December: Reflection & Rejuvenation

From the Nikki McClure Calendar

Wow. We are officially heading into the last month of 2010. I think this marks the end of a decade. It's strange to me how I can compartmentalize so much of my life chapters according to the decades. The '80s were my childhood. The '90s were high school and college. The '00s started with my career, took me on a self-subsidized sabbatical, and connected me with my life partner. And now the next decade marks the beginning of my journey as a parent and the wholehearted pursuit of some of my bigger dreams related to building community and revolutionizing education.

Okay, I won't go too deeply down the path of end-of-year reflection. I like to save that process for my New Year's ritual (my best friend Andy, Matt, and I always fill out a reflection form and make collages to visually represent our intentions for the upcoming year).

Let's see how I fared according to my intentions for this month:

• Organize the bedroom: I started this task, but didn't finish it.
  
• Organize the kitchen: Ditto.
  
• Pull together Matt's birthday present: Yes! I was quite happy with it.
  
• Invite a friend over for a dinner party: I put this on Matt's plate (pun intended), and it didn't end up working out.
  
• Attend a La Leche meeting: I tried, but I ended up missing it because the website was down and by the time I finally located the address and forged through the Houston traffic, the meeting was over.
  
• Spend Thanksgiving vacation engaged in a two-person writing retreat (with my best friend): We decided not to work on our writing because he just bought a new house and wanted to obsess about how to decorate it, and I was equally obsessed with how to decorate the baby's room.
  
• Help Matt plan his birthday party: Yes! It was very, very fun.
  
• Spruce up our front porch: Yes! I suffered through the intolerable project of making new cushions.
  
• Buy holiday presents: Yes!
  
• Organize the living room: Yes!
  
• Keep working on baby's room: Yes!
  
• Learn about infancy: I feel like I've learned almost as much as I can about infancy, so I've moved on to learning about birth.
  
• Relax and rest: Yes, for the most part, I've still been able to nap and exercise every day. I also go to prenatal yoga once a week.
  

And here are my intentions for the upcoming month:

• Organize dining room (as well as the rooms that didn't get finished last month)
  
• Enroll participants for the last Purposeful Conception Course: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy before I have a baby (starts January 2)
• Have fun implementing our new holiday traditions
• Finish putting together the baby's room
• Finalize our baby registry and send out the link
  
• Plan our baby shower for January
• Plan my birthday party for early February (I promise it will be low-key, since I'll be in my last month of pregnancy)
• Continue learning about birth
• Have friends over for dinner
• Start working on my New Year's Reflection form
  
• Rest & relax

I'm looking forward to it!

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