Traditions

Yesterday, Tim was home for a full day. It seemed like a rare occurrence around here. He has been working a lot of hours lately. Try as hard as I can, sometimes it still bothers me as much as he works. When he works half a day on Saturday...and Sundays are spent half a day at church...it never seems like we have much time as a family. So, yesterday kind of felt "special." At the end of the day, though, we hadn't done anything special. It kind of felt like a waste. Thankfully we had dinner with some friends and that helped redeem the day for me.

As I stewed about the wasted day, I decided that we have to be deliberate about memories and traditions. I think it was mymom who once told me that whether you are deliberate about it or not, you are setting traditions. It all depends on what kind of traditions you want to establish. Do you have the tradition of doing nothing? Of working all the time? Or do you have the tradition of making family time..and doing fun things to create traditions?

So, I wrote on a piece of paper yesterday of things that I wanted/needed for 2008. One of them was to "Plan and Implement Traditions." I am hoping that Tim will either read my list, or read my blog and it will help us have a discussion about that. I figure that they don't have to be elaborate traditions. Even as simple as taking a walk up to the top of the hill at Magness Tree Farm on New Year's would suffice. I can imagine that we could have some funny memories of walking to the top of the hill in pouring rain...or slipping in the mud...or who knows? Maybe we can come up with some other ideas that would make fun traditions throughout the year.

I guess my thought is....I want my kids to want to come home when they are older and move out. Will their memories be sweet and draw them to come home and experience them again? Or will their memories be blah and so-so that wouldn't be worth the gas money to come home again? Will they want to bring their friends to hang out at our house because here there is fun? How do we do that? What steps do we take to get there?

Being deliberate. I think that is my new motto for the year. I think that was where I was headed in the thought about taking charge of the pen. I need to take charge of the pen that writes the history of my family. It doesn't seem to gain anything to just sit back and let life happen. Aim for the best...and see what happens. It may not be perfect....but it could sure make a funny memory later.

Guess I've got some more praying to do.