In the very beginning of a year.

I'm full term.

It's fun to be expecting a new baby in these first weeks of a new year because everything is brand new and you know a little of what to wait for. You know that there will be kisses and little sleep and milk and emotions. You know enough not to plan too much. You know everything is shiftable and pliant in those first weeks and months: everything. The times of day, the regularity of walks, of shopping, of eating easy pickup dinners compared to cooking. The amount that you can stand other people, the skies and clouds and the sound of the new baby's voice. The walls themselves seem to shift, the trees are slightly to the left of where they used to be.

I know enough to know my emotions are fuller than I ever expect them to be, after I've had a baby. Also, that milk is everywhere and thus, I can't start the New Year with a resolution to not be covered in milk and baby spit up.

Okay. So what can I resolute? Resolve? Resolutify?

*Once a week (if at all possible) I will find a body of water and sit beside it. Whether it is a stream or a river or waterfall, I will sit near moving water and pray.

*I will be optimistic.

*I will spend 20 minutes doing things that need to be done. 20 minutes writing, 20 minutes cleaning the kitchen, 20 minutes reading to a kid. It's enough to start with, it usually turns out to be either enough, or it turns into more. But whispering, "Just 20 minutes," is a good way to begin.

*I will spend time on my porch. I will love the corners of my house.

*And I will be try to be ready for what God brings my way. A person who stays for dinner, a conversation that goes on for an hour, a new friend, a phone conversation.

Do you have anything that you want to do? That you want to put down in writing?