2024 Word of the Year

 I'm finally read to share my word of the year with you.  It's taken me longer than usual to settle on a word.  This is my 12th year in a row to pick a word of the year.  This is a quick recap of all my previous words.

2023: Shine

2022: Home

2021: Focus

2020: Family

2019: Listen

2018: Grow

2017: Care    

2016: Invite

2015: Enjoy

2014: Thrive

2013: Change

I love having a theme and focus for the year.  Some years worked out just as I'd imagined with connecting my words to my real life.  And other years were full of surprises.  I'm looking at you 2019, 2020 and 2021!!

Here's my word of the year for this year:

2024: Cherish

to protect and care for someone lovingly.

hold dear.

I honestly don't use the word cherish very often.  It feels a little dramatic, but I love the sentiment of slowing down to really enjoy the things you love.  Here's my plan for the year.

Cherish my time as a stay at home mom.  That simply means that I enjoy my days with my kids.  I'm thankful to have these years where they are my number one focus and responsibility.  Leo heads to PreK in the Fall so I just have a few more months of being totally in charge of our days.  He's excited about school and I'm excited for this milestone for him.  But I really love spending my days with just him.  Olive has one more year of elementary school.  Fletcher is flying through the lower grades and the years of having little kids have gone by so fast.  I'm excited to plan a fun Summer with the kids continuing to explore our area and find new favorite spots.

Cherish my family.  Play games.  Watch movies.  Go on adventures.  Date nights with Kevin.  Celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary all year long.  Learn hobbies together.  Cook together.  Read together.  Play ping pong together.  Bike together.  And be present when we are together.  Less scrolling my phone.  More looking at their faces and listening to what they have to say.  More conversations.  And having fun together at family events.  Seeing family regularly.  Visiting and making plans to look forward to are all on my radar.

Cherish my friendships.  I tend to be the planner in many of my circles so I want to take that role seriously.  Get people together at my house and plan fun things to do together in my community.  I love hosting and planning so I want to combine those skills to gather my friends.  I'm also praying to make some friends with girls Olive's age.  We have lots of friends with little boys, but it's been harder to connect with moms of tweens.

  

Cherish my roles.  I have opportunities to volunteer at the kid's school, be a Bible study member, social media coordinator, bake for church, bake cookies for fun events and be an active community member.  I want to invest in things at the things that are important to me.  And maybe reach out instead of waiting for someone to ask me for help.

Cherish the opportunities that come my way.  I have a few different irons in the fire and I want to be paying attention and ready to use my skills.  I'm doing some new things with our school PTA and have taken on some new roles at church.  It feels good to have my skills noticed and to be asked to be a part of a team.  We've lived in Evansville for 2 years now and it feels really good to find places that need my help.

Cherish my time.  That means I'm doing interesting hobbies.  Baking for fun.  Gardening.  Trying new recipes and making sure I'm not wasting my days.  I'm a highly productive person, but I know I can cut down on screen time and social media to make room in my days for things that are more rewarding than scrolling.  I have a long list of house projects I'd like to tackle.  Organizing and decorating.  Things I can do myself and things we need to think through.  

Cherish my health.  I want to make sure I'm taking good care of myself.  I started doing this last year by making necessary appointments, eating well, exercising and I'd like to keep up the momentum in the new year.  I've got dentist appointments and an eye appointment on my radar next.

I'd love to look back on the year and know that I cherished my time each day and cherished the people around me.