Do you set goals for the new year? I do, and I like to make big “bucket lists” for the year. I never get around to doing everything on it, but it’s always fun to look back and see what I did accomplish.

It’s important for me to remember that all I have, everything, even this blog, belongs to God. He is the one that blesses me and provides and makes these things possible. Sometimes I’m able to complete many of the things on my list and sometimes God leads me down a completely different path!

2012 was a bit of a surprise; the way I thought it would go at the beginning of the year wasn’t how it ended up at all. And not in a bad way! God led me back into blogging for a profession after telling me to hold back on that for a few years. God led us to deeper and more involved in our new church and now it’s a home. God did not lead us into this new home at the beginning of the year, and then suddenly in God’s timing it all happened all at once at the end of the year. You never know what the new year holds.

My bucket list is a mix of goals and experiences, personal, professional and homeschool in nature. Whatever comes in 2013, good or bad, my goal is to live intentionally, for God, and give Him all the glory!

Big Bucket List for 2013

1. Move my morning wake time up thirty minutes and make time for morning quiet time.
2. Travel to Baltimore for Apologia’s Real Refreshment Retreat – woohoo!
3. Finish reading the bible all the way through, utilizing a reading plan to get it done on time.
4. Finish all of my initial home projects from moving into this house.
   1. Paint all the rooms I want to paint (which is pretty much all of them.)
   2. Frame and hang more pictures and expand the ‘gallery wall’ in the living room.
   3. Set up my new home office and use it for morning quiet time and evening blogging hours.
   4. Set up and organize the new school space.
   5. DIY project – turning the overhead kitchen cabinets we took down into bar seating between the kitchen and the dining room.
   6. Add organizational bins, etc, to organize the pantry.
   7. Add more shelving and organizing to our master bedroom closet.
5. Begin and keep a tradition of having different friends over for lunch on Sunday after church.
6. Continue and improve our semi-regular Date Nights every other month.
7. Get chickens again!
8. Add more art and music to our homeschool day/week.
9. Start a small garden (on the list again!)
10. Have a nice family portrait done again, maybe we can turn this into a yearly habit. 😉
11. Finally make it back to Tennessee to visit family.
12. Start using our workcharts for school again (one broke over the summer and I never made a new one so we haven’t been using them. D’oh!)
13. Finish taxes before April 1, again, that’s a good habit. =p
14. Attend a marriage retreat?
15. Attend a homeschool convention?
16. Buy a camera for blogging with blogging income. I miss having a real camera!!
17. Read (and finish) at least one good book a month.
18. Write another ebook or two.
19. Guest/contribute write for other blogs and sites more (at least once a month?)
20. Can, can and can some more! Can some sauerkraut, can some salad dressings.
21. Start using my bread machine again.
22. Make some homemade cheese?

So that’s what’s on my big bucket list for 2013. What’s on yours?

Original Photo Source: George Hodan