Happy New Year!!

-
 



I love starting a new year.. It's a time to reflect on the old year and look forward to the next. It's a time for me to set goals for the year, for myself, my family.. hubby and I set goals as a couple.

What I do not do is make resolutions. Is there a difference between goals and resolutions? .. in my mind I felt like there was so I looked up the words to find their meanings..

Goal: the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.

Resolution: a firm decision to do or not to do something.


I see them as very different. When I set a goal.. it is something I can work towards every day. If I resolve to do something, and then I fail, it causes discouragement and I'm likely to give up on whatever it was.

An example: I made a goal last year to drink less coffee. My goal was one cup a day. Of course through the year there have been times that I had two cups or even three. Then I'd correct myself and go back to one cup a day. For health reasons this is a good choice for me. If I'd started the year saying my resolution was to only drink one cup a day, and then I had a day where I had more, I would have failed. My inclination may have been to just give up and not care. But with a goal, I can get back on track and not feel discouraged.

So as this year has come to an end I reflected on all the goals that I had worked towards, made progress, and felt a sense of accomplishment. Then I began working on new goals for 2015 knowing that if it is something important to me, I will make progress and when dealing with the bumps in the road that can happen to everyone, not all is lost.

Happy New Year to you all, and praying for a blessed 2015 for everyone!

 
 

Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 31, 2014 at 9:56 PM

    I use the same word, goals... it seems so much more attainable. Happy 2015!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SherryJanuary 1, 2015 at 3:09 AM

    Happy New Year !!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 1, 2015 at 9:12 AM

    Happy New Year!!!! I was referred to your site by Living Well on Less. I love it!!!! So much information. Really like the recipes, especially the freezer and canning. I know what I will be doing for the next few days, reading your posts from the beginning.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All messages are moderated. After approval your message will be posted. Thank you for your comments!! Crystal :)

Popular posts from this blog

Canning Cabbage

-
Image
I had 4 large heads of cabbage that weighted about 25 pounds. We had some really hot days and I figured I better get the last of them picked soon. My daughter Sierra and I ended up processing 3 of them yesterday and I have one left for a meal on my menu this week. I made pickled cabbage and then canned up the last of the cabbage. Here is the recipe for the pickled cabbage (according to how I made it)… 8 pounds cabbage 1 large onion 1 ½ red peppers 1 lb carrots ¾ cup salt 9 cups water 12 cups white vinegar 10 cups sugar 1t mustard seed 1t celery seed Slice cabbage thinly. Slice onion and peppers. Grate carrots. Mix all veggies together in a very large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix in well. Let sit for 2 hours to soften veggies. Rinse veggies well.  In a large stock pot (mine was 14 quarts) combine water, vinegar, sugar, spices. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage/veggies. Bring to a boil. Fill hot pint jars with veggies using a slotted spoon. Fill jar with brine to
Read more

Canning Chicken Noodle-less Soup

-
Image
Today was one of those busy days that it seemed I was moving from the time my feet hit the floor until this evening.. But, I got so much done and that is a great feeling! :) One of my accomplishments today was canning 14 jars of chicken noodle-less soup. I call it “noodle-less” because you can’t can noodles. They end up falling apart. So I canned the chicken, veggies and broth. When I go to use the soup I will bring it to a boil and then add a handful of noodles (any type of pasta will work) and cook it until the noodles are done. Because I plan to add the pasta after the fact I wanted to make sure there was enough chicken broth to do this. So I only filled my jars about half to two thirds with chicken and veggies and then filled with chicken broth. Here is how I did this…. I started off with 2 chickens that were a total weight of about 10lbs. I put them in my 14 quart stock pot… I then added 2 gallons of water.. And 3 tablespoons salt.. I brought this
Read more

Dishwasher Soap Sub

-
Image
One of the most common emails I receive is ladies asking if I have a good homemade substitute for dishwasher detergent. After making my own homemade laundry detergent and having such great success I was eager to try and find something that worked as well in my dishwasher. I found and tried a couple different recipes. I was not happy with the results at all. The most common recipe I came across was a combination of washing soda, borax and citric acid (some recipes used Kool-Aid in place of the citric acid). What I discovered is that this combination left a cloudy film all over my dishes that was hard as heck to remove. I quickly went back to Cascade and gave up trying to find a substitute. Well, last week I ran out of dishwasher soap. Because I live rurally just hopping in the car to run and pick up one item is out of the question. Plus, at that point my hand had not healed enough to be able to drive (I have a stick shift and could not shift with my right hand). I had
Read more