I have no idea where this came from, what source. But I do love the message, thought you might too.

We are day 2 into the New Year, and before we go any further, I have a question for you. If you could bring back a skill from the past and make it cool again, what would it be, and why? Personally, I like the idea of hand written correspondence. Every year I have a burning desire to (re)learn calligraphy, to send an exquisitely written letter to a special recipient, and to love the romantic symbology of putting pen(apparatus) to luxurious paper, spritzing a signature scent on the paper, not sending to a suitor but to another soul that yearns to give and receive hand written, crafted notes that contain a bit of our soul. Yes, I am a romantic, but I am also practical as all get out, and so it remains a longing desire. Perhaps this is the year I take calligraphy back up? Maybe I should improvise until then…

Drop me a line, tell me your “antiquated” skill you want to bring back, I would love to know!

I failed to mention my word of the year yesterday, but as life often shows us, our focus needs to be shifted elsewhere momentarily for something more pressing. Relaying our year of 2022 felt more important to the last day of the year, a finality if you will, and starting with this year’s word felt more fitting for today, a new beginning. While I am a firm believer in each 24 hours being a reset and opportunity for us, I do love starting a new year, as a measurement of time and definition. So what is the word of the year?

SELF-DISCIPLINE

Sounds harsh, firmly expectant, or rigid? Nah, it isn’t, it is exactly what I want it to be. I have done so much work and growth the last few years in so many ways, but the one thing I realized in 2022, is that I want to utilize self-discipline to aid my efforts, in specific ways, in 2023. I had several health set backs this past year, and while I accept those occurred, it also made me desire to be in a place I was before, dedicated to my health.

Getting out of sync with good habits is a sucky, sucky thing. Sometimes it cannot be avoided, but it can be a way to get you to redirect your dedication. I need self-discipline to discover new ways in which I can branch out to help myself, for myself, my health. Why, or how, does this require self discipline?

Self-discipline will force me to make a plan, take action, and to execute on those things. Instead of worrying about a set back, I need to forge ahead with a curiosity of what else I can add to my repertoire of fitness. I went through this before I found yoga, but with lingering vertigo, I need something else on dizzying days that keeps me moving, but steadily so, without head elevation changes…To the gym I will be going.

https://www.facebook.com/bodyzone.totalfitness?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Self-discipline also will be imperative to managing the time in my days with a better productivity rate. Now, for many of you, this may make no sense, and that’s okay, I will explain it. When I stopped doing massage therapy, I seriously could not function. I would sit and stare at a wall all day, basically. I wasn’t depressed, I was exhausted by so much, overwhelmed, rundown, burned out, DONE. It took me the whole first month of doing nothing to be able to do anything. The second month I was angry at so much, moving a bit more but still not a lot. The third month I was at a loss and overwhelmed by what the hell I was doing with/in my life, and the fourth month I was slowly and steadily coming back to life. I seriously worried I would never be back up to speed ever again, that I would dabble in life, or be so low functioning that I was already decrepit before I was elderly, but thankfully that has proven to not be the case.

I have amazed myself with my return to function, and this provides the opportunity to impart some self-discipline in the form of time management, better productivity, and yes, better health/wellness/fitness focus. I made strides from August-December last year, and that has given me a big boost to plan more, expect more and to have more self-discipline to be able to do more and help myself more in 2023. I feel that I am not conveying the emotion and happiness I have around all of this, but I guess the importance is I understand it, and I know what it means to me and my life.

The flip side of all of this is that I used to be overly self disciplined, to the point of my detriment and downfall. I know that now I really do need to put more into my own life, for myself and my longevity. And I feel like for the first time ever, I have no hard lined expectations of what my body should look like, who will approve of me, or if someone will find fault with me because of how I look. This isn’t to say I cared before, but I think I didn’t care as an act of rebellion against those very expectations from others.

This year is truly about movement, function, health, productivity, time management, adding more as I can, not as strictly expected, and seeing what the results are from it. I just need some self-discipline to start the days right, keep focus, and keep myself as my priority, while breathing, having balance, and rest too. It isn’t as bad as it sounds, self-discipline, but it is time to have more in a focused way.

To quote Prince, “I was dreamin’ when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray”.

Drop me a line, let me know if you have a word for this year. Is it complex or simple in understanding and execution? I love to support people in their endeavors, and to see how the words came to fruition in ways expected or unexpected. I am sure we can do a midway check in this year too, to see how things are going with our words. That sounds like a good time to me, how about you?

I see so many people talking about what a hard, stressful, or painful year 2022 was for them, how they are glad to see it go, that they are ready for 2023. To all of those people, I hope 2023 is a good year for clarity, relief, peace, growth and prosperous times for you. While I am ready for the good things that 2023 has in store for me, I am so very grateful for what 2022 provided, challenged and promoted within me too.

When you think about a year ago, today, you think that is wasn’t that long ago, but then you consider what was happening in your life at that time. I was a massage therapist, hoping to one day go fully in to photography. Bill was working as a Snap On Business Manager looking to move forward. Avery was in California on a personal trip that segued in to her school trip, that was ushering her in to an entrepreneurship pathway. And Brooke was a junior in high school, working at Whit’s, about to take her first college class at the same time. And we were gearing up for Snap On’s annual KickOff the following weekend.

In March I quit massage therapy completely, walking away from a 24 year career that I once thought I would retire from. This resulted in me not working for 4 months to heal, recoup and recover from a lot of life trauma, which I was in desperate need of. I also realized what drove my desire to help people, and I addressed that this year too. I honestly at one point wondered if I would ever be able to work again, let alone function properly, and this all worked hand in hand to show me that we often need to cut things off or out completely in order to go forward.

Bill was offered the position of Regional Diagnostics Manager with Snap On in late March, and began the job in April. While he loves challenges, this coincides with some deep life things for him, too. Surprisingly, I think it was the exact thing he needed to move forward, toward better things for himself as well. This isn’t to say sunshine and roses, but more so finding his inner self, his strengths, and also his flaws and weaknesses for his betterment.

Avery’s trip resulted in her seeing things from people close to her, that was becoming a constant theme in her life, one she didn’t want, and so she made a decision to shift gears and forge a slightly different path for herself. While this new path caused issues for her in the beginning, Avery knew that she had to stick to her guns, stick to this different path and keep rolling ahead. This opened the door for her to confront some things in life, to release what didn’t serve and only inhibited her, it was a tough path to undertake, but Avery is a determined, brilliant person, and she handled it all with maturity, care and compassion. She rose above, and this has only served her well so far, and I have no doubt will continue to serve her well short term and long term in life.

Brooke did very well in her college class, she received a lot of support and encouragement in the form of professors and teachers at school, which she has come to rely on, learn from, and to grow from. She has slowly been holding close those that truly want the best for her in life, and has slowly been letting go of those that only seem to be her friends to her face, but not behind her back. It is a hard thing watching your kids learn this, that not everyone wants the best for you, but those that do should be held closer to your heart. Brooke has come a long way this past year in maturity and realization of self. I am very proud of her in her young wisdom and self awareness, and I thank God regularly for the sage folks in her life that fill in the places they serve in her life.

All in all, our household is heading to somewhere great, individually, personally, as a family and in the respective ways we are associated with others. We turned a corner in 2022. We had many candid conversations, some of which included many confessions, many tears, many apologies, much love, lots of anger, and a shit ton of clarity and growth. This has definitely cleared an immense amount of space for us all for the good things to enter our lives, for us to grow-as ourselves and together. This makes me so happy, I feel completely right with it all, how we fit in this world, and where we are all heading next. 2023 holds so much opportunity for all of us!

Tomorrow is a new day, a new year, a new place to begin. What are you reflecting upon today, and looking toward for your tomorrows? Drop me a line, I would love to know one thing you want to see come to fruition next year.

I have been thinking about what I want in life, and tomorrow, I will be writing a list for focus in 2023. I have always thought that I wrote “my wildest dreams” on my want list, and I recently realized that I have played small and safe…and to other people’s level of acceptance. Because I have shed some people and their expectations this year, I am really starting see just how big and how defined, I really can dream.

I want to see how far I can go, what I can do for myself, and how big my world can get, while being grounded and centered in myself. I have been on a hell of a journey for such a long time, and it has all lead me to this moment of actually choosing myself, dreaming big of the life I want, making things happen by showing up and being consistent for myself. It’s time, 2023 is the year for this, for me.

How about you, do you have some dreams, goals, intentions to be writing down for the yea of 2023, and maybe beyond? Drop me a line, I would love to know! Tomorrow I will tell you my word for the new year.

It’s been fun showing you our Christmas in black and white photos, today we’ll finish up by showing you the rest of our morning/early afternoon. Let’s set the scene, shall we?

Yes, I did hang ornaments from the light fixture. Bill often works at the table and I wanted to make sure he had every opportunity to get glitter all over himself, on his things, and to wear it around as often as possible. You know, just to remind him of the joy and shine of the season. He loves glitter, and at no point did he ask if we could stop getting objects with glitter. Not that I can easily recollect anyhow.

Yes, this is butterbeer!! One of my gifts from Bill, it takes us back to the memory of sitting at Two Beater’s Pub at Wizardfest this past November. It is pretty tasty, and I may have added some Captain Morgan to it, which is super tasty. Does this seem indicative of what game we played?

We played a card game called Yaniv. It is a Nepalese game that is popular in Israel. Avery learned this game when she stayed with her friend that went to Miami, but lives in California, and her parents were from Israel. This is an easy game to learn, fun to play, and we always play when Avery is home, Brooke even played on vacation with us, after we begged her to.

If you ever play cards with these two, Bill and Avery, be forewarned. They are card sharks, and I am not convinced they don’t cheat. They both swear they don’t but their rapidly firing brains are probably counting cards…although Avery declared no card cheating before we started. I think this just confirms my thoughts!

While we were playing cards, Brooke finally got to rest. How she can contort and squeeze her long limbs in to such a tiny little roll is beyond me. I am just glad she got some quiet rest time, and so cozy! Lol.

Thank you for joining us on our Christmas morning! We had such a wonderful morning and time, it was a great day of good food, great company, lots of laughs and many memories made. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too, and that you have very happy New Year’s Eve!

Welcome back! Yesterday, we quenched our Christmas thirst with a tasty mimosa. Today, we open some gifts, share some laughs, maybe a scowl or two, and the dogs make an appearance. Let’s see some of what was found under the tree this year!

Every year, Brooke gets Bill a mug with a cheeky message. This makes me laugh and delights me, as this is a family tradition of sorts. My dad always got his grandma cheeky gifts, and unsurprisingly, Brooke is following in Pappaw’s foot steps. I blurred the message out, but if you want to know, just ask Bill the next time you see him! Oh, and look at his face, he found to be pretty funny!

You have been a good guest so far, tomorrow let’s let our hair down and play a game. What do you think it will be? Tune in tomorrow to find out and to wrap up our Christmas, 2022.

Yesterday, you saw the beginning of our morning, the sleepy happiness, the togetherness, the coffee, the dogs! We started our morning relaxed and happy, cozy by the fire, awaiting our breakfast casserole to finish baking, and while waiting, we shared a beverage. Normally, I like my mimosa with apple juice instead of orange juice, but the orange juice was a good pairing for the casserole ingredients, I already had it on hand, so it was a win all around! Let’s watch while Bill serves up this tasty drink!

Here we go! Now, keep in mind, everyone likes their mimosa proportions different than the next person, so Bill will be doing a custom pour for each of us.

See, no two are the same. Brooke is not having a mimosa, pour on Bill! Here, he is working on Avery’s drink, a lower champagne to oj ratio. Can you figure out whose glass is on the left, above??

I like pouring the champagne in the glasses first, and then letting the oj pour do the blending. Yes these are white wine glasses, but we are not formal here, so just enjoy the incorporation captured!

Obviously this is Bill’s, as was the left glass above. When Avery and I have wine, I ask, do you want a normal pour, or a mom pour? She is sophisticated and says normal, I remind her we are at home, might as well save a trip to the fridge and do a double. Bill says go big or go home!

The whole purpose of capturing our drinks, is to remind us of the sharing of drink, sharing of conversation, and sharing of good memories. While mom and dad are capturing drink service, this gives Avery and Brooke time to hang together, having their own conversations, sharing their own laughs too. Our bonds, our memories, our shared special times together are what will carry us forward as a family. Meeting each other where we are, in our own places of adulthood, age, and personal growth is what matters most. Mutual respect seems to be something we all crave from each other, and work diligently to deliver on. Avery and Brooke are our kids, yes, but also they are their own individuals, their own person, adults. Love grows and prospers where it is watered, where it is honored and where it is respected. I guess fancy, real champagne can make you feel elevated after all.

Tune in tomorrow for a peek into the gift portion of our Christmas Day!

This year, I decided to document our Christmas morning with photos, in black and white. We had decided the night before that we would have a very relaxed Christmas morning. We, or 3 of us, slept until 7:15, 2 had coffee, one had a camera. Two of the dogs were not too keen on the camera, one couldn’t get enough. Bill and I made up a tasty breakfast casserole, which I did not take photos of, but we did eat before opening gifts. Here are the photos of coffee time, waiting for Brooke’s arrival downstairs, and before we ate our morning casserole. I hope you get some good laughs, I know we did!

Tune in tomorrow for part 2, and some mimosas!

I am signing off for a couple of days to bask in the Christmas season. I am wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Joyful Tidings to you all!