2018 · 2019 · new year · reflection · resolutions · Uncategorized

Tips on how to have a great year & my goals for 2019.

2018 only has hours left and then we are presented with a brand new year. A year to make our own…

These are my tops tips on how to make 2019 a great year! Yes every year will have hardships and challenges, but we can strive to still make it great and just remember hard times build strength and character!

  1. Review 2018… Go back over the last year, work out what worked best for you and what didn’t. What people lifted you up and who was toxic? What habits made you feel better and which made you feel worse? Assess every aspect of your life, note down what worked and didn’t. Be mindful of these entering the new year and try to do more of the good in 2019.
  2. Set your focus. For some people resolutions work best, for others vision boards, prophetic words or phrases. Whatever works best for you, set it.
  3. Improve your health in someway. We should always work towards better health, perhaps this year you can focus on eating better, drinking more water, visiting the doctor for that check up you keep putting off, quitting a bad habit, seeing the dentist – whatever it is – make it a priority – our health is so important.
  4. Be active – this goes along with point 1, but reflect on your past year and work out what activity you enjoyed most and do more of it! It could be walking, hiking, maybe the gym motivates you, family bike rides or yoga – being active is so incredibly important.
  5. Improve where you live – our living environment reflects and effects our mental state. Work out ways to positively impact your environment, perhaps try organising your home more, decluttering, making a cleaning schedule etc.

So how do I plan to make 2019 a great year?
By following this…

Ice Cream Party (3)

2018 was a huge year for us, it was huge, busy, chaotic, stressful, exciting, worrying, upsetting and fun and I’m tired from it, so tired.
2019, I want to slow us down, I want to rest, I want less chaos.
In this new year I want to be intentional.
Intentional with my faith, marriage, parenting, words, our money, my choices, my health, my thoughts – just overall be more intentional.
I want to slow everything down, 2019 will still be a big year for us with LuLu starting prep but I want to try TRY and have a calm & slow year. So implementing more organisation, planning & simplifying into our lives, avoiding unnecessary stress & drama, saying “no” more and just allowing space for more quiet in my life.
I also want to grow in 2019, I feel I’ve grown tremendously in the last 2 years – every year we evolve but this year I want to channel my growth into certain areas… I want to grow  in my faith, I pray for more patience and wisdom for my mothering, I want to grow ModernWifeLife31, I can’t physically grow any taller – haha – but I do want to continue to grow personally & emotionally. Every year I aim to grow more, learn more and become stronger.
So that’s my focus for 2019.
I know what bought me great stress & heartache in 2018 and I plan to steer clear of it in the new year. I plan to continue working on improving my health with my specialist, I also want to see a doctor about my back as I have scoliosis, I need to book us all in to see a dentist for a check up and I know we need a skin check up too!
Yoga and walking is something I want to do more of. I really enjoy the calmness of yoga and a yoga class is a nice treat for myself, we live in a nice area and I want to take advantage of that and go for more walks and make it a weekly habit.
As for our home, I feel I am going into 2019 with a clean and organised home – I’ve spent the time between boxing day and new years eve cleaning and organising our home, our space has been reset and we are ready to enter 2019. But we will continue to work on landscaping our block and decorating our home. I also want to continue to declutter our home.
But that’s about it, I have my same general list I stick to each year as well which you can read on THIS blog. 

Well friends, in a few short hours 2019 will be here, I hope 2018 is a year you can look back on fondly even if it’s just knowing you’ve left stronger than how you entered it. And I pray 2019 is a beautiful & great year for you.

Happy New Year, Bring on twenty nineteen! (This is the last year in our lifetime that we will have a year ending in teens!)

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2017 · new year · resolutions · Uncategorized

Flourish with grace.

It is almost twenty eighteen! I can remember ringing in the New Year in 2000 – and now it’s 2018! So I am getting in early and wishing you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2017 has just over 12 hours remaining, I feel like this year was over in a second – but I also feel it dragged on in parts…
This year has been a pretty massive one for our little family…
Just a few weeks out from the end of 2016 we welcomed our 2nd baby and 2017 was an exciting year of being a family of 4. A number we feel is perfect for us.
We put our house on the market, patiently (kind of) waited for it to sell and then packed up and moved to a completely new town and bought a block of land which we will build on in 2018.
So that was basically our year… How was yours?

Going into 2018, the idea of having a word to focus on/be inspired by for the New Year appealed to me.
But what word? I adore countless words, this year is going to be a massive one for us and gosh, this feels like a lot of pressure – picking one word… So I will be a rebel and break the trend of 1 word and pick two, heck I may even make it a sentence.

Flourish & Grace.

In 2018 I want to flourish.
2016 & 2017 was all about growth for me, they were rough years – full of times I didn’t think I could or would survive. From everything from health issues, to betrayal, hurt, sadness, stress, anger and exhaustion. But you know what? I am sitting here on the 31st of December, 2017 and I am thankful to God for my struggles. I write this as someone who has grown tremendously in the past year. I shared some thoughts about this on my social media & you can read it HERE.
So, if 2017 was a year for big growth, 2018 will be my year to flourish. My environment is more positive this year, I’ve rid my everyday of hurtful people, I’m motivated & determined. So I’m ready to flourish and positively grow even more.
And I want to flourish with grace, I know the reason I can grow is because of His grace.
So, 2018 is my year that Because of His grace, I will flourish with grace. 

Ice Cream PartyHaving my little statement to inspire me, helps me focus on what I hope to achieve in 2018. Basically I want to flourish in every aspect of my life. Keeping flourish & grace in mind these are somethings I plan to work on this year…

  • Growing this little blog even more, helping it flourish.
  • Encouraging others and sharing my story. I want to aim to live my best life, while encouraging others to do the same.
  • Taking better care of me. Being more conscious of what goes into my body and how I am taking care of it and also taking more care of my mental & emotional health.
  • Giving myself grace.
  • Helping my little love LuLu flourish in her first year away from me.
  • Growing more in my faith.
  • Being even more confident in my decisions – which is a big one considering in 2018 we will building our home, and that’s full of decision making!
  • Go on more adventures.
  • Make our new home a home.
  • Do more of what I love and continue to learn.

Now these are fairly vague – there are a lot of little things that fall under these categories – but I prefer to stay very general and not have hard & set things set for an entire year. Each month I plan to reevaluate and set goals to accomplish for that period, this list will probably explode during the year.
What are your goals/resolutions/word/s for 2018? Let me know in the comments below or on my social media.

So 2018, I’m ready for you… Let’s do this, let’s Flourish with Grace.

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2016 · LuLu · resolutions · toowoomba · trent

Sunflowers, us, resolutions & realisations.

My first post of 2016…
I thought I would share some happy & sunny photos of the 3 of us and just have a chat…
Yesterday we were up early and headed out to a small town about an hour away from us, we were chasing sunflower fields… We found a field and pulled up for a quick family photo shoot, it was just us and the camera & tripod.

Sunflowers just make me happy, they are so bright and lovely to look at…
I really love how these photos turned out, we got some really cute ones. 

Now let’s chat about the New Year….
I’ve headed into this year with the mindset of calm, simple & slow. That’s how I want our life to mainly be, sure there are times in life when it’s busy chaos – but I don’t want my whole life to be like that – sometimes the madness, good & bad can’t be avoided. But I want to have a life in which I can savour moments, a life where I am not stressed constantly & a life that is good for me & my family. 
So with that in mind, that is what has inspired this years resolutions… Not that my resolutions are anything crazy, new or out of the normal, they are pretty standard and the things I aim for and pray about daily… 

  • Mother to the best of my ability and with all my strength & heart.
  • Be the best wife I can.  
  • Live a slower & simpler life.
  • Buy less, choose well.
  • Be content, calm & stress less.
  • Be an encourager.
  • Become wiser.
  • Continue to be strong in my faith & live a life that leads others to God.
  • Live my best life.

Now of course I have a few little personal goals…

  • Go on a small family trip this year… At least one.
  • Hunt another deer. 
  • Start our veggie garden.
  • Make more from scratch.
  • Declutter & organise my home.
  • Sew a quilt – well, just sew something more complex than bunting or a cushion.  

2015 was a year a few things made me see life & just situations differently. So these are a few realisations I am bringing to 2016.

  • We cannot control life, God has a greater plan for us and every aspect of our life. We can either fight that and become discouraged & down or we can just trust in the Lord and know that we will eventually see his plan and he will provide for us what we truly need. Sometimes our idea of what we need and want isn’t right and even though at the time we are sad things didn’t work out, we eventually understand why it didn’t.
  • Pain will happen, pain doesn’t necessarily go away – you just learn to deal with it. And pain and hurt is ok, it happens to everyone on some varying degree, we are all carrying around pain & sadness – that’s why it is sometimes good to be kind to everyone – we have no idea what anyone else is dealing with.
  • I’ve also realised we do not own anyone, their feelings or circumstances. Friends or family – they are their own people and will do what they do. We can offer words of advice or explain why their behaviour is perhaps causing us pain but we cannot make them do, say or act how we want or how we would. But sometimes people are just hurtful, selfish & not healthy to be around and it is ok to let people go – especially friends. Some friends/people are for seasons in our life and there to only teach us lessons and others are there for our whole life. 
  • Life is to be enjoyed, my idea of enjoying life maybe the total opposite to other peoples and that is ok. My life is mine and I am here to live my best life.
  • Being happy is a choice. Being sad is a choice. Sometimes it is ok to be sad, but don’t dwell in it. Be sad, experience it and then pick yourself up and choose happiness. If you find yourself struggling to be happy or feel good, stand up and look around. Everything in our lives is a reason to be happy & grateful. Having a grateful heart makes a happy mind. Reading this blog, this means you own a piece of technology & have an internet connection, the tap you turn on for a glass of clean water, you are alive and most likely in fairly good health – each of those things as basic as they are are reasons to be grateful & happy. How you see your life effects your attitude and feelings.
What are your resolutions? Did 2015 make you have any big life realisations? I would love to hear!
Leave me a comment below or on my social media…