January 1, 2015

The Year of the Family (Adventure)


Champagne, midnight kiss, sequin dress and party shoes. Nope. Did none of those. More like Youtube the NYC countdown from 2014 (the kids didn't know the difference) and pull some party poppers I've had in a drawer for a couple years. (Cheers to getting rid of those too, wahoooo.) Then it was off to bed by 10pm and a much needed 8 hour sleep before I awoke to down my first cup of coffee of 2015 and ring in this new year I've been waiting so anxiously for.






I'm not really one to wish time away. I like to live in the moment. But, as I mentioned yesterday, I have been counting down the days until January One - when Michael and I will kick off a new year with goals, dreams, and desires we have been mulling and praying over for months. I won't go into all the details how these desires were spurred on (at least not in this post) but it's safe to say that they have been stirring for quite awhile. Life, babies, work, hobbies, home crap, and commitments all seemed to stand in the way between the 6 people living within the walls of our home and the 6 people living together and experiencing life.







No, it wasn't always this way all the time - we were still a fairly close family. And no, we're not giving up all of the above. However, we both slowly and abruptly realized that, if we don't become INTENTIONAL NOW about our time as a family this time will slip by and we will wake up 10, 15, 20 years down the road and wonder what the hell happened. Pardon my french, but that's how it goes. We just keep going about our day - sometimes thriving sometimes just trying to survive - without so much as a goal/dream/intention for the future and before we know it we become a little fish swimming with the current.


Currents are boring. I (we) want to forge our own path.


Who says life has to be about moving up the social and financial ladder? Yes, financial security is important but it's not the definition of success. Who says life has to be about constant upgrades until we finally reach that illusive goal of......what? The dream home, the boat, the *insert whatever here*??? Dream homes, boats, *whatevers* are NOT BAD. They are a gift and a blessing - especially if you worked your donkey off to get them AND they were what you intentionally and discerningly decided was your dream. I'm just saying the dream can be something different - it can be....anything.


Before I go on, dreams are not limited to people with financial means to make them happen. But realistically I could never have the dream of owning a private island because, well, I don't play the lottery so my dream has to fit within my state in life - taking into consideration a lot of different variables other than money. OK, disclaimer over.


Michael and I are in the current process of trying to figure out our dream. What do we want our lives, our family, to look like in 5, 10, 15 years? On our death bed? We have to start asking these questions now because that death bed isn't too far away. (Doom and gloom, doom and gloom. Time for a popsicle.) So far, all we really know is that we want our kids to be holy (because this world will suck when they are older and they need to be strong and we only have a short window of time to build their foundation, aaaahhhhh) but other than that we feel like the world is our oyster. We are both content with little possessions so maybe our dream isn't the big home with the cool stuff. Or maybe it is. Maybe our dream is selling everything and moving somewhere crazy with our family. Or maybe it isn't. We just don't know yet. But as sure as the sun is a ball of fire, we are determined to figure it out.


Insert 2015.


Other than the holy kid thing, all we know is that we want to be a close family. We want to experience life with our children and make memories and live now - not just store away all our nuts for a rainy day (OK, we'll store away some nuts and not be stupid). It's been tough to be adventurous being pregnant or nursing for 7 years, but I really can't let that stand in the way anymore of getting out of my comfort zone (apparently that comfort zone is popping out babies) and doing things that stretch me.


So, after praying and discerning and doing lots of talking (shout out to our Or-lan-do trip where we flushed most of this out) we have decided that this will be the year of the....


MAUSS FAMILY ADVENTURE.





Coincidentally, it's also the Year of the Family, as prescribed by Pope Francis. What awesome timing. The Church got our back in this thing.


This will be the year when we intentionally create memories and have experiences with our children and it will be the year when we test things out to figure out what our dream will be. We are going to try many different things and some of them will suck and suck will be awesome. We just don't know yet how it'll all turn out but that's where the adventure part kicks in. At least we'll be together. At least we'll be in discernment. At least we will make some rocking' memories along the way.



In addition to having a theme, we also have a patron saint - someone we will ask to pray for us on this crazy journey. This year our saint is St. Damien of Moloka'i. He was a missionary priest in the islands of Hawaii and eventually found his way onto the island of Moloka'i - ministering to those in the quarantined leper colony. He eventually contracted the disease himself and was just recently canonized a saint. We chose him because 1* he is Michael's favorite saint (Mike got to visit Moloka'i a number of years ago and see where St. Damien lived) and 2* Hawaii is a huge part of our dream. For whatever reason we can't shake the desire of the islands off our hearts and we are praying to see how, if, when they fit into our future.





AND, in addition to a theme and a patron saint, we also have other goals. Goals in our prayer lives, our personal lives, our marriage, etc. Not going to list all those here and really it's not about having 1,000 goals. We just needed to map out every. flipping. area. of our lives to make sure we are intentional about it all. It will take discipline and life will get in the way, I'm sure, but by golly we will try our darnedest to meet the goals we set out to reach.


OK, now that my third cup of coffee has kicked in, time to go conquer the year. Well, how about the day. Welllll, how about the five loads of laundry.


Happy New Year!
























2 comments:

* Chrissy * said...

Good for you guys to evaluate your goals, dreams & intentional living. We did something similar. I love the journey. Enjoy!

Unknown said...

Thanks! I'm so excited to see where this year will take us!