Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Blink. It's 2017.

Well. I guess 2017 has happened. Weird. How time just keeps ticking.

This is the first year in about 8,-9-10 somewhere in that range, where we either didn't have our friendfamily staying at our place or we were up north visiting them. Our weekend was made up of a lot of "should we do this or that?" and snuggling babies. There was a lot of baby snuggling.  I'm thinking baby snuggling might be the best way to bring in the new year. Maybe a grandma came up with the concept of old year = old man, new year = spanking new baby.

No resolutions this year. As much as I like the idea of resolutions I have been there, done that and seen very little overall change. I do better when I thoughtfully just chose to change and go a different direction and reassess my priorities rather than have a magic day when things begin. I read an article I thought was fascinating. Compounding choices like compounding interest i.e.1%. Choose to focus on/tweak something you are seeking 1% more today than yesterday. If the goal is health, then add just a bit more onto an already healthy choice you are making or decrease slightly an unhealthy choice. Spiritual growth or disciplines, add 1% more Bible or prayer, or 1% less selfishness etc. a day. Financial, spend a few pennies less or put a few more pennies in savings. 

I like that idea. Incremental tiny choices toward a picture we have of what we'd like our lives to become. 

Here is a brilliant C S Lewis quote about choices.

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”

― C.S. Lewis

We are the sum of our choices. I think no matter what has happened to us, our unique experiences both good and bad we are made up of how we process and handle those experiences. (I don't know about you but I am still processing things that happened in my life decades ago. Reframing, prayerfully forgiving, tiny attitude adjustments to line up more with God's Word.) As we age and change and grow and get wiser then we have more responsibility in making those changes in the way we think and process. And we are hurrying the process along to becoming a heavenly or hellish creature. Kind of brutal this truth.