Scrapbook Day January 13, 2013

With a new year comes a new Scrapbook day. This year, January 13th fell on a Sunday. It was our first Sunday back to our church in Tokyo and we got to try the new building out as a family. I love our new building. It has a room for childcare and is much more open and spacious with plenty of room for us to grow. It was great to see people who I had missed over 6 weeks and get back into the swing of things with life in Tokyo. Miss M went to the childrens church for the first time rather than nursery. She sat with us for the beginning of worship, then had childrens church, and came back to find us at the end. She did this while in America and enjoyed it so I thought she would be ready for it here in Tokyo. She seemed to really like it. After this big activity we were ready to call it a day and head home as we were still fighting jet lag a bit and just physically tired from our trip. As I think about the New Year, I do not have any resolutions. Reason being is I never complete them so I figure why start them. I had a friend blog about picking a word for the year. I thought that was pretty interesting. As I was thinking through my word, the one that came to me was "intentional." I want the things I do to be intentional, have purpose and meaning...from the food I eat to the places I go to the people I hang out with. I want my words to have purpose, my actions to have purpose, and to really be intentional with each day and how I spend my time. One way I have been trying to do this is with my free time in the evenings. Normally I just vegetate in front of the tv once I put the kids to bed, but I have been trying to be more intentional - spend less time in front of the tv and more time with a book or my needlepoint and some nice music in the background. I find when I do this I relax a bit more and I am not falling asleep on the couch and having to move to the bed at midnight, so I get a better nights sleep by starting and ending in my own bed. Also, I go to bed earlier when I do not watch tv. Now, do not get me wrong, when the hubby is home, we catch up on some of our favorite shows. Over Christmas he bought an Ipad (it was my Christmas gift from Santa, but I am sure you can all guess who has used it more than me) and set up Apple TV. It is pretty amazing what it can do and the shows we have access to now. We are enjoying catching up on The Office and Modern Family. But when he is not home, which is often the case at night because of the late nights he works, I try not to turn it on unless it is for the endless supply of music. So, here is to the year 2013...I have no idea what the big picture holds for us this year, but I do hope that I can be more intentional with my day to day living. (The picture is of the kids playing hide and seek, a favorite game in our house, along with Hide and Go Miyako, a game Miyako made up with her second cousin where she hides and then has to run to a new hiding spot before she is caught.)