I've kind of given up on New Year's resolutions. One reason is, for me, they never last very long. Another reason is that I try to make "resolutions" in my life (the really important ones) as needed.... who says I have to wait until January? So I'm not gonna talk about my resolutions for the new year, more like my hopes and anticipations...

1. Become a better teacher-- as I mentioned earlier, teaching four year olds is quickly becoming a passion for me. I'll be honest, I haven't yet quite figured out if I'm good at it. I don't mean that as a "pitty party" or anything, just that I want to get through a whole school year to be able to reflect and see if I think I did a good job or not. I have some great colleagues working with me that are nice enough, and professional enough, to give good constructive criticism. Luckily they haven't had anything bad to say yet, but I know that they will let me know if something arises that I need to fix or improve on. This is one thing that I enjoy about teaching so much more that being in college. People actually want to HELP you become better instead of constantly nag about stupid stuff, no joke... it's amazing :) So, all that to say I hope to become a better teacher each day and find out at the end if I wanna start all over again with the 4's in August!

2. Get more involved in church functions: I must confess that 2006, more than any year so far, has been a bad year for me in this area. I can blame it on many things... tough times student teaching, graduating, new career, busy life, etc. The truth is that nothing is more important than my relationship with God and serving Him. I didn't make that extremely evident last year... I'm going to try this year to do a better job.

3. See more of my friends: It's funny, this never seems to be a problem when you're in college. I saw most all of my friends on a daily basis, or weekly at the very least. When you graduate that becomes a different story. I feel like I haven't spent time with friends in forever. So, I hope to do that some more this year. Many of them have moved away-- Atlanta, Columbia, Tampa. Hmm, I think this means 2 things. #1- ROAD TRIPS :) and #2- I need to work on rebuidling some relationships with friends around here and make some new ones!

4. Doing some fun, adventurous things: No one would know it by my life right now, but I'm actually a fairly adventurous person, and I love to have fun. Jumping out of a plane, no.... but I am ALWAYS up for traveling, speed, roller coasters, water sports, and trying new things. I feel like I've spent the last semester of college up until now worrying about teaching in some way or another. I want to make a point of getting out and doing some exciting things this year. I'll have to give this one a little more thought, I'm not sure what those things are yet. Got any suggestions???

5. Moving out?? I put a question mark on this one because I am still in thought and prayer about this. I still live with my parents, if you can't tell. There comes a point, I'm sure lots of people have been there, when you feel like it's time to move out. I'm not sure exaclty when this will be, but I can say that I am thinking about it. On one hand, saving money is important. Living with the parents allows me to do this. On the other, is anyone really ever financially ready to be on their own? I think most people just usually end up having to do it and take that leap of faith anyway.

6. Honesty: This is a "hope" for this year... but it's probably the closest to a resolution that we're gonna get. Before I say it, I wanna clear things up. I don't have a habit of lying or anything like that. The thing that I wanna do this year is make an effort to be more honest with people about my feelings. I want to say what I want and what I feel. Of course I don't want to be mean about it. I just have a tendecy to say the words "It doesn't matter to me" or "that's ok, don't worry" or, "whatever you want, I don't care" a lot. I'm sure these wont go out the window completely. Old habits die hard. I hope I can work on it at least a little.

These are just some of my hopes for the year. Prayers are appreciated for what I am sure will be a challenging, yet rewarding year!!