My word of the year was: growth.

John’s word for the farm was: management.

Growth

For me, growth rang true in a real, physical way.

I watched my stomach grow larger and larger as we awaited the birth of Joslyn Shea at the end of October.

I spent the last two months of the year watching her grow from 7.2 pounds to 12 pounds.

Our family grew! Growth was the perfect word for me in this aspect.

I also grew as a writer this year because I self-published my first book.

The editing, layout, design, printing, ordering, shipping and promotion steps were all a huge learning curve.

Traditional publishing has perks, but we loved going the indie route.

I was able to have 100% creative control of the end product – it was a blast.

We also grew by planting grass at the 4S Farm, feeding our first group of calves there, calving out some fall cows and doing some clean up projects.

Another highlight for 2014, was all the books I read! It is so nice to be done with college reading & able to read on my own.

This was a great word for me and I loved this process of picking a theme for the year.

Management

For John and the farm, management was a great word.

It was hard, but a good guiding light and reminder.

We tracked the costs on our corn and soybean fields in excel. We also tracked the cost per cow per year. We have a few loose ends to tie up, but we are 90% complete with our record keeping for 2014.

Now, we just have do keep this habit up for the next fifty years. Yikes!

Soon, I’ll post my 2015 word and the 2015 word for the farm.

How was 2014 for you?