Life is a verb.

The first day started with a crack. I got up before dawn and put a pot of coffee on to perk. It's still Christmas break so the house is absolutely still with sleeping kids and a red puppy. I had been lying awake for several hours thinking about the future of this farm, future of our community and country. That sounds sanctimonious on my part but it's really selfish. I just don't want to waste any more time. I have the feeling that I have been sleepwalking and I don't want to do that. There's so much to accomplish- not just tasks---life. Many people are depending on me- starting with the people under this very roof. The mountain boy and I have a great job ahead of us which began with the birth of our first child. Great as in "distinguished", "celebrated", "remarkable", "noble", "grand". Our job is to form these children into productive adults. But that's really too small. I want more for them. Our mission should be that our kids strive to affect others for good. I want them to seek out opportunity to do good. Purposeful living.

To start all that I need to be more deliberate in my life: real food not just something that fills the stomachs of the masses; real activity not just sitting in front of the TV watching other's adventures; enlarging thought with solid literature not inconsequential words on a page; deepen relationships with time spent together; work that has meaning, value.

So here's my small but heavy list of goals for 2011.

Actually forget that. Instead of writing my list, I'm going to act on it.

I'm going to grab up each of my kids and give them a gigantic smooch! (They'll love that....."Mom, stop it!") Then when the mountain boy comes home I'm going to grab him too and give him a kiss he'll remember for a long time- maybe even at the airport in front of all those people!

I'm going to stop right now and get some bread started for this week’s worth of school lunches. Then I'm going to get breakfast cooking with locally grown bacon and eggs from our chickens and homemade huckleberry pancakes.

I'm going to look through the seed catalogues with the purpose of finding vegetables that can sustain the garden for many years not just one (IE open pollinated plants not hybrids). And I'm going to call a good gardening friend to brainstorm on ways we can make our gardens more productive.

I'm NOT turning the TV on (until the TCU game later.....heck I might be living in Montana but I'm still a Texan!).

And I'm going to go to bed before 10 pm to read! No more falling asleep on the couch at night because the-mountain-boy-is-not-home-and-there's-no-real-reason-to-go-to-bed. I have to get more sleep.


These are my plans for living as a verb.

And it all seems to start with this farm.
Our small piece of dirt.
It's going to teach us great things this year.

What are your plans for living large in 2011?