First Post of 2012

Me and my sister, Erin, after climbing to the North Peak of the Franklin Mountains
in El Paso, Tx., on Dec. 30, her 40th birthday. Good bye 2011!

My mother-in-law gave me a six-word memoir calendar for Christmas. Each day showcases someone's six-word memoir and it encourages you to write your own six words each day.

I woke up on January 1 feeling this way in six words:

I want to do it all.

What is it about the new year that fills us with initiative, expectation and possibility? And why still? I hope that even into my old age I feel this way with the start of each new year.

So naturally I started January 1 cleaning out my refrigerator. Clean start! I didn't mean to do that. I just wanted to empty out the fuzzy leftovers. One thing lead to another and next thing I knew I was scrubbing the sticky shelves and washing out the fruit bin. God it felt good.

But I was already worn out with my ambition and it wasn't yet noon.

I certainly didn't want to spend the day--or 2012--cleaning. I wasn't sure what I wanted for the rest of the day--or 2012. Yes, definitely there was so much I wanted to do. But do it all? What did that entail, exactly?

The barking seal cough from my son, heralding another round of croup, brought me back to the present. I wasn't sure how much I could do with my day, or where to begin. So I just decided to see what happened.

There was a group of friends heading out for a trail run at noon. So I joined them.

My husband took the kids to a movie. So I stayed behind, crawled in bed and read a book. (This might rank as a slice of heaven for me.)

I went to the 5 pm church service.

I watched my kids' perform a magic show.

We had dinner--what I could cull together after cleaning out the fridge--then we all curled up on the couch to watch Dolphin Tale.

Without any planning at all, I think it turned out to be a near perfect day. When I got into bed, I changed my six words to better represent the day, and the easier approach I'd like to take into the new year:

I want to do just enough.

Ahh, yes. I don't want to tamper my enthusiasm but darn it, setting out to do "just enough" feels right for 2012. It's a little like starting out thinking I wanted to run a marathon this year and coming to the conclusion that setting my sights on a personal record 5K was not only a respectable goal, but would work better for my life right now. I could funnel ambition into "just enough" so that I could stay grounded in the present, which is to say, take advantage of opportunities to curl up in bed with a book or stop for impromptu magic shows. If the opportunity presents itself to summit a mountain, chances are, I'll go for it.

Now, it is January 2.

I'll just see what happens next.

Do you have a six-word memoir to share?