Resolutions

So, I was reading yesterday about year naming at Holy Experience. (I really like her blog, really, really.) She talked about giving this new year a name, sort of a focus. A way of numbering our days, ordering the time before us. She is far more poetic than I am and I encourage you to read her words on the subject.

What name would I give this new year?

I have so many things I want to do, changes I want to see occur in my life. Is there one defining focus, a unifying point of reference in all the jumble? A name that if given to this year would beautifully package and enable all the questions and heart cries I have during this time of newness.

There are many words I have been mulling over in this middle ground of end and beginning:

order, routine, peace, discipline, present, rhythm.

I will name 2009 Rhythm. More than order and routine, rhythm implies presence and peace, discipline and joy. Rhythm is a word to be shared as this year is time to be shared. Rhythm hints at the sacred.

Do you have resolutions? Do you have a name for the year?

Black Friday

Are you going shopping? I long to say no way, but before I know it, I will need something silly--milk, or bread--and out I will go. But no Christmas shopping for me, today, unless it is the in-my-pajamas internet version.

My mom has a hard time with Christmas shopping now that her children are grown and married. We buy what we need and, oftentimes want, unregulated by parental authority and pre-planning (I don't know how many times I have told Abigail that Christmas is coming and she doesn't need anymore toys right now).

My mother-in-law has requested that she receive nothing this year. We may make a donation in their names somewhere, while not nothing, she doesn't have to find a place for anything or wear something she isn't fond of.

Do you find Christmas shopping difficult? How are you handling it this year? Now that the full swing of things is on, how do you intend to stay sane?

(Is this a good time to remind you that December 9th is our next MOPS meeting and we will be having an auction then.)