Updating my goals

September already? Where has the time gone? What have I accomplished in 2/3's of a year?

I have decided to use this time to discover what my goals are and to take care of things like refreshing my budget etc.  Budget refresher because one of our big events has been accomplished, so it's time to revise where the payments were going. Due to some circumstances that I keep expecting to change very soon, there appears to be a downward spiral in my finances! This is obviously not a good thing. As I said, I expect it to be redressed shortly.

The goals part is really hard.  I know it's valuable and necessary to have goals, I'm just really bad at writing them down. If you don't write them down, you don't move towards them, and you don't take specific steps to make them happen.

Here's what I've got so far:  I want to be more fluent in French.  I should be completely bilingual by now.
I want to take another trip to England, and one to New Hampshire.  I'd like to edit my manuscript and see about getting it published. And, uh.... that's it for now. :)  What about you?

God's protection

After reading an fb post about my friend receiving a call from her daughter's cell (mum in UK, daughter in Thailand) from a Thai man [naturally this completely freaked mum out, imagining her daughter had been kidnapped or whatnot- is not the case, daughter is fine],
and then this: Identity of woman's body parts

could you imagine being a parent who did not know precisely where their daughter was?  Terrifying.

If we've raised healthy happy exuberant kids, they have no problem wandering off into potentially dangerous situations - I thank God everyday for His protection of my children.

in the doldrums...

There are a few places in the ocean where, although the Trade Winds blow responsibly up and around the coasts, the water in the middle of the oceans is still... the air is still as well. These spots are called the Doldrums. So when the winds of change and the current of excitement seem to have ceased and left you languishing, you may say you are in the Doldrums.  Now that wedding is over, the proposal at work has been submitted, and we're just waiting for news.. we are in the Doldrums.

Top 5 priorities.. not what you think!

I was reading Mark and Angel's blog and as usual it is awesome.  I would revise the order and choice (and definitely the reasoning) of their top 5 characteristics affecting your happiness: Love, Forgiveness, Hope, Encouragement, and Peace.
I give my reasons below. What are your top 5?

30 years in

and marriage is wonderful. I now have the best key to a relationship.
 If this is supposed to be the love of your life, filter everything he (she) says through this:
I am the love of their life- would they try to hurt me? if no, then ask them to restate what they've said.
If they used 'hot button' words, let them know that these are words that especially light your short fuse, and to please use other words.  After all, you don't deliberately try to hurt them (I hope), why assume that they are trying to hurt you?
This would probably work for most things people say to us- perhaps what they've said is coming through their cultural/emotional/situational filters, and we need to hunt for the nugget of the statement while sloughing off the husk.  Save a lot of problems, we would. :)