I haven’t written this until this point, very purposefully.

What do you do when you look back on last year’s New Year posts (here and here) and find yourself in a completely different place than when you wrote it? When you find yourself looking back and knowing where you were, but unable to see where you are going?

I’m sorry I am so vague about my journey. One day I will share more. It simply suffices for now to say I don’t know where I am going. I am at peace with it, but I am a wanderer in many ways.

So, I find myself unable to reflect upon most of my goals last year and how I progressed. In some ways, I can say:

1. I certainly didn’t learn much about shooting my camera in manual beyond figuring out what I most needed to do requiring dropping a chunk of money on a different lens.

2. I did have a beer and I liked it but not enough to explore the beer world. I had a total of three beers this year. I did have more wine than that, and I’m a wine fan. But beer just ain’t for me, and I’m ok with that.

3. I’m not homeschooling anymore. Well, a bit of preschool stuff with Sweet Pea, but the boys are doing fantastic in school and life is good there.

4. We did go exploring. Many, many places. Here’s to more of the same in 2013!

5. Foxx has not learned to knit. He did crochet a chain once.

6. Marriage-did well this year overall!

As to the rest….who knows. That doesn’t mean I don’t look upon the coming year with some very specific journeys in mind.

1. I continue in my passion to help out other human beings.

a) This year I hope to learn more about various systems in the United States. The election came in 2012 and I found myself very uneducated about the political system and scrambling to make educated choices. This year I want to learn more about the United States and the issues Americans face. If I don’t know about how the systems work and where the failures are.

b) I also want to learn more about human psychology, our culture, and how the two things influence each other. I don’t think we can understand how to help people without understanding where they are and the challenges they face.

c) I want to specifically look at what parents are facing in truly rough places and how to help them where they are. I know there is no mighty force like a parent passionate to do right by their children. I know many people in my circles that are incredible people raising incredible children. But I am, for the most part, in circles of people who are grew up in stable homes, have had good access to education, health care, and a generally stable environment. What I want to specifically look into is children growing up without stability and how we can help them and their parents, break the cycle of rough situations begetting more rough situations. I think crime statistics, violence, abuse, rape, abortion statistics, and other things that have disturbed me in the past need to do more than just disturb me. We need to specifically help people who are in rough situations to make a difference. Just wanting a law changed is not enough. To make a different type of people, it’s more than legislation. It’s life help, because some problems are just so much bigger than one choice made. Until we look at the people behind the statistics and try to help the people, it’s not helpful to simply be enraged people are doing so much harm to themselves and others. Choices can be influenced in many ways. You holding an opinion to what is right and wrong doesn’t change somebody else’s life so they make better choices. What does? I hope to find out.

2. Whew, heavy stuff up there. Secondly, I have taken a strong interest in the creation of my favorite crafts. Before yarn can be knit or crocheted, it must first be made from fiber. For Christmas, Kronk gave me a spinning class. I now know how to wield a spinning wheel to make yarn, and it’s so incredibly marvelous. Creating yarn with my own hands was soothing, beautiful, and fun. Due to the high costs of spinning wheels, I’ll be saving up for a while. In the meantime I hope to do more yarn using a drop spindle.

3. Figure out how to move. I don’t think it could happen anytime soon, but as time has gone on it’s become very apparent our lives would be much easier and affordable conducted in another town. The house also has issues for our family as well. So my goal is to come up with a plan so we can move eventually. Even if it takes a couple years, it’s worth planning for.

4. Research philosophy, worldviews, morality, psychology, and history a bit more.

5. Parent better. I’ve made great strides with patience, but it honestly still needs a lot of work. Figure out how to help my kids grow as people in ways that are helpful to them.