January 1 // 2022

I wonder how many years I have blogged on January 1? I won't look back on that, but I know myself and my fresh-starts and be-consistents. I am well-intentioned but annoying, and all I can do is be me and move on with grace.

I started last year thinking I might be a Power Sheets person but I am not. The exercise of getting specific about my goals was great and I don't regret buying the Power Sheets and putting them to use those first few months of the year. The beauty of the system lies mostly in those first 50 pages of reflecting and goal setting, and I will use those tools again. But I always regret not finishing and I did not finish. Instead, I made progress on some goals, put some on hold, and gained clarity about other goals that don't matter much.

We are eight months into a project we didn't resolve to start a year ago. Nowhere in my 2021 Power Sheets did I write "remodel a restaurant, learn two new businesses, pour all our time and money, some of our blood, and the health of our knees and backs into the Chalet Deli + Market." In fact, April was the month we said yes to buying the restaurant and I effectively said no to most other goals.

I stopped a lot of my writing but I hesitate to call that a mistake. It was just a necessity of the season. Things take time and energy and focus, and I don't have 100% to give to everything on my plate. I have missed my walking, reading, and writing life more than anything in the last year but I feel like I will adjust into new rhythms eventually. And then everything will change and I’ll adjust again.

We thought opening the deli and market might take five months but it's looking more like nine. People are anxious, peeking in the window and stepping inside the door to comment, encourage, and sample coffee with us. There is not a place we can go where we are not asked when will you be open? We love it, and so we pop our ibuprofen and press on.

With heating pads and coffee, we start 2022 early this morning and I'm writing this easy post to ease back in to this space that shouldn't be difficult. I like the title—just the date. I may stick with that, because this space is less about specific topics and more about how life is right now. Life is different right now, but I still want to see the truth, goodness and beauty in it all. Writing helps.

Soon everything will change again, when we are actually open for business and learning to tackle new problems. I have learned things I never cared to know before—things you can't know until you tear out a wall and find plumbing, or pay a fee for a license you don't need, or try to get answers from a government agency. There is no checklist and no one to take us by the hand through each step, but there has been a lot of help and good counsel. We have lived these last nine months on the encouragement of friends and family and strangers, and encouragement was part of the fleece we laid out before the Lord to help us make this decision.

We try to foresee the problems and have a plan for solving them, but who can say? Like 2020 and 2021 and every year before, we only have a loose grasp on what will be. Who needs to buy a planner and set goals? Who still thinks that will work out?

I still think it will.