And so it goes...

2011 is going. It wan't a bad year, as years go. (Could have used more snow...) There were the usual number of bright spots and glitches, successes and failures. There were a couple of epic high points, and a time or two where I wished I could have turned back the clock. I learned some new things to use in my classroom, but not all of them worked as well as I'd hoped. I continued to daydream about owning and maintaining a smaller, cozier house but didn't put my own house on the market because the market is currently really really bad.

For the second year in a row, I kept my New Year's Resolution to read through the Bible. Well, almost kept. I still have about 80 pages to go. I know. Nothing like waiting till the last minute and making it feel like a race against time. Hard to digest the goodness when you go that fast. I was doing great until summer hit. Summer... and Jeremiah. Next time I plan to read through, I will start with the New Testament and then go to the Old. That way, Jeremiah won't ambush me in the lazy days of summer.

For 2012, I plan to discontinue a bad pattern I have set for myself. I currently fall asleep to the TV. I find a rerun show that I have probably seen before and turn the volume down so low that it's difficult to hear distinct words. Then I set the TV timer and I fall asleep to the white noise. It's probably not the best way to fall asleep, but it does accomplish the purpose of masking out the noises in my house. My house creaks and settles and makes all sorts of noises late at night. It's awful to be at that delicious "almost asleep" phase and then have some sound startle me fully awake and I am sure that someone is walking around downstairs until I realize it is just the ice maker in the freezer. It creeps me out. The noises outside my house are almost as bad. There's the wind, the neighbors, and the freeway. (See why I want to move? I need to find a deaf person to buy my house.)

I decided that the "white noise" idea was good, but using the TV was not so good. Music might be nice. Classical, easy listening, etc. My clock radio has a sleep feature on it, but I can't fall asleep to the same radio station that I wake to- the programming just doesn't work out. I would use my iPod with the speakers, but the speakers glow more than the TV does, which makes it hard to sleep. I finally hit on a solution- my old boom box. I could play a CD which would end by the time I was off in dreamland. Operating a CD is fairly quiet- there is no button that clicks off when the CD is done, it just stops spinning. Problem solved.

And what did I choose to hear as I fall asleep? The Bible on CD! This year, I won't do a read through, I'll do a listen through! Always want to engage different parts of the brain in the Word- this seems like a creative option.

So, my New Year's Resolution this year is to listen through the whole Bible- maybe more than once.

What about you? Any resolutions or goals?