There's nothing like moving to a new place to decide that it is the ideal time to make all those changes you've been saying you'll make.  What do I mean?  Let me tell you.

I have a deep love of Pinterest.  I also spend far too much time on it.  I enjoy spending time drinking coffee, looking at craft ideas, homes I will never be able to afford, places I want to visit, recipes I want to try, and work out routines that all claim they will make you thinner in no time.  Pinterest is basically the perfect place to find every New Year's Resolution and details on how to accomplish those goals.

In six days, I will be moving to St. Etienne.  When I first went to college, I thought "I'm going to work out five times a week, take a ton of exercise classes and I'm going to be super healthy. Yes.". That didn't happen exactly as panned.  The whole non-athlete for my entire life/actually having classes and relationships to which I needed to pay attention got in the way.

During Lent two years ago, I decided to begin a discipline of Praying in Color each day. I absolutely loved doing this, and I still have the journal in which I prayed in my room.  During the Lenten season, my home church has two Communoin services on Wednesdays: one very early in the morning, and one in the evening.  I had made it my goal during Lent to go to the early morning Communion service each week.  It was wonderful.  But as happens with most good intentions, once Lent was over both times, I stopped.

While I'm in France, I really would like to get into good habits to be wholly healthy. This means exercising regularly, walking and biking everywhere, and spending a good amount of time praying each day. It's amazing how quickly prayers become wish lists rather than praise and thanksgiving.  A friend of mine told me about the ACTS Prayer a few years ago, and if you find praying difficult because it tends to point to yourself (don't feel too terrible, it happens to us all), this is a really excellent tool.  Hopefully, if I get deeply rooted into these habits, they'll stick with me even after my year in France is over.