Happy New Year!!!

Thank you for being a part of my life this year!

Let’s meet here again in 2010!!

xoxoxox!!!

Sitting on the flip side of holiday hubbub, and deciding where I want to focus my attention in 2010, I’ve had a few minutes to reflect on what I’ve learned this year.

 I have loved my life this year. I’ve taken risks, tried new things, figured out which things work, and which don’t. It’s been scary and fun and enlightening.

 Five Things I Learned This Year

 1. Finding your way and figuring out your “purpose” is a process. I’ve learned this year that there is no final destination, no stopping point. I have to be persistent and choose every day to take the next step and to be a conscious creator of my life. I am responsible for my choices, and the consequences of those choices.  

 2.  I need quiet time to think, to do nothing or to be bored. Every day. I used to spend too much time filling every minute with tasks or stuff that really didn’t matter. But this year, I forced myself to stop, be quiet and sit. I allowed myself to just be. It is not always easy. Sometimes I can only sit still for no more than 15 minutes, other times I can make it for nearly 30 whole minutes. Much like exercise, I don’t like it much while I’m doing it, but I never regret having done it.

 3.  The best investments I can ever make are investments in Me. The return might not always be monetary. Who cares? I know for sure that wealth can be measured in many ways. And a wad of cash isn’t always the most important one to me. This year, I took two of Julie Prichard’s journaling classes and Carmen Torbus’s “Spill It!” class. I also signed up for “Unravelling” and “Bones of a Poet.” I attended one of Christine Kane’s retreats and purchased her “Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program.” I learned this year that I must invest in myself first. I am the most important, most powerful person in my life.  And I am worth every penny.

 4. My life flourishes when I am grateful for all the blessings in my life. When I’m focusing on what’s going right and what I love about my life, I don’t have space for negativity. I find no less than five things I’m grateful for every day. Some days it’s a piece of cake. Others, it’s not so easy. When I find myself in the thick of a funk, finding five things I’m grateful for seems impossible. But, I’ve figured out that acknowledging little things  –  such as a warm, soft bed at night or a steamy cup of tea  –  show me time and again how “wealthy”  I am.

 5. Getting rid of clutter on the outside helped me remove clutter from the inside. Christine Kane suggests that removing stuff from your physical environment can help you clear the clutter in your head. She’s right. It works. I’ve begun clearing out stuff I don’t love from my house and my closet. I’ve gone through boxes of stuff I’ve saved that I no longer want or need. It feels great. This practice is something will definitely carry over into next year.

 I’m looking forward to next year. I have so much more to learn about myself and how to consciously create my life — one day at a time.

 Happy New Year!!!

 xoxoxxo

In the movie “City Slickers,” Curly, asks Mitch :

Curly: “Do you know what the secret of life is?”
[He holds up one finger]

 ”This.”

Mitch: “Your finger?”

Curly: “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.”

Mitch: “That’s great, but, what is the one thing?” 

Curly: “That’s what you have to find out.”

 What’s your One Thing?

xoxo

The first thing this morning, I sneaked into the kitchen and made these pastries for my family.

I am not sure where I discovered the recipe, but what I do know for sure is that they are a melty-chocolately hit at my house.

The best part: they are easy to make. And when you pull them out of the hot oven, you instantly become a Rock Star!!

- Simply put a small scoop of Nutella in the large end of a Pillsbury Crescent roll.

- Roll the crescent roll, being extra careful to contain the Nutella from oozing out the sides.

- Pinch the open sides to completely close the dough around the Nutella.

- Sprinkle the tops with 100 percent cocoa.

- Follow package baking instructions.

Be prepared for an instant delight!

Tomorrow? Pancakes. Stacks and stacks of pancakes.

The Winter Soltice is the moment when the Earth is reborn. It moves closer to the sun – the center – and daylight continually and gradually increases.

 Ancient people knew that Winter Solstice (or Yule) meant that Spring is not far behind. 

Tonight, take a moment to honor the Soltice. Consider your gratitudes and accomplishments of 2009, and list the desires you wish to welcome into your life in the coming year. 

Later, if you feel like it, go inside your warm, cozy house and light a red candle. I love candles! The candle is a symbolic guiding light to draw your desires to you.

Make it fun.

I wish you a happy holiday and a joyous New Year!!!

Here are a few blog posts I truly love from around the blogophere:

The White Hot Truth

Expressive Heart

Christine Kane’s Blog

Carmen Torbus

Hey!! I’m so excited! I’m a guest blogger at Christine Kane’s blog today.

This is a first for me!

Every year, Christine encourages her readers to pick a word of the year. For 2009, my word was Abundance.

It has made all the difference for me.

I’m so excited to be featured on her blog today. It’s one more example f the abundance that fills my life. Love, wealth and joy and opportunities are everywhere!

Yay me!

I’ve been a  very bad blogger lately. I haven’t posted in days, I’ve not kept up with my favorite blogs, I haven’t commented on posts that I love.

My thoughts have been elsewhere.

As this year comes to a close, I can’t help but evaluate where I’ve been, where I’m going.

I’ve had a wonderful, joyful year. I accomplished most of my goals and I feel confident about all that I see coming my way in the future.

I have a lot more work to do, but this year proved that I can live how I want, doing what I love, telling my authentic truth. Realizing that I am the artist of my own life’s canvas has brought me more joy and abundance than I could have dreamed.

And this is just the beginning.

What does this have to do with being a bad blogger?

Well, I’ve decided that the word Clarity is my touchstone word for 2010. Next year, I want to be clear about where my energy and attention flow, to see where I’m blocked and to uncover my life’s intention. I’ve begun decluttering – inside and out. I’ve tried to do this before, but I realized that I focused so much on my environment that I overlooked the clutter on the inside.

To help me clear out some space in my head and in my life, I’ve slowed down and evaluated some of the activities that take up time and space. This blog is one of them. I love blogging. Expressing myself, being part of an online community, reading and relating to the ideas of other bloggers — these are the things I love. But, what I am not loving so much is my lack of focus here. In 2010, one of my intentions to become clear about this blog.

I’m still figuring it out. I guess that’s part of my decluttering.

Thanks for hanging in there with me as I make my way on my journey of self discovery.

Much joy and peace!!

xox

It used to be so easy for me to get stucked in the vortex of ”Have-to’s“, especially during the holiday season. No matter how stressed, unhappy or bitter the holidays made me feel, I embraced my role as the dutiful mother, wife, daughter, employee …. etc.

I always ended up bitter, broke and bitchy.

For many years, I lived by my list of “Holiday Have-to’s.” Here are a few of my favorites:

- I have to pretend I want to play Secret Santa with my co-workers.

- I have to untangle strands of lights and put up a Christams tree in my small house, even if I the thought of it fills me with dread.

- I have to bake cookies, buy gifts, send cards and listen to holiday music.

- I have to go to (insert family holiday gathering here), regardless of how I feel once I get there.

- I have to spend money I don’t really have to buy presents people don’t really need.

- I have to pretend I like hearing the sames songs over and over and over again.

- I have to pretend I believe and practice things that don’t actually feel right in my gut.

Wow – Reading over this list, you might think I was, well, bitter. You are right. I was bitter.

Holidays were never really joyous times for me. I had nice ones growing up, I guess, but none stand out in my mind as particularly memorable. Christmas always left me feeling sad, hopeless and alone. I could never figure out why everyone else was smitten with the Holiday Spirit, but I was empty.

I admit, when my kids were little, I did all the things you are supposed to do. I was raised celebrating Christmas, so that’s what I did with my children. I didn’t question it, didn’t ask myself if I truly believed all the stories that go with it, didn’t consider that there were alternatives. I did what I thought I had to do. I wanted to be a good mommy, and everyone knows that good mommies “play the Christmas game.”

It got to a point where I was annoyed by simply being around anything Christmas. I was a real pain in the ass.

All that changed about three years ago. In an act of pure defiance that felt delicious, I came clean: “I will not be celebrating Christmas this year.”

Simply saying the words was liberating. What a relief. And for the first time in memory, I had a stress-free, happy, joyous holiday.

I had an unChristmas.

It seems in order for me to have a Merry Christmas, I had to eliminate Christmas from my life.

Every year since that first unChristmas, I’ve faithfully, joyously and merrily not celebrated.

Why do I share my rebellion with you, now … here … in front of everyone? Because I want to share with you a little secret: It is Ok for you do to your own thing, regardless of what it may be. I discovered that I no longer have to follow the crowd and pretend to feel that warm, fuzzy Christmas Spirit if it really makes me feel bad.

And the best part – this freedom doesn’t only apply to Christmas: I am free to walk away from any cell that I believe imprisons me at any time.

What I’ve learned is that most of the things we think we have to do are simply habits we’ve learned or believed and have never questioned.

You might not need to go to the extreme that I did three years ago to learn this lesson. But I hope you will begin looking at what you think you have to do.

Start questioning your have-to’s. It’s liberating.

And now, without an ounce of bitterness, I merrily wish you happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Blessed Solstice . But for me, an unChristmas is best.

xoxo

Laurie of Aha Life Design Blog has a great idea. She is inviting bloggers to write a paragraph announcing things that they are grateful for just in time for Thanksgiving.

I Love this idea!! What a great opportunity to acknowledge the many wonderful things in my life.

This has been an amazing year for me:

~ I am grateful to share my life with my amazing husband, my son Jacob and my daughter Kelsi.

~ I am blessed with a warm, loving home and a life of comfort, love and joy.

~ I am thrilled I discovered online art e-courses!!

~ I am grateful for hot morning coffee, Internet connections, warm gloves with cute scarves and thick wool socks.

~ I am grateful for my health and the health of the people I love.

~ I am grateful for the First Amendment and the protections it provides.

~ I am grateful that my Life is beautiful, sweet and delicious!!

~ I am grateful that my list could go on and on …

Now, it’s your turn. I am inviting you to write a paragraph here  in the comments section about the things in your life that make you smile on the inside, then pass the gratitude thread along by posting your list on your own blogs. 

Dont’ be shy!

Laughter … every day … is the best. It’s contagious!!!