new years resolutions

It’s a WRAP. Cut….

…fade into black (a starry night)….

Happy New Year!

2009. –Time really does go faster when you are having fun! And yet, some things seem a lifetime ago!

Over all, the year was a good one for me. I hope it was for you, too!

I actually accomplished some of my—well, I wouldn’t call them exactly resolutions—but some of the goals I had set for myself.

I have started to become a bit more serious about the photography; got my website up and running. (www.rteest42.smugmug.com)

I actually started, finished and entered a quilt into a challenge! (didn’t make it, but I entered!!)

I finished writing my fan fiction story, started in 2007; 178,000-ish words later, The Big Chill got its Happily Ever After.

We traveled, and I met new cousins and caught up with old friends…

(You will note the eat less chocolate/exercise more types of ‘resolutions’ are not featured here, nor will they be in the future, lol!!)

This new year, I would like to get back to writing, I would like to FINISH some of the over 35 quilt projects I have started, I would like to concentrate more on genealogy, and cataloging/scanning family photos. As well as take more photos, sell more photos, and organize the house, the studio specifically, and probably do some more cooking, and spend more time with friends and family and and and and….

None are really resolutions, because they only seem to put undue pressure on you, and untold, unnecessary guilt, when you are unable to hold to it…

And that seems a pretty negative way to start a new decade!

Balance. My word of the year…..

I hope that 2010 brings you only the best of everything!!!

(and I am headed to bed…work awaits at 7:30 am….)

thoughts of new years, and resolutions and…

I wasn’t really going to do it. A New Year’s Resolution type of message. (But, it’s this or cleaning the house. You understand my dilemma don’t you??)

We can call it something else if you like, as it is NOT New Years eve yet.

Ok, so instead, some thoughts floating about, based on the ending part of years, and decades and the fact we are now 1/10 done with the 21st century.

We can all agree that world peace– now more than ever, tops the list. That we (anywhere on the planet) do not experience another 9/11, something that shaped the decade we leave.

Global warming– the things we can control in only the smallest of ways. But can, one by one, make impact.

The Economy—well, I spent many, many years living the “frugal life”, never having the ability to really tighten the belt any more than it was tightened. It can be somewhat discouraging to read a list of “easy ways to save money” tips that included “cancel your cable, eat out less” when you didn’t HAVE cable to cut and Wendy’s was eating out!

Yes, now we have the cable, but if we didn’t we wouldn’t be watching TV…(I don’t really watch TV. Timmy does. We are not now at the place that this is something necessary to cut, thankfully.)

Eating out should be trimmed around here, and mostly for the ability to save calories.

So, to that end, the first ‘resolution-type’ idea will be to try one new dinner-ish recipe a week. And maybe even one new baking recipe. (And eating at home will give us the chance to utilize that cable even more!!!) You are all welcome to send along your favorite recipes for us to try!

More ‘resolution’ kind of posts to follow over the next few days.

Maybe STATING it to the entire world (ok, the 11 people who read this) will be motivation enough. Don’t forget to ask, “What’s for dinner?”

Deliberate


DELIBERATE

 

My ‘word’ for the year. Last year was ’inclusive,’ and the year before that, ‘insight‘.

 

Why a word?

 

Well, think of it like this. Everything has a slogan, or a rally cry, or a battle cry, as the case may be. (“Just do it,” “Just say no,” “Yes, we can!”) A word, thought, phrase, idea–something that helps you define, categorize, and internalize the world around you, and the place you are in it.

 

The Insight year, the word came to me on a box. This artist paints boxes and will mail you one with an empowerment word. My word arrived— Insight. And I ended up using the word to create a quilt that was displayed at Houston’s International Quilt Show, during the last year of the JOURNAL QUILT PROJECT. (you can get silly if you want, trying to follow back through my old blogs, locating the whole story if you like)

 

Inclusive? Well it just came to me. And I don’t know that there is much that I could DO with a word like that… but I think the YEAR itself was rather such, don’t you?

 

I don’t know if I find the word being repeated in things I read or listen to. I don’t know where in my subconscious I latch onto it. However, I do know that I have never before committed to paper (or indeed, ever told anyone) that I had a word.

 

Having the word doesn’t mean that I am now walking around like a student who just discovered a great new vocabulary word. It’s not my default ‘big’ word, or anything.

 

It’s more a meditative kind of thing. More a way of processing the world, taking the time to analyze what’s going on. Odd that the word itself this year represents that. You might look at it more like a resolution, than a word. A different way of approaching life.

 

I know I am flighty. (I could have ADD, I suppose; I swear the cat has ADHD, I don’t see why I couldn’t be afflicted, too?) I tend to putter about on my days off, and I don’t accomplish much (except finishing books…I am a great finisher of books once I start…if I could only move that skill into, say, finishing CLEANING, or finishing a QUILT project, or finishing…well you get the idea.)

 

So, to me, it’s coming to mean more –Take time to smell the roses; and I certainly can’t see the fault with THAT!!!

(Oh, and no matter how ODD you may think I am, look, I’m not even unique!!!

I discovered this blog a few days after the word Deliberate took root—)

De*lib”er*ate\, a. [L. deliberatus, p. p. of deliberare to deliberate; de- + librare to weigh. See Librate.]

Weighing facts and arguments with a view to a choice or decision; carefully considering the probable consequences of a step; circumspect; slow in determining; — applied to persons; as, a deliberate judge or counselor.

Formed with deliberation; well-advised; carefully considered; not sudden or rash; as, a deliberate opinion; a deliberate measure or result.

To take counsel with one’s self; to weigh the arguments for and against a proposed course of action; to reflect; to consider; to hesitate in deciding; — sometimes with on, upon, about, concerning.

To think carefully and often slowly, as about a choice to be made.

To consider (a matter) carefully and often slowly, as by weighing alternatives.

Leisurely and steady in movement or action; slow and even; unhurried: a deliberate step.