I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. So I was thrilled to learn about the One Word movement last year.

The idea? “Choose one word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live. One word that you can focus on every day, all year long.”

My word for 2013 is “Faithful.”

I’m good at being faithful in some ways. I’m faithful to ideals. I’m faithful to people. I’m faithful, basically, to the intangible: to morals and relationships, dreams and purposes.

When it comes to the tangible stuff of everyday living? Not so much.

Papers get dropped on random flat surfaces, to “deal with later.”

I forget to cook, until my kids start complaining that they are hungry (if they haven’t already devoured the entire contents of the fruit bowl). Heck, I forget to eat!

There’s always plenty of clean laundry (except in the case of size ten jeans, seeing as my nine-year-old can’t wear them without ripping them). But it’s all piled on (and behind, and around) the chair in the corner of my bedroom. The current pile is nearly as tall as my six-year-old!

It’s all well and good to be an artist with your head in the clouds, until you trip over the Thomas tracks winding across the living room, and plunge headlong into a pile of discarded backpacks.

The thing is, I have systems to deal with these sorts of things. If I would follow through with them.

I have a nice, functional filing system.

Once upon a time, I stocked my freezer with simple, healthy meals.

And Every. Single. One. of my children is old enough to fold (not to mention wash) their own laundry.

The problem is, I am not faithful to my own systems. I don’t follow through on my own plans.

It’s easy for me to relegate the daily details of life to the “realm of un-important things,” things that don’t really matter in the long run.

But they do matter.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if the laundry isn’t folded, or if I occasionally find bank statements from 2007 yellowing in the pages of an old novel.

But it matters if I’m the sort of person who doesn’t follow through, who puts whims (even gorgeous whims) ahead of intentional action.

That’s why “Faithful” is my word for 2013.

Not faithful to ideals and people and standards. That’s a given.

Faithful to daily, intentional action.