Resolutions

Though by the time many of you read this, it will no longer be the first day of the year, I thought there was still enough lee way to wish you all a very Happy New Year!! I pray that everyone had a fabulous Christmas reflecting on the meaning of season as well as taking the time to indulge in the food, festivities and company that the holidays bring! Once again I was blessed to spend Christmas Break in the Promised Land of Zeeland Michigan! Though the entirety of my vacation was spent without snow, my time has been filled with many good things. No cross country skiing, but plenty of good solid movies, relaxing, a few good jogs along the beach and quality time tickling my cousins. All in all a great break to regroup and refocus.
As many of you know, my keeping up with Staaty's Spot in the last few months has been less than consistent. Apologies for that! I don't really have an excuse either. I came back from Greece and hit the ground running at school with my new job as the President of the School of Intercultural Studies along with the other responsibilities that come with my full load of Graduate School classes. Though I was much busier this past quarter than I was this past year, I still should have been on the blog. So as the New Year has already begun I resolve to honor my blog more regularly and post those random stories and pictures that help me stay in contact with the people I love the most.
Ok moving on... Along with writing more consistently, another resolution that has just occurred to me during this amazing first day of the year is this: "To be truly present in this moment. To not long for the grass on the other side but to rejoice in the green vegetation I have on my side of the fence." New Years Day was a perfect example. Please let me explain. For those living in the City of Pasadena, the First is a very special day. It is the Tournament of Roses! Throughout the entire city there is a perpetual buzz all year long in preparation for this day with the most famous parade in States as well as the most honored and well know Bowl Game. As I watched the parade from my television in Michigan I wondered if I had not missed a great opportunity. If I would have chosen to come home prior to the first of the year, I would not only have been able to attend this festive parade. Along with the parade I would have also had a precious and coveted ticket to watch my favorite football team U of M duke it out with USC. However, before I was able to fully regret my decision, Lunch time rolled around and I found myself at my dear Aunt Joan and Uncle Arvin's house for a celebration with family. I was surrounded by my favorite people in the world, my family. Though not all were present, most of my dearest cousins were there. Though I didn't get to see Pasadena packed out with a sea of faces, I was able to gaze upon a crowded living room of people that tend to look very similar because they are all related. Though I wasn't able to watch the big bands and exquisite floats parade by in a spectacular display, I was able to hop on a simple wagon filled with hay pulled behind a John Deere tractor for our annual New Years Day Hay Ride. (I need not remind you that it is Michigan after all, and that the wind chill almost made my ears fall off.) Though I wasn't able to watch one the biggest football games of the year, I was able to play some of the most fun games known to man with all my cousins. (These games consisted of Gestures, the Cup Game, "This is a What" and of course the famous card game of spoons, which by the way, I would have won had not my little cousin shirley violently wrestled the spoon from my hand after a good two minutes of hard struggle.) Though our New Years celebration was not televised nationwide, it was a celebration to rival that of the Rose Bowl. I am so grateful and blessed for having shared it with some of the most amazing people in the world.
More times than I would like to admit, I look over to the other side of the fence and somehow imagine that the grass is greener over there. I have realized that sometimes at school, I long to be home, and when home, sometimes I long to be at school. When abroad I sometimes think life would be perfect at home and sometimes at home I miss the adventure of the foreign soils. Yet in all of this God has reminded me that it is he who had directed my steps and guided me along his paths and so no matter where I find myself, I can trust him that my little splotch of grass is green enough for me at that moment in time. So this year, I resolve to be here, to be now, and to give up the allusion of greener grasses else where. For if I do not I might miss what is right in front of me, hayrides, spoons and the really really green grass of family and loved ones.