Tag 3

I've been tagged! by Holly, thanks. (my first time ever) I almost didn't recognize it since I haven't been Marie F. for very long (only 2 years, ha ha)

I'm supposed to name 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random/surprising facts about myself, then tag 3 people. Here goes:

3 Joys

1. The gospel of Jesus Christ. In the scriptures the word joy is used mostly in connection with Christ. I think it's important to remember that true joy comes through Christ, and that anything in our life that brings us joy is given to us by Him. I especially like 1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,"compared with 2 Nephi 2:25, "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." To me that says even so in Christ all might have joy. And yes, this is me waxing philosophical.


2. My husband, JP. I feel like I'm more in love with him than ever before. This may seem cheesy or cliche, but it's definitely true. He is a joy in my life.


3. Music, especially classical music. Listening to music, playing music (I play the viola), all of it. I'm missing it a little right now because of the symphony break, and my students not showing up. I love music, and I'm grateful for all of the people that taught me that love, including my music teachers. But especially Holly who taught me how to listen to music, and not just play it.

3 Fears

I have worked hard to overcome fears in my life, including heights, and being in front of people. The ones I'm currently working on are water/fish and spiders, so I guess technically I'm still afraid of them some, but I've come a long way. We now have a fish named Haiku, and I've been swimming 8 or so times this summer, and I've killed a handful of spiders in my house (big progress.) So things I'm still afraid of:

1. Snakes, we saw one on a hike in Yellowstone this year. It was afraid and got away fast, but I still didn't like it. And I didn't like walking past them in the pet store yesterday either.


2. Not getting enough done/procrastinating. I think that's what puts me on edge and makes me high strung. The interesting thing is, it's still not enough to keep me motivated for a whole 8 hour period. *sigh* So it sort of ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.


3. Failure... not being good enough at something, whether that's teaching violin or being a wife or mother. I've had a lot of successes in my life, but I haven't really learned to deal with failure. And I don't even have a good definition of what failure is to me, which is why it continues to be a looming fear, instead of one I can conquer.

3 Goals

1. Suzuki teaching; I want to build my violin/viola studio, and I want to improve my teaching skills.


2. The "Scrapbook Pile:" we have a huge pile in our bedroom of all the stuff we've both collected over the years. There's photos, certificates, memorabilia, souvenirs.... everything. It needs to be gone through, de-junked, and made functional. Included with that goal is putting together something about our wedding, a small scrapbook, or wall hanging that I can feel happy with so I can feel like it's documented and I can move on. Also, the family history stuff we've been collecting and we want to work on more keeps migrating to that pile.


3. Health; I want to get more in shape through yoga and running. I did really well last month, with water aerobics, and even ran with the high school cross country team one day, and then we went to Yellowstone, came back, and all of the sudden I quit. So hopefully I can jump back in here soon.

3 Current Obsessions/Collections

This is a good one for me because I live my life obsession to obsession. I read about them, and research them, and talk to everyone about them, and then I move on to another one, having sponged up everything I can. I guess the overarching obsession of all of these is reading. So these are my three most recent.

1. Birthing. I have two friends that got me started on this. One friend had 2 home births, and the other friend is planning a home birth. I'm not sure that I would want a home birth, but my mom had a midwife for her last few births, and I think that's the way that I would like to go. Luckily I don't have to decide anything right now, and I have a lot of time to keep reading and researching. But if anyone has suggestions on great midwives in the Salt Lake area, let me know.


2. Homeschool. I've been researching homeschool because I know I'm going to homeschool my children, at least for the elementary school years. JP and his siblings were homeschooled, and my parents are teaching my siblings at home now.


3. Sign Language. I've always loved ASL, and as I learned about signing with children as a second language and pre-speech communication tool I've loved it. In my research ran across Signing Time! and think it's really fun. I also studied deafness, and deaf culture somewhat. I learned a lot, and then got a job working with a boy who is deaf last year.

3 Random/Surprising Facts About Myself

1. I love books, especially childrens books, and poetry.


2. I play the string bass (only classical.)


3. I have two metal rods in my back for scoliosis.

3People to Tag

1. J.P.


2. Mom


3. Brit

I Cut My Hair

For my life, this is exciting, and rather drastic. Yesterday I got my hair cut. I cut off over 12 inches. Yes, I will be donating my hair to Locks of Love. I changed my hair from going to the middle of my back, to going to about jaw length. It is fun and I like it, the only thing is now I need to remember how to do short hair. (My mom actually helped me with the first styling of it.)
Going in to this, especially the night before, I was so nervous. I didn't know how I wanted it cut, I just knew I wanted it pretty short, and I knew I wanted to donate it, and I knew JP didn't want it too short. From what I've heard it sounds like we compramised pretty well, and I'm happy. I did have my mom come with me to the salon, I guess I'm not completely grown up yet. But by the time she got there I was starting to feel like I would have been ok if she hadn't come. My stylist was awesome, and understood what I wanted more than I did. So without further ado, my haircut...

And I also think Julianna did a good job taking the pictures, Thanks Jules.

Fortune Cookie

Last week my in-laws took us to dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant, one of my favorites that I haven't been to in a couple years. It was very good food and good conversation. But my favorite part is usually when the fortune cookies come, not only do I love how they taste, but it's fun to see the fortunes, whether they're silly, fortuitous, or insightful.
Like the Andy Griffith show we watched last week where Aunt Bea opens a Chinese restaurant because of a lucky penny, and then gets out of the business because of a cookie fortune that reads "beware of business ventures, they can be very risky."
So our fortunes for that night were:

• You have a captivating style all your own
• You are the life of any party
• You should be able to undertake and complete anything (JP)
• The strengths in your character will bring you serenity (Marie)

Although mine may not apply completely to me any more than the others I decided I wanted to write about it.

What strengths of character can a person have that will bring them serenity?

• Acceptance
• Forgiveness (and the C. Terry Warner parallel, forgo-ness)
• Strength
• Understanding

The word serenity also brings to mind the Serenity Prayer. These are just some thoughts.

Thoughts on my last job...

Now that my job from last year is finished, and I've had some time to process, here's some things that my student and that job taught me:

• Sign Language- I feel like I could now be confident to sign with someone, I learned so many new signs, and the daily practice helped make things become more fluid. Now I want to keep it up so I don't get rusty.
• Discipline Techniques- I even had the district behavior specialist help me. I learned about setting boundaries, and knowing the plan before hand so you don't overreact. It's not the exact techniques I want to use forever, but it's learning and a starting place.
• Endurance- I often said, "It's ok I can wait longer than you." But then I had to stand by that. And to go to work everyday got difficult by the end, but I went and I endured.
• Parenting Skills- Not enough to get me through 24/7, but enough to realize parenting is an extremely big job. Also the importance of bonding and connecting with your own children, and the power that comes through being the mom instead of the babysitter/teacher.
• Early Reading and Math- I saw how many intermediate steps there are to basic reading and math that we sometimes take for granted.
• Mandt Training- How to physically restrain a child, and how to avoid it at all costs.
• Public School- How much I don't like it there, and how much I'm capable of teaching my children.

I also built friendships and relationships, and was able to bond with an angel child. Although he's crazy and frustrated a lot of the time, he really has an angel spirit (as his mom calls it) and is trying his hardest to be heard and understood.

Grandma Simmons' Wedding Pictures

These are the original photos from my Grandparents wedding that I said I would post. I was able to get them from my mom and finally scan them today. These are the only three photos I know of, so if you find others of Lee and Beulah Simmons (especially of this dress) let me know. (Thanks Richard, for sending the one of the wedding cake.)
The lists of who is in each picture I scanned from the back of the photos and is in my Grandmother's handwriting.

Solo Recital

On April 5th I played a solo recital after the Priesthood session of General Conference at the home of Alan Edwards. My accompanist was Diane Bastian. She is an amazing accompanist.

The program was:
Violin Concerto No. 1 in a minor -Allegro Moderato by J. S. Bach
Sonata Op. 120 No. 1 -Allegro Appassionato and Vivace by Johannes Brahms
Ave Marie by Franz Schubert
Suite in G Major -Prelude by J. S. Bach
Suite in C Major -Gigue by J. S. Bach
Arpeggione Sonata -Allegro Moderato by Franz Schubert
Where Can I Turn For Peace by Joleen Meredith Arr. By Marie Feinauer & Marilyn Olsen

I played a violin piece because it is the piece that I need to pass off through a video with the Suzuki Association to continue my Suzuki training on the violin. I was planning on doing all of my Suzuki Training on viola, but when the opportunities present themselves, you need to jump.
I think one interesting thing is that none of the pieces were originally written for viola. The Brahms was for clarinet originally, the Bach Suites are for cello, the Schubert Sonata was written for an instrument called the Arpeggione. The joys of being a violist.

I haven't yet figured out how to edit a video excerpt to put here from the video that was take of the recital. But I'm glad that video was taken, hopefully I can give myself some lessons from watching it and practicing.

It was a very good experience to play for an audience again, and I feel like I've gotten back to my "I'm not too nervous" attitude. I was excited and wanted to do well, but also confident and felt good about who I was sharing with.

A lot of my family that was not able to come to my college senior recital were able to come to this one. I enjoyed being able to play for my friends and family in a more formal, but still relaxed setting.

JP bought an orchid that afternoon so we were able to display that on the piano. It is beautiful and still blooming. When the host of this recital, Alan, found out JP liked orchids he gave us a book to read called, "Making the Impossible Possible: One Man's Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary" by Bill Strickland. We've begun reading it and are really enjoying it. It's about a man who helped inner city youth by bringing beauty into their lives. And one of the beauties was growing orchids.

It's taken me a long time to do this post because I wanted it to be really good, but I couldn't decide what would make it stand out. Especially since my mom had already posted about this recital on the family blog. But I'm glad to keep a record, and once I get this post finished maybe my ideas will begin flowing again for what else I want to write about.

Performing Mahler's 5th

On the 15th of March I performed in Mahler's 5th Symphony with the Salt Lake Symphony in Libby Gardner Concert Hall at the University of Utah. Although it was a very hard piece of music and a challenge for me, I'm glad that I had the experience and took the time to play this piece.
The thing I want to comment on is our director and how amazing he was at bringing the orchestra through this experience. I first must disclose that we didn't perform this piece perfectly. We were far from it. And while most directors would be extremely stressed, pushy, and possibly even downright grumpy, Dr. Baldwin had a great attitude through the whole thing.
I especially noticed all of this during the dress rehearsal. The first thing we did was a complete run through! Now that may not sound all that amazing to many of you. But when a director is stressed about a difficult piece, usually the last thing thing they want to do at the last minute is a run through; they want to hit the hard spots. So we did a run through and Dr. Baldwin was disciplined enough not to stop us (much.)
After the run through he complimented us sincerely, not on our perfection, but on his faith that from hearing what we'd just done he knew that we would be able to make it through tomorrow without crashing. And that gave us all what we probably needed most, a little confidence (myself included.)
Then we spent the second part of the rehearsal working on spots he had noticed during the run through. And it was amazing, he had a system and he stuck to it. He would tell us the section, and what we needed to fix. Then we would play through it, and it wouldn't go so great. Then he would say one more thing, we would play it again, it would improve, and he would compliment us on the improvement and give us something to help us remember tomorrow. He didn't beat any one spot to death, and he didn't ever sound like he'd given up on a spot being the way he wanted.
After the rehearsal he saved time for a pep talk (some directors would go over time running spots, and then be like "oh... see ya.") And his talk was quite insightful for me. I must admit by that time I was extremely tired and didn't really want to play the concert the next night, so the pep talk was what I needed.
He paraphrased some other people, and he let us know that he was.... so I'm passing that on to you readers. Anyway, he said that there is a trend now for smaller orchestras to play Mahler, and the big works like that. The reasoning Dr. Baldwin stated was that there is power in this music. That even though we can't play it as well as say, the New York Philharmonic it still has power for the audience and (especially) us as musicians.
This meant a lot to me, because the reason I play the viola still is that I love playing in symphonies. I've felt the power of great music at least since I was in 9th grade and played the New World Symphony by Dvorak. And it made me grateful for the opportunity to play another great piece of music and experience that greatness again at a new level. It made me want to come back tomorrow and play the concert, even though I didn't know of anyone who was coming to see it.
At the end of his talk he complimented us for all of our hard work, and told us to think back to the first rehearsal and how much we had improved. And I must say the contrast was quite amazing, especially after only six rehearsals.
The concert the next night went well enough. I enjoyed playing, and I played better than I had the rest of the rehearsals (you gotta love adrenaline.) We only had a minor train wreck where the french horn came in the wrong spot, but we just went back to his entrance and everyone was able to figure it out and we got back together. It was a good experience, and now I'm glad that I didn't chicken out and take a break for this concert.

What is Family History?

I've been pondering the question, "What is family history?" and also, "What is family history for?" Especially as I've been trying to decide where I want to start and what direction I want to go in looking at my family history. I've come up with three answers (in no specific order.)

1. Documentation or Record Keeping
   This includes things like keeping and collecting birth and death certificates, searching census records and making copies, looking for headstones in cemeteries and taking pictures, and finding military or immigration records. It's anything that provides proof (especially government) that this person actually lived, that they existed, or proves important events in their lives. This part is when I'm glad I have my husband, a history major, to help me out. You definitely need an organizational system for this so that the sheer amount of documents doesn't overwhelm you.
   
2. Temple Work
   My second part of Family History is mostly applicable to members of the LDS church. We believe in doing temple work for our deceased ancestors. This is what I thought the only reason for family history was for a long time, and I still know it's very important. But you don't need as much information for this purpose. The other two purposes: Documentation and Journaling, can lead you to help and more information for this area, but mostly you just need names. I would personally prefer to have more information on a person, but at least finding names for Temple Work doesn't overwhelm me as much as it used to, now that I understand I don't need copies of all of the documentation listed above to be able to do someone's temple work. And it's probably the part that most motivates me in terms of past people. I'm excited for the church's new FamilySearch program to come online in Utah! The thing that was most difficult for me last time I tried to submit names to Temple Ready was that most of my relatives had their work done 10 or more times, and I was frustrated at the inefficiency of it all.
   
3. Journaling and Stories (his stories)
   The third part of family history is journaling. It's what most people do in their scrapbooks. It also includes oral interviews, personal histories, and personal journals. The only thing in this category that used to excite me was journals. I have over 10 volumes now. But since I've been married I've been more excited about keeping a record of our life, and having a way to record our future children's lives. Especially since my husband likes to take pictures.
   Scrapbooking in general has overwhelmed me since I'm not very crafty, so I've started thinking of it as a journal with pictures, and since then so many options have seemed to open up. One option is blogging, which I've really enjoyed beginning in many different ways, and that was validated for me in an article entitled, "Scrapbooks Move Into the Digital Age." Also, I learned from a family history fair that you can make a 12x12 page on the computer on Photoshop and have it printed at Costco on photo paper, and then just slide it into a book. For me that is SO much easier. No cutting, pasting, coloring, stuff that scares me. Just make it with the undo button right there handy, and print... high quality.
   And, of course, this overlaps as you find journals and pictures of relatives and learn more about their lives and stories.
   The thing I love most about the Journaling is the stories. Our lives are full of many interesting things. If they aren't recorded they can't be remembered. I'm still looking for a small journal my grandmother left entitled "Memories with the Grandchildren." She only made a few entries in it. But I remember loving to read them when she was alive. And it's a possession that now, after she's passed on, I would like to remember, record, copy, and share because they're her stories, and stories keep memories alive, and create memories by being shared.

Each of these categories can overlap, and as they do their findings in one area help with progress in another. As you decide to get census record copies for ancestors, you may find the parent's names and someone you hadn't been able to track. As you do an oral interview of a relative you may find the names of other relatives that no one else remembered.

I must add that I am no where near perfect in all of this. I'm just starting. But the breakthrough for me was the ability to categorize, and realize how much I'm already doing in an area, and which area I want to start working on next; instead of feeling overwhelmed by an overall concept of "Family History" with no idea where to start.

Grandma's Wedding Dress

After my mom, my aunt, my husband, and I went to the regional family history conference we were all determined to do some more with our family history, and preserving our stories and our past. So one project that I'd put off for more than a year was my Grandma's Wedding dress.
The story is that as I was preparing for my wedding over a year ago I tried on all of my relative's wedding dresses, because I didn't want to spend the money to buy one myself. None of the dresses fit very well, except my Grandma Beulah Simmons' (my mom's mother) beautiful silk wedding dress. But at the time I felt it looked too old fashioned, and not "princess" enough for me. And also my aunt found a bag of beautiful fabric for $3, and my mom can sew wonderfully, so I was able to have my own dress, which I love.
But as they were trying to convince me to wear Grandma's dress, mostly for sentimental reasons, (and to save my mom a lot of work) they took it to a dry cleaner to prove to me that it was clean and in great condition to be worn. Well, after I was married we found out that you don't dry clean silk. So in talking to people about how to preserve it, now that it has been dry cleaned, they said to take pictures of it, and find a model who fits the dress to take the pictures of. So they asked me to come model the dress for pictures, since I'm the only person that can fit into it.
My Grandma was married Sept. 3, 1947, so this is a vintage 40's silk wedding dress. She sewed it by hand herself, for her own wedding.



The veil I'm wearing in this picture is actually mine from my wedding. The jewelry was my Grandma's jewelry (but not from her wedding.)

This is my Grandma's original wedding ring that I'm wearing in the picture below, it fits me perfectly. My mom (Grandma's youngest daughter) now wears that ring. I love the points on the sleeves

We were told to preserve the dress we should take measurements in the photos to show the construction of the dress as well. I love the ruffle/small train down the back of the dress. It was really hard to get a picture that showed it at all.

And the last measurement they had to take was the waist. Probably to mostly prove that at one point I did have a 26 inch waist, and so did my Grandma when she was married. The dress really does fit me perfectly. It's fun to know I'm so similar to my grandmother in build and shape.

I have put a copy of my Grandma's original wedding pictures on this blog.

American Sign Language

With the attention the Pepsi commercial "Bob's House" drew during the superbowl to deaf culture, and the nature of my job right now, I've been thinking about American Sign Lanuage a lot. (Yes I did know that deaf joke before the commercial, it's a really common one)
My job right now is to work one on one with a student who is deaf in special ed at an elementary school. I am not an interpreter, but we communicate in ASL. He is behind grade level, so I do a lot of teaching and very little interpreting for other teachers.
I've been surprised at how much sign I've been able to learn in such a little time that I've been working with my student. I knew just enough to get by when I started, and it's been expanding so fast.
A lot of this, especially what I started with, I owe to Signing Time! videos which I found in the library last summer. I now own a couple of them, tivo them every week (click here for a link to the TV Schedule), and watch Rachel's blog and forums regularly. I think they are fun videos, and will be great for helping me to have a signing family.
Another book that I found at the library is Baby Talk: A Guide to Using Basic Sign Language to Communicate with Your Baby by Monica Beyer. I think this is a great introductory book to using Sign Language with babies, and especially a good one to show to the skeptics of signing in your life. It's cute, and concise. Although I believe it would help to have some supplementary vocabulary builders to go along with it, like Signing Time! or the Michigan State ASL browser website. It depends on how much you want to do, and how enthusiastic your toddler is to sign.
Although I don't have a baby of my own yet, signing is definitely in the plans for my family. I am so glad I've had this year to practice and learn with my student at school.
The other thing I've loved is seeing how signing has benefitted some children with disabilities, especially some with Downs Syndrome or Autism. Somehow signing seems to bridge the gap that some of them have with spoken language.

My sister, Emily

As many of you know, my sister Emily is doing BYU study abroad at the BYU Jerusalem Center. Since we knew that she would not have time to email everyone about her experiences J.P. and I helped her set up a blog just before she left. She has now put a post up, and I'm proud of her so I want to share her address with all of you! And I'm posting it on my blog page for everyone's future reference. Hopefully if we let her know we read and enjoy it she'll keep posting.
We also helped my mom set one up last night. She's been writing things lately that I think are great, and I keep wanting to tell other people, "go read this that my mom wrote and then you'll understand." The first post she put up is about homeschool and it summarizes a lot of the feelings about why I want to homeschool my kids.
Hopefully they both keep posting, and I'm excited to read both often!

What I Teach

There are some subjects that if you get me started on them I will probably talk your ear off. Especially if you have a question, they are the subjects that I'm afraid I act like a know-it-all about. Recently in an email to my cousin I went off about homeschooling I then apologized and finished up the email with this sentance, "But I do have a goal to encourage and educate people in my passions: homeschool, music, strings, music theory, and sign language [and yoga.]"

I'm sure I will eventually devote more than a blog entry to each of these, and I know that my opinions still have some room to change on all of them, but to get to know me (and not from my uninformative profile) I think you need to understand my veiws on these subjects. So I'm going to present a paragraph (and only one :) ) on each subject.

Music

This one may be somewhat obvious, with my past blog posts, and since I graduated from college with a music degree and my senior year in high school took 5 out of my 8 classes in music. Mostly I just love music: the challenge, the sounds, the comraderie, the teamwork.

Strings

As a music ed major (which I did not finish) I had to learn to play "the other" instruments, the brass and woodwinds. They're OK, but what really floats my boat is the strings, especially the viola and the bass (yes, I am odd, most people like violin and cello, maybe I just enjoy being different, or at least being good.) Which is one reason why I finally graduated in Music - String Pedagogy. It also has something to do with how much I love teaching and I dislike public schools, but that's for a future paragraph. This love of string pedagogy (or teaching strings) has really hit home in the past year or so as I've had a handful of students. I realize how happy I am when I finish teaching a lesson, or how much I enjoy the challenge of trying to find how to connect with a student, will it be a visual representation, or a kinesthetic sense. And how to get them motivated, excited, and listening. It's like the things I love about music in a new channel.

Music Theory

Anyone who has been a music major will doubt this one. Ask nearly any music major what they're least favorite class is and they will say music theory. But ever since I took my first music theory class at 5 years old, or did theory worksheets with my piano teacher it has been my favorite. Maybe it has something to do with how much I love math or the foundation I was given young. Whatever it is my AP Music Theory Class in high school was wonderful, and we all got 5's (highest marks) on the final test. The only stress I remember having with music theory was when I got to college and I was supposed to take the first theory course even though I'd passed the AP test. I found myself crying in Professor Nielsen's office until he asked me what an f sharp was in the key of C and I said "a French sixth chord." Although it was the wrong answer, with a little prompting I got the right answer and he was impressed that I'd even heard of the first one. So this gift of loving theory is one that I hope to pass on to more children through teaching, and to keep this to one paragraph there will need to be a future post on how I plan to do that.

Homeschool

First of all, I was never homeschooled. My husband was homeschooled for most of his life, with some private schools in there. And at this point my brothers and sisters are as well (I'm the oldest of 7 kids, 4 of them are currently homeschooled.) But the main point of this is I plan to homeschool my kids, even though I don't have kids yet. DH and I have discussed often what our philosophy for homeschooling is, and why we want to homeschool. The interesting thing is that some of it is different than our parents, or others we know that homeschool. But the main point is that we will be homeschooling our kids starting last year (with research, building our philosophies, and our own learning). And I want to share with others and encourage homeschooling, although I feel underqualified at this point, since I have little experience. But I do have experience with public school, and I know that's not what I want for my kids, especially in elementary.

Sign Language

I've been extremely interested in sign language ever since Junior High School, I think it's a beautiful language and I've always wanted to learn more. That's why when I heard about baby sign language it was very interesting to me. So last year I began to research, and I've made a few decisions: It's not as hard as it sounds to use sign language with a baby, its about exposure not teaching. It is exciting and helpful for a family to use sign. An actual signed language should be used instead of a made up language, but it's okay to have some family/home signs if necessary. And part of my children's homeschool will be sign language from the time they're very small, (yes, homeschool starts long before the age of 5).

Yoga

Honestly, this one is mostly for me. I like to do yoga, it makes me feel better. Once I asked one of my yoga teachers if she could ever picture me as a yoga teacher (back to "I love teaching"). She said she could, and I now feel that I could at some point too. But there are a lot of other things that come first (as you can see above). For now, yoga is for me; and my children are welcome to join in. (I'm sure I'll research more on baby and children's yoga, so I can still have yoga and my kids too).

In summary: I love teaching! I'm excited to teach my kids. I'm excited to teach lots of other kids about music and theory. And I hope that through teaching my kids I'll be able to gain the experience and confidence to work with other parents as they teach their kids.

New Years Resolutions

I've never really believed much in New Years Resolutions. I haven't made very many of them in my life, and it always frustrated me a lot to try and think of which thing I wanted to work on for a whole year, and how to remember it, and how to tackle it. So as I went away to college I completely quit making them.
Last year, 2007, was my husband's and my first new years together and I found out that he felt similarly. That was a relief.
Now I'm not saying anything against goal setting. DH and I have weekly planning meetings, and we review our goal sheet at least monthly. But a year seems too long and there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about Jan. 1st.
Or is there? As we were talking the evening of 1/1/08 we realized that with my break from school and all our time together we'd been trying to change a lot of things to improve.

A Clean House

The thing I'm most proud of is our new cleaning schedule. In Rexburg we were able to keep our tiny apartment clean by working together 15 min. a day after dinner. I mostly did the dishes and he picked up, swept, vacuumed... whatever needed to be done. Now with this new house/apartment it's been more important to me to keep it clean because we share it with Grandma. But I've been feeling really frustrated because though it's more important to me I was feeling like I couldn't do it, even with a dishwasher now. So we've reinstated the 15 min. except with rotating chores for each day of the week. I know it's not fly-lady quality, but it's progress, and I can tell by the way my house looks and how I feel about it.

Getting in Shape

This is the goal that I feel most sheepish about. I always thought it was kind of dumb that it seemed like everyone set this goal for new years and no one accomplished it. (You can tell by the increased ads for exercise equipment, clothing, and gym memberships.) For me it's more of a goal to actually do yoga, because I love it I just don't do very well at making time for it. The actual impetus for this was the cool yoga DVD I got from my Sister-I.L. for Christmas and the DVD player we got from my Brother-I.L. and Mother-I.L. And the entertainment center to contain all that stuff that I got for my DH. I haven't been doing as well as I wanted to since school started again (except that I lead it for PE with my class at school). But that's the point of why it's not a New Years resolution, it's just a goal that I can set again next week, and re-evaluate next month. But I love my yoga!

Getting up in the Morning

I have to say that this is my fault. My husband was really great at getting up in the mornings until he married me. And it hasn't really improved any with setting a goal. But at least we're thinking about it. LOL

Financial

Our finances have been pretty well in order thanks to my husband's savings, online statements, and the Xcel program that I wrote, but it wasn't quite doing everything that I wanted. So we used an Amazon gift certificate to buy Quicken, and I'm excited and it's fun for me. But I guess that's not really a goal, it's just having in mind the things you want so you don't go blow a gift certificate on something else.

I guess what I'm mostly trying to ramble about is that life is for progression, so if we only focus on improvement once a year, I think we're really missing out on our potential and the joy of developing. But New Years really is a better time than I thought to get excited about changes of our choosing.