Dear winter...and word of the year

I have such a hard time after Christmas and New Year's are over. The winter really sets in, it gets dark at 4:45 and the snow does not stop falling. Upstate NY just looks grey and dead!

So it has given me a chance to stay warm inside with a good book, a fire and lots of evenings not running errands or fun outside but time to organize, declutter my house and life. And set some really good goals for the year!

CHOOSE

I love this idea of picking a word that will cover the year....it will help me set new goals and create a new direction for me this year.

choose.....really stuck out to me. I love the word because:

1) I want to be control of how my time is spent. What activities I do and how my life is run. Sometimes I feel like time is just slipping through my fingers and I want to make the most of every day. One of my favorite scriptures comes from D&C 64:33 "Where be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of smalls things proceedth that which is great."

2) We have our free agency a gift from our Heavenly Father to choose what life we will live and who we will become

3) Our attitudes have so much to do with how things turn out. I can wake up each day and choose to be happy, choose to live the gospel and choose to follow the commandments of God

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." ~Joshua 24:15

"Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves—to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life." ~2 Nephi 10:23

This year I will CHOOSE to be positive, choose to spend my time on things that have real value and worth, to be engaged in meaningful work and service, to give more, to be happy were I am at in life right now, to have more confidence, to be happy with the way I look, to be wise with our money and to love life.

I feel like this will really be a good one.