Happy New Year!

It's a brand new year, and a relatively brand new platform for expressing my thoughts and ideas. THIS is the year I finally settle down and start a blog! It's been on my bucket list for the past while now, so I'm gonna pull on my big girl pants, graduate from the safety of Facebook and Instagram and dive into this scarier world the Blog! I'm grateful for the opportunity . . . and a little nervous. Not exactly sure why. Here goes though. Eh hem.

For Christmas this year, my wonderful husband surprised me with tickets to see the play "Dear Even Hansen" in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks! I'm stoked! The kids and I have been listening to the music for the past several months now, and we totally dig it. In addition to the tickets I got the book, and for the past few days I've been familiarizing myself with the story a little more than what I was able to glean from Wikipedia.

For those unfamiliar with the show, it begins with the title character getting a pep talk from his mom. Evan's been suffering from depression and his psychiatrist has given him the assignment to write letters to himself each day. They're designed to help him develop a positive outlook. Though I'm happy to report depression no longer plagues me as it once did, I plan to take a page from Emmich, Levenson, Pasek, & Paul (not literally, as I have yet to finish the book!). I'm gonna kick off 2019 in a similar fashion.

Dear Kate the Grateful (it has a better ring to it than "Dear Kate Walters"),

This year is going to be an amazing year and here's why: For starters, you understand that it's ultimately up to you to decide what kind of year you have. You may have control of a lot of things, but you absolutely won't have control of everything. And as long as you choose to respond positively when those things out of your control (and even those things in your control) turn out to be kind of crappy, you're going to be okay!

Secondly, you want to have an amazing year! Your desires are good, kid. You want to improve. You want to help others to improve. And . . . okay, so maybe you don't know it yet, but you want to figure out what that improvement for yourself and others looks like. You're right. You do spend too much time on your phone. You'd do well to read more books. You'd have more energy (and fit into more pants!) if you were to exercise more frequently and eat healthier foods. And you can always, always do more to improve your spirituality. You don't have any SMART goals as of yet, and do you know what? That's okay. There's no law that says you need to have all of your resolutions set in stone on January 1st. You've had too many years when you set those annual goals prematurely, and they fell by the wayside by January 3rd! Don't overwhelm yourself. You're starting a blog for crying out loud! Begin with that and baby-step your way into the other stuff.

The next reason this year will be amazing is that you've got a pretty decent toolbox to take along with you, and, last I checked, you were pretty willing to put some new tools in there as well. At present you've got Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (and Happy Kids), a bunch of resources on Growth Mindset, all the works of Brené Brown, a rockstar of a husband, a whole army of supportive family members and friends, your daily practice of gratitude, the power of prayer, a loving God who wants to see you succeed, and a new curriculum for the New Testament to help you and your family become better disciples of Jesus Christ! And there's a bunch of other stuff you haven't even become aware of yet! Yeah, I think you're going to be okay. :)

So. There you have it. A pretty awesome start to a pretty awesome year, but you'd better get to bed, like, now, since Christmas break is over and it's back to school in the morning. You've got this. Make it a good year, and remember to be grateful for the ride!

Love,

Um . . . Kate the Grateful