For the past several years here on curiouser & curiouser, I’ve shared a New Year post of sorts when the calendar changes. Some years they’ve been more in the traditional resolutions space, and other years the themes have been more like a word to focus on, a mantra to guide my year, or things NOT to do in the coming year. You can check out my past posts here if you’re interested:
Looking back on my 2020 post is interesting, because I chose to focus on a word of the year: Stillness. I wrote about wanting “to find comfort in the uncomfortable,” and my desire to “carve out a new norm for myself.” Little did Anna of January 2020 know, of course, how much stillness the year would, in fact bring — although in a much different way than I’d imagined. Things were certainly uncomfortable in many ways, and I think I was able to be flexible and lean into that discomfort much of the time. And as for the “new norm”? That’s something we all got to experience — like it or not — and for our family, much of that forced new normal we hope to continue.
Our little family is at the beach right now, and it’s been a wonderful few days to slow down and be together (in an environment that doesn’t make Kevin or me feel tempted to be DOING something — laundry, cleaning, yard work, WORK work, etc. — alllll the time, which is really good for us both). We’ve spent time playing in the sand, sleeping later than usual, and watching the entire Ted Lasso series on Apple TV (which I HIGHLY recommend doing if you haven’t yet!).
We also sat together this morning and put together a list of intentions our family has for 2021.
That’s one key word we came away with from 2020: intentionality. Last year made us realize, perhaps more than ever, how much living intentionally matters to us. We don’t want to live unexamined lives, letting things just happen to us or doing things because “they’ve always been done that way.” We want to continue to question, to change, to hone, to learn, to grow. We want to spend our time and energy with people who make us better versions of ourselves. We want to be as present as possible whenever possible. We want to take in others’ thoughts and research and gifts and use those tools to shape our own ever-changing minds.
With that in mind, here’s what the Keller family hopes for 2021:
-We want to spend lots of time outside together.
-We want to play lots of games together. (Maggie is getting to an age where games are more and more fun!)
-We want to take at least one Keller family trip (the FOUR of us — once Baby Boy is here!).
-We want to help Maggie learn even more ways to help around the house and gain more responsibility and confidence.
-We want to continue to eat at home more often.
-Kevin and I want to commit to at least one phone-free night one night a week (Friday and/or Saturday, probably) where we do a better job of being present only with one another — not the whole internet.
-We want to have lots of family movie nights.
-We want to continue to make intentionality a key tenet of our family, and use it as an ongoing lens to view our world and make adjustments as needed.
-This year Kevin and I will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, and so in the months leading up to our anniversary in July, he and I want to take time to update the Ketubah we wrote when we got married a decade ago. (A Ketubah is a Jewish marriage contract, and although we aren’t Jewish we loved the idea of such a document when we got married. Much of our Ketubah has remained the same, but we’ve also grown and changed since then, so we want to give it a closer look and update it to make it even more relevant to the way our relationship looks today.)
-We got a Master Class subscription for Christmas and look forward to digging into those together.
-We want to start a Keller Book Club (meaning Kevin and me as members!) so we can read and discuss and share books throughout the year.
-Kevin and I would love to write a book together at some point — we have a theme in mind and have talked about it a good bit, but it’s been waaaay on the back burner for much of 2020 — and want to use 2021 to bring that back to the forefront of our thought and conversation.
What do you hope 2021 holds for you?
