When I grew up ...

Yep ... this is me. All grown up and such. :)

A couple of weeks ago I had a startling realization. It suddenly hit me that the feeling in my gut that has been sitting there since about my senior year of high school was gone. You know the one .... that whole "what in the world am I going to be when I grow up" feeling? Through college I studied, traveled and stayed extremely involved in extra-curricular activities ... but the future was really uncertain. Luckily, I have always been pretty darn happy with having just one 3-month "plan" at a time. Moving to Austin, I LOVED my new job and was completely content - but then the feeling it my gut was "What am I going to do once we have kids??"

Here I am ... almost 12 months into motherhood ... staying home with my baby girl and working as a graphic designer from home part-time and freelancing as well. I'm doing EXACTLY what I dreamed of doing just four short years ago ... counting my blessings every day. I still work with an incredible team of people ... and there are some exciting things on the horizon in regards to my career. (I'm looking forward to unveiling this news soon!)

Now ... my thoughts have shifted from "What do I want to be when I grow up?" to "Who do I want to be today?"

I've been working on a mission statement. I love goals - setting goals, working towards goals and accomplishing goals. In order to make sure I'm being the person I want to be each day there are some have-to's each morning. I have to remind myself of my "mission." I have to spend some time praying over these goals and the wife/mother/designer God wants me to be. I have to make a mental or physical list of what needs to happen today or this week.

So in an effort to continue to tweak and revise my mission statement ... I'll share a peak with you.

Diligently pursue Christ daily.
Passionately love, serve, respect and admire Ethan.
Reflect the love of Christ to Claire each day. To teach her to love Him in greater ways than I could ever dream for her.
Love ALL people well and see them as Christ sees them.
Create something new each day. Surrender my gifts and talents to be used for Christ.