I wasn’t tolerating the soap very well so he is doing the dishes. I want a dishwasher and he doesn’t so in my thinking, he can do the dishes and he does. Of course I want to start working in a better exercise routine. We are going to the gym for now. As we settle in and the house is more finished I hope we will have a place for exercise equipment and I can have a better exercise routine. I’d like to go for more walks as well. So the goals are forming and it feels nice. I have things to work toward. What are your goals? May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love janet