To Blog

I have so much to say and I want to share it with the entire world, but am insecure about doing so. On one hand, I want to shout out to anyone who will listen, on the other hand, I want to be anonymous.
That made me wonder if it's even possible to build a following with a minimal online presence, plus, does it even matter? Is what I have to say worth anyone's time or energy to read it? Is it any good? Or is it just a bunch of ramble that only I'm interested in? I'll just have to be patient and see if it's in God's plan for me.

Unsettled

Today was just one of those uncomfortable, slightly stressful days that leave you feeling kind of yucky and glad its over. It was a typical winter day in Ohio: grey, bitterly cold, windy. Every little thing was irritating, and not just to me; everyone seemed to be out of sorts today. Maybe its some sort of pre-storm thing. Tomorrow we're suppose to get 3"-5" of snow. Everyone, egged on by the media, packs the grocery stores and cleans out the staples like we're going to be snowed in for the next 3 months. I try to stay away on crazy days like this, but of course, I ran out of coffee, so I had to go. Survived that.

Ken was on edge. It was his first day of radiation, which he did great with - no problems there, but 2 or 3 different people told him he would need a wheelchair, and that just set him off. Needless to say, we will not be bringing home a wheelchair. The physical therapists are hurting him and he's just so uncomfortable. I feel helpless.

My dad got bit by his dog and his hand got infected.

Then, I get home and Velvet just wants to bark out the window all the time. I just lost it. I put her straight to bed.

Needless to say, I didn't get much "reflecting" done today. Could not focus enough to even try.

Tomorrow is a new day and I'll try again. I'm wanting to pay better attention to what I do and the choices I make and how I feel. Maybe, after the storm passes the sun will shine through and make everything bright and beautiful.

New Years Theme

I spent a lot of today thinking how to incorporate my New Year's theme into my day to day life. Too many "things" kept swirling around in my mind and became very overwhelming. The problem with New Years and the feeling or need to completely change yourself, your life, your habits is its too much at once. Its taken me 47 years to become the person I am today and if I want to change that, it certainly isn't going to happen the first week of 2011. What popped into my head and has been swimming around in there all day long is part of a wonderful song from the "Sound of Music":

"Let's start at the very beginning
A very good place to start
When you read you begin with
ABC
When you sing you begin with do re mi"

It occurred to me, that's the answer. Start at the beginning. So that's what I'm going to try to do.

New Years

New Years is often a time of reflection of one's past and current life and the hope and excitement for a chance at a better life. Its a rebirth that occurs every year; a new start, new beginning, a chance to "do over" those things which haven't worked out very well in the past.

Every year at this time, I join millions of others and make my New Year's Resolutions; often repeating the same resolutions as the year and years before, knowing full well that I will have given up on every single one of them within one or two weeks and laugh it off as a silly little game that I play and that it has no real meaning and there are no real consequences to blowing it off. Things are what they are and I'm not going to change just because the calendar says its time for me to.

Each year I read the horoscope for the coming year to see what the stars think will be my future for the coming year. It always sounds great. It makes me smile to think, even for a brief moment, that I could have a year like that. This year's said for me to do what I've been putting off and it will make the second half of 2011 very rewarding, both emotionally and financially. That one is tempting to follow up on.

Another new year's "thing" that I do is to make sure I have money in the bank and food in the pantry, because one time I read that was a tradition to insure that you would be able to provide for your family throughout the coming year.

This year is different, though. I've been very deep in thought and very melancholy. At the beginning of the week, I started my mental list of the usual resolutions: lose weight, exercise, get organized, be neater, makes lots of money, be more spontaneous and outgoing, learn something new, maybe even a new vocation, pamper myself, enjoy each day like its my last, etc., etc... Then I realized that none of that was going to happen and none of it is even remotely important. It occurred to me that I'm scared of the coming year. I don't want it to be 2011. I want to cling to 2010 where its safe.

You see, my husband of 25 years has stage 4 colon cancer. There's a very good chance that he will not survive 2011 and that just looms over me like a dark cloud. So I bounce around like a pinball between doing what I do every year (with the thought that tradition and consistency will comfort me, as well as being caught up in New Year's projects to keep me busy) to shrugging my shoulders at the whole thing, like 'what's the point?'

I was hoping in typing all of this out that I would come to a happy breakthrough, but I don't think that's going to happen today. Over the coming days, weeks, maybe even months I'll be working through my mental state and my life, but for now, my New Year's Resolutions will be put on the back burner. I did however come up with a New Year's theme as talked about in several blogs:

http://petsjubileebox.blogspot.com/2010/12/happy-new-year-resolutions.html which led me to this site:
http://makegreatstuff.com/whats-your-theme/ which led me to this site:
http://thirdhandworks.com/classes/guest-guide-series/laura-burkey/

So, after much thought and soul searching, my "theme" for 2011 is

Faith, Hope & Love
I Corinthians 13:13

and my tagline is:

Prayer
Matthew 21:22

Lastly, I want to leave you with this. It brings me comfort :)

2011 - May it be filled with miracles!