You gotta do it.  It’s New Years, and it’s time for new resolutions.  We all need them.  I always pick a “healthy or physical” one, an “intellectual” one, and last, but not least, a “spiritual” one.  I am encouraging all of us fellow Smart Martha’s to go ahead and chose some resolutions for ourselves.  I mean it.  Why? Because many of these things that we pick will be like those “Mary” activities that we generally put off because we have dishes to do or something like that.  For instance, if we say we will spend fifteen minutes every morning reading the Magnificat, but we wake up to a sink full of dishes, we will skip the Magnificat and do the dishes. ( I am speaking for myself here, but I know many of you are like this, too.)  Even if we choose to exercise everyday, we might not do it because we have to go to the store, or it’s our turn in the carpool.  That exercise could be a great Mary activity for us—it can free our mind, renew us, give us energy.  A resolution is a way for us to stick to these activities that we know that we need to do.

            Of course there is the challenge of fitting everything in.  Not everyone has time in her schedule to exercise daily for an hour, or read a certain book, or go to adoration everyday, but everyone does have time to do what she needs to do.  We all need to be Smart about planning, or getting rid of some other activities, or seeking some help, but it can all work out—especially when we seek guidance from God.  Pray about it, and God will give you guidance.  

            Can you see why New Year’s Resolutions can be good for us?  So let’s use the resolution idea as a means to help us become more like the Mary in the Bible story who knew when to stop and listen to Jesus.  Let’s resolve to do more of those activities that will either be “sitting at Christ’s feet” moments or they will be activities that slow us down and help us find those Jesus’ moments. 

            And remember, doing fewer well is better than doing a lot poorly. 

Happy Epiphany

January 3rd

     We always make an Epiphany Cake (really any cake will do) and hide a bean inside.  Whoever gets the bean gets to be "King" for the day.  In other countries, this is the day that gifts are exchanged.  We try to save one last gift to give to our children on this day.  (It also helps take some of the excess away from Christmas morning, plus you can get some great Christmas items radically reduced.)  Remember it still is the Christmas season until the Baptism of our Lord, January 10th this year. 

I am only picking one resolution for my family this year.  And believe me, it doesn’t seem very spiritual or grandiose.  I just want my family to put their dishes in the dishwasher.  I know you’ve probably heard me rant about this before, but after having a very full house of people over the holidays, it is time for me to rant again.  I feel like I’ve spent so much of my holiday doing dishes.  Not that I mind spending my holiday in the kitchen.  I love to cook and bake and visit with family and friends in the kitchen, but not all of the extra dishes.  And I’m not talking about after a big dinner together or my own mess after making a cake.  I am talking about the constant flow of dirty dishes in my sink and on my counter from the kids that they should have put in the dishwasher.  There.  I am done ranting.  Time for resolutions.  I want my kids (the youngest is 5-- so every kid is capable) to clean up after themselves, including putting their dishes in the dishwasher.  That is our family resolution that we have already started to practice on the verge of this new year.

I’ve put nagging aside and have tried a couple of other strategies to help achieve this.  First of all, I have had kind conversations with the kids individually about how the charitable thing to do is to clean up their own mess including putting the dishes into the dishwasher.  Secondly, I’ve had to be disciplined myself about making sure that the dishwasher was always “dirty.”  Over the holidays, I have had to run the dishwasher three or more times a day!   And lastly, we are using a new coin phrase that I hope becomes a new trend in childrearing phrases.  Please try this yourself and tell your friends.  It is called, “Leave no trace.” 

Have you heard this phrase when you’ve been to a state park or trail camping?  It can even have a recognizant or spy mission flavor if you’ve got kids into that type of thing.  Basically, it is to help the kids to see if they have completely cleaned up their mess.  Instead of saying to the kids, “Johnny, look you’ve left the milk out or Sara, you’ve got crumbs on the counter,” you simply have to say, “Leave no trace.”  It sort of seems like a game at first, but the best part is that eventually they begin to say this to themselves.  This is a major breakthrough in childrearing!  Can you imagine children actually checking to see if they have completely cleaned up their messes? 

But it doesn’t stop there.  We can say, “Leave no trace,” after they are done playing with their Barbies or Legos.  Even videogame systems can be tucked away into their proper places when we are “Leaving no trace.”

 Consider this your holiday gift from Smart Martha: A new way to remind our kids to clean up without nagging.