February 6 2020

My Word of the Year

It is something I begin thinking about when fall shows up for a good long stay, but sometime the  new year begins without me having chosen a word. In 2017 I chose a word of the year for the first time. That year, I chose the word FEARLESS to lead me through the year. That was a good word, the pressure was on to pick another good one. So in 2018 I chose the word CONFIDENCE to guide me. In 2019 I decided to not choose a word since nothing was presenting itself, and decided to have a depth year instead. So this year, I decided I needed a word to guide me again and began giving it serious thought. I considered the word SLEEP, or maybe even FINISH, but neither of those felt quite right.

My friend Theresa has a cool business making words into wall art called Wall to Wall Words. She gave us each the words Merry Christmas in white vinyl and the the word Believe in red vinyl as a gift. I wanted to place the red word Believe on the door to my upper cabinet at word where I had displayed my NaNoWriMo word count last November, but my theory is that as soon as I decide to stick it on there, the powers that be will decide I need to move to another desk and I wouldn’t be able to take the word with me. I am still toying with the idea of sticking it to something else that I could display and move more easily.

I had been thinking about what my word for 2020 would be when I got the gift from my friend and thought I wanted Believe to be my word but wanted more of a sign that this was the word for me. Then I found this on January 12th as we drove home from St. Louis. This was taken on one of the main streets in Casey, Illinois. No it isn’t a great photo. There was no way to take a great photo of it given the circumstances. The store was closed and I was losing the light. But it was a sign and I needed a photo of this “sign” of a sign in the store window to remind me that I need to learn to BELIEVE.

I have read the book One Perfect Word by Debbie Macomber a few times and she tells us that the word will often present itself to you. Ok, you don’t have to hit me upside the head with it. I believe. If you want to get your own copy of the book, and click on either the link or the picture of the book, these are affiliate links and I might earn a penny or two at no additional cost to you.

At the beginning of 2019, after I decided not to choose a word, I found out about My Intent bracelets. I liked the idea, but since I still wasn’t permanently employed at that point I didn’t want to spring for the bracelets. I wanted to get all three of my words of the year on the little washers and then make the three of them into something wearable, like a necklace maybe. I did make something but never completely finished it and never wore it. If I can find it I will take a picture of it for you. I knew better this year, so I did better. I ordered the bracelet which normally sells for $20, but used a discount code I got from Mel Robbins (MEL) to save 30%, so it only cost me $14. Well worth the investment if wearing it helps me to remember to BELIEVE in God, to BELIEVE in myself, and to BELIEVE that I can do anything, with God, if I make up my mind to do it. You can see it on my wrist in the photo below. I chose the one I could get with a purple cord, but that probably doesn’t really surprise you.

I have already decided that I believe in myself enough to commit to another three years of writing the blog you are reading this on. I hope you will join me by subscribing using the link at the top or the right and enter your email address so you can be notified when I post something new.

Have you ever chosen a word of the year? What word did you pick and how did it work out for you?

 

Category: Believe, Confidence, Depth Year, Fearless | Comments Off on My Word of the Year
May 16 2019

Practice (Five Minute Friday)

As I sit here writing this on my front porch, I practice feeding the little squirrel we have dubbed “Buddy”. He nervously comes to grab peanuts in the shell from my outstretched hand. Yes, this takes practice. I have to steady my nerves so my hand won’t shake while I wait for him to grab the peanut between his teeth. It takes practice trusting me to feed him and not harm him. It is a relationship that has built up slowly over time. It began with a sweet little squirrel we dubbed Suzy, but we haven’t seen her around for a few weeks. Buddy is definitely NOT Suzy. He doesn’t quite trust us as fully as Suzy did yet. Suzy would come running when Hubby or I walked out of the house and called, while the other squirrels would run away in fear. For a while we had both Buddy and Suzy visiting us on the porch at the same time.

The storm really whipped up quickly to the point that the rain was blowing in on my turquoise table as I sat writing. Because I didn’t want my computer getting wet, I had to take cover in the house instead, but not to worry I left a big hand full of peanuts on the porch for Buddy. We can practice again another day.

In case you are curious here are some videos of either my Hubby or I feeding our squirrels.

This is the first time I caught a video of me feeding Suzy. I’ve been touched by a squirrel!

Here is My Son feeding Buddy. My Son is the one that named him Buddy and Suzy was on the porch that day too. As you can see, it takes practice, patience and most of all trust on both the feeder and the squirrel’s part to make this work.

This is me feeding some of the backyard squirrels we call them the fake Suzys. They are way too skittish to be the real Suzy.

Here is Hubby feeding Buddy. He is getting a little more comfortable around us every day.

Many things in life take practice, and of those almost all take patience as well. What have you decided to practice lately? Care to share? If you want to share, please do so in the comments below.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Practice
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Category: Animals, Family, Fearless, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Practice (Five Minute Friday)
August 9 2018

Anniversary (Five Minute Friday)

The word for Friday, August 3rd was anniversary. I thought I knew what I wanted to write about it as soon as I saw the word because we just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary on July 26th. But then it occurred to me that not all anniversaries that are remembered are to celebrate happy occasions. We remember things that happened like the death of a loved one or the dissolution of a marriage as well. Sometimes it is the date we started a job or the year we graduated from high school or college. An anniversary is merely a means of marking, in years, the time that has passed since a monumental event.

This week, my husband and I celebrated the anniversary of the day we met. We met thirty-six years ago, August 7, 1982, at the graduation party for a mutual friend. We might never have met had it not been for the closing of the high school hubby had attended and this friend having to finish her course requirements at the high school I attended. We met in summer school where we were taking both Government and Economics for four hours each morning so we wouldn’t have to spend an entire semester in each of these classes. There simply were not enough class periods in the school day to take all the academic classes I wanted to take so I often chose to take those I dreaded the most in summer school to get them over with faster. Continue reading

Category: Confidence, Family, Fearless, Five Minute Friday | Comments Off on Anniversary (Five Minute Friday)
January 11 2018

My Year of Being FEARLESS

For the first time ever, I chose one word to guide me through the year. Never having done such a thing before, I wasn’t sure how it would work out. I am happy to report that it went very well. The word I chose to guide me through 2017 was FEARLESS.

In January, I chose to submit my first written contest entry. This was huge because I really hadn’t even been promoting my blog at that time and I rarely let anyone read my writing. I was fine with the idea of blogging because I know my posts weren’t being read by anyone and I saw no reason for that to change.

Enter February, where my idea of being fearless included not only blogging, but also committing to the purchase of a domain name and moving my Weebly blog that no one was reading to the WordPress platform. It was a huge commitment but I told myself a fearless person would do it in a heartbeat, so I did it. I also bought a blogging course so I could do it without embarrassing myself too badly.

As part of blogging and trying to do it well, I read that each blog post should have a graphic to go with it and grab the reader’s attention. I also read that it would be best to use graphics that you created or photos that you had taken. I take photos all the time, so no problem, right? So I heard a lot of bloggers were using PicMonkey to create graphics, or at the very least to add text to their photos. So I spent an entire Sunday playing around with it and taught myself the basics of using PicMonkey. I even used it to design myself some business cards and ordered them too while I was at it. If I was going to be fearless, I needed a business card, right? Continue reading

Category: Blogging, Bullet Journal, Fearless, Goals, Writing | 1 Comment on My Year of Being FEARLESS
January 5 2018

Motivate (Five Minute Friday)

This time of year seems to motivate everyone to think about their goals for the new year and what they would like to accomplish. I too struggled with what goals to choose and what word I would pick to motivate me throughout the year as the word FEARLESS did in 2017. I chose the word CONFIDENCE to be my 2018 word of the year. It was very hard to choose this year. You see, last year was the first time I had done this word of the year thing and though I went into it half-hearted last year I tried my best to think about being fearless whenever I found myself with a tough decision to make. I think I allowed the word FEARLESS to guide me very well last year and it only seemed fitting to follow my year of being FEARLESS up with a year of CONFIDENCE.

You may ask yourself why I need confidence, after all, I am writing and putting my work out here on the blog for the whole world to see. Continue reading

Category: Blogging, Confidence, Fearless, Five Minute Friday, Writing | 4 Comments on Motivate (Five Minute Friday)