It's about 9.30 pm on December 31st. Emma is out at a little friend's New Year's Eve party and Andrew has taken Logan to see the new James Bond movie. It's just Blake and me at home and he's just fallen asleep on the couch watching "The Wiggles" which I've quietly switched off. A quiet, reflective New Year's Eve suits me fine this year.

I've been remembering back 7 years to New Year's Eve 1999. We were facing the turn into the 21st century and were all a bit anxious that our computers and power sources would crash at midnight. What was that dreaded "bug" called again? I completely forget but I knew it well. Andrew and I had just put little Logan and baby Emma to bed and were watching the televised festivities from Sydney. The east coast is a half hour ahead of us so at 11.30pm, they were experiencing midnight and letting off their fireworks. We saw that all the street lights of Sydney were still shining intact and I breathed a sigh of relief. It would have been terrible if we'd seen their lights completely black out on TV and know that we had only half an hour to make our mad dash for candles. But thankfully it didn't happen and now 7 years have passed in a wink.

My birthday is on Christmas Eve so this time of the year is always perfect for reflection. This time is particularly so because I've just turned 37. I became a new Christian when I was 17 so 2007 will be a twenty year anniversary. Although I'd considered myself a Christian before then, everything I'd learned seemed to switch on, illuminate my heart and take on new meaning in 1987. That was a year of extremes. I was anorexic, struggling through my last year at High School, musing about my "purpose" and frequently on the verge of nervous breakdowns but becoming a 'fresh' new Christian was the highlight that overshadowed everything else. That was why I began to measure everything from that year, 1987, as I considered it my spiritual birthday. I can tell you, these twenty years have been filled with lots of events yet in many ways, seem to have passed in a flash.

I clearly recall that at 17, I'd fully expected my life to become a bed of roses by the time I turned 37. I would have imagined myself sitting back with a smug "I've made it" sort of feeling. I expected that all of the New Year's Resolutions I'd made back then would have been fulfilled. I guess that at 17 I would have thought that at the mature age of 37, I would have become everything I was going to become. Now here I am, about to set some new goals with just as much enthusiasm as I used to way back then. One thing these two decades have taught me is that nobody ever really gets to the stage where they feel they've achieved everything. I'm basing that on the example of several seniors I know who are still setting goals and getting buoyed up about studying and learning new skills well into their 60s and 70s.

So here are some of my goals for 2007. I'm setting them down as my priorities for 2007 knowing full well that there will be different ones for future stages of my life. It's handy when you think about it that we have our time periods set out in years. A twelve month calendar is a nice little morsel of time to fit our goals into and keep ourselves accountable.

Here goes.

1) Boost prayer and meditation time. Have definite morning and evening quiet time blocks.

2) Continue homeschooling the kids and giving them the benefits of an education free from social constraints.

3) Continue writing novels with uplifting themes, whose characters have positive values.

4) Do aerobic exercise at least three times/week

5) Implement a new "speed clean" scedule for housecleaning (More about this later if I find it actually works.)

6) Encourage others whenever I can.

7) Begin an evening writing group (OK, this is one I might not get around to but I think it might be fun if I did and even earn us a few $$, which have been fairly scarce around here at different times of the year)

8) To keep trying to make this blog a place of refreshment and encouragement.

That's it for now. I wish you all the happiest of 2007s from the bottom of my heart and blessings with your own goals. Great to reflect that we each of us have the same 366 days to fulfill our goals until next year,

Paula