Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 140

Today's Daily 5:

1. 1 year, 140 days of making these lists
2. Breakfast in bed (even if I did have to get out of bed to make it for myself)
3. A text message announcing that very dear friends of mine welcomed a daughter to their family in the early hours of this morning (and later in the day, the bonus of being friends with the proud new auntie of the baby as well, meaning I got to see a picture of the new little beauty)
4. smiling at the way a t-shirt that has had some painful memories attached to it in the past just made me grin when I wore it today, because it reflects a part of myself that I love
5. A grande caramel apple spice and an apple fritter at starbucks today
6. spending the afternoon hanging with a friend, doing a bit of clean-up at her place and chatting (really random tasks like having to clean up the Christmas tree because it had toppled over in the 24 hours since she'd last been home can make for some of the best times, laughing over the task that needs to be done, and chatting while accomplishing it)
7. watching church online tonight while I did some reading and surfing
8. one last night of retreat at mom and dad's before returning to my crazy living situation tomorrow night
9. leftover Chinese takeout for supper
10. reading a few new blogs as I surfed around some of the one word posts tonight

Laughing at Myself

I'm chuckling this morning.

I wrote yesterday that after vascillating for a couple of days, I'd chosen the word "Heal" to be my "one word" for 2011.

I was going through a few old blog posts this morning and realized that the very first Reverb 10 post that I wrote asked me to pick a word to describe 2010 (I chose deconstruction or duckless), and then to choose the word I'd like to define 2011.  I'd totally forgotten that I'd written that post.

The word I picked at the beginning of December?  Healing.

Which made me laugh this morning in a "oh God, you're funny in getting your theme across" kind of way.

Because the word that was on my heart at the beginning of the month, is the word that I almost didn't choose.  I'd pondered it as a word, but then picked something totally different. As I was sitting with my journal yesterday and writing out a list of hopes and goals and dreams for the coming year, shaped by my one word, I felt very strongly a conviction that the new word was one that would have to wait.  That I needed to go with my original gut instinct and choose "heal". 

And then I discovered this morning that that was the word I'd chosen earlier, too.  And I smiled at the funny little confirmation of timing and choice.  The whisper that speaks to my heart that this is a theme that God has for me for the year to come.

Most Read Posts December 2010

It would seem December was almost exclusively about the Reverb 10 posts here on my blog.  At the very least, those were the posts that attracted the most attention.

Here's a recap of the 10 most read posts of December 2010:

1. Reverb 10: Day 3 - Most Alive.  In this one I recounted the moment in which I felt most alive.  I talked about the translation of an online friendship to real life.  This post had nearly triple the number of reads of anything else on my blog in December.

2.  Reverb 10: Day 11 - 11 Things I Can Live Without.  This is perhaps one of my favorite of the reverb10 prompts that I answered over the course of the month.  As I sat down to formulate some of my goals for 2011, I looked back at what I'd written.  This post was also one of the hardest to write.  When I started writing, I was very convinced I'd never make it to 11 items.  But somehow, as I sat and stared at the screen and pondered, I came up with a list that really does reflect me, and makes me smile.




3.  Reverb 10: Day 12 - Body Integration?  I don't feel like I live separately body and mind/spirit.  Most of the time I think I'm pretty integrated.  I'm not sure if this is a novel concept, or if the keywords just caught people's attention to make this the third most read post of the month!

4.  Reverb 10: Day 5 - Let Go.  A year of deconstruction, and how I suck at being all zen.

5.  Reverb 10: Day 8 - Beautifully Different.  The one in which I felt like my answer was a cop out, but I really didn't have an answer either.

6.  Bus Reading.  Definitely one of my favorite posts from the last while.  Partly because bus reading is one of my favorite ways to rest and pray and think and be restored.  And partly because it seems like such a random idea - to ride a bus in a circuit, with no destination, but simply the goal to read and pray.  And a random idea like that definitely needs a guide -  a guide which I had great fun writing.

7.  Reverb 10: Day 26 - Soul Food.  Some of my favorite meals of 2010.  And how could a post that talks about Mizithra from Old Spaghetti Factory go wrong?

8.  Reverb 10: Day 24 - Everything's OK.  One of the shortest posts I wrote for reverb10.  Everything may not be okay, but I will be.

9.  Reverb 10: Day 19 - Healing.  A post centered around one of my favorite topics, healing.  For me, healing came in very unexpected places and forms in 2010, and I'm curious to see how that carries forward into 2011.

10.  Reverb 10: Day 23 - A New Name.  Not choosing a new name, but the realization that I've finally made peace with the name that I have.

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 139

Today's Daily 5:

1. sleeping in after staying up late to greet the new year
2. reading, writing, thinking, praying and reflecting on the new year ahead
3. wearing my cozy scarf purchased in the LA garment district
4. Chinese take out
5. the funny scene of watching immigrants from two very different cultures (an employer and employee) try to communicate using their common language (English, which neither spoke well).  I shouldn't laugh, but it was one of those cross cultural moments that really was quite humorous to witness (even with sympathy for the language barrier.)
6. choosing one word for 2011
7. snarking, plotting, and laughing by email
8. baby corn.  little know fact - I LOVE those tiny little baby corns.  I've been know to eat a whole can of them as a snack.
9. magic bags (kept me cozy warm in the basement while I wrote and thought and prayed all afternoon)
10. meat.  just meat.  I know, I know, it's better for the environment if I eat less of the stuff.  But I really like it.  and I don't eat it every meal or anything.  but sometimes it's just so satisfying.
11. green grapes
12. fortune cookies (where can I buy these?  I would like to eat them way more often.)
13. a bubble bath
14. finishing a novel (Hooray for already having a book on my reading completed list for 2011!  Who cares if I read most of it in 2010?  It was a novel about a little boy in Afghanistan and quite good.)
15. printing things out and getting ready for the one word scrapbooking class.

A Healing Story: 2011 Goals/Hopes/Dreams

I just wrote a post declaring that my "one word" for 2011 is going to be Heal.  And that my overarching word theme for my life is "story," as in "write a better story". 

For the last few days, as I've been reading blog posts and articles about new year's resolutions and healing, and happiness and mental health, and minimalism, and simplicity, and all the other topics that inspire or capture me, I've been jotting notes on a slip of paper, tucked in the back of the notebook in which I've recently been making the daily "to do" list items that don't quite make the list of "to do's" that I keep in my phone.

This morning I spent about an hour, curled up under a pile of blankets, translating that slip of paper into a mulit-colored journal entry, creating a list of goals and dreams for 2011.

I wasn't going to do it by hand this year, but I'm glad I changed my mind.  There's something therapeutic about writing by hand, planning and dreaming for the year to come.

When I finished, the page of goals and dreams looked like this:

 

(I did mention that I like to use multiple colors of ink, right?)

These are the items that list contained:

• Yoga.  Do 10 minute yoga at home at least twice a week.  Use up the 40 yoga class passes for a local yoga studio that I purchased when they were the deal of the day on Living Social.
• Scarf wearing.  Totally a random thing, but I want to wear a scarf at least once or twice a week, just because I love how they look, and how I feel in them.
• Curly hair.  Ditto to the scarf wearing.  Wearing my hair curly also means I spend a bit more time caring for my appearance.
• One Word.  Do the project for the class each month.  Basically a way to inspire creativity and focus on my theme word of "heal" for the year.
• Vitamins.  Keep up with a regular routine of taking them.  The same for the natural health treatments, using my SAD lamp, and a couple of other natural health steps I've been taking.
• Scripture Reading.  This only works for me if there is some kind of discipline involved.  I'm crappy at just picking up the bible and reading consistently.  So, the goal is to read through the Bible in a year.  Choose a plan, and stick to it.  Read ahead, catch up, whatever, but read through the whole Bible in the 1 year time frame. 
• Cook.  Same idea as last year, and another way to stir creativity and to find joy in doing something I love.  Try 12 new recipes total.  Half of last year's goal, but more feasible given my lack of a kitchen of my own.
• Write real cards and letters.  A fun way to build friendships, express gratitude and love, and just generally appreciate people.  At least 2 per month, and keep a list of who they've gone to.  (Bonus points for taking the time to make the cards by hand.)
• Budget.  2010 saw the end of all debt except my student loans (which will likely be increasing instead of decreasing for a while now, given that I'm planning to go back to school).  Let's keep it that way.
• Read.  At least two books a month.  Or listen to unabridged audio versions.  Whatever.  Just take in new information and challenge my brain along with stimulating my love affair with words.
• TOMS.  Buy a pair.  Probably these.  Because friends swear they're comfy, and because I love shoes and think the concept of donating a pair for every pair sold is very cool.
• Kiva loan.  Loan at least $50 to kiva projects over the course of the year.
• Write.  On paper.  In a journal.  At least once a week.  For something different.  I think it takes different brain cells to write on paper instead of online.  And I find it therapeutic, but don't do it nearly often enough.
• Blog.  Keep up the daily 5.  Aim for about one other post other than the daily 5 a day, at least on weekdays.  Keep working on the Grey's Monologue's blog project I started as a hobby.  Finish transcribing the monologues from the past season's of Grey's.
• Risk.  Try new things and give old things a second chance.  It's okay if you hate it.  It's okay if nothing has changed since you tried it in the first place, but be willing to give it a shot.  (As an aside, I lived this one out on Christmas day when I tried eating crab in two different forms.  I still hate it.  It did nothing to change my position that if it lived in water when it was alive, it should most definitely never cross my lips.  But, I did try it.)
• Get my US passport.  Because then I can say I legally have two passports, and that's fun, right?
• Travel.  Someplace requiring an airline ticket. (And preferably the crossing of an international border, even if it is just the border to the US.)

There are other things that I'll continue with in 2011.  Other things that have shaped and will shape my life.  But these are the sort of fun, shape my ability to live joyfully, and shape who I am as a person goals.  And these days, those are the sorts of goals that I most want to set and live out.  Because they are the ones that shape the story I tell with my life, and shape things like whether or not 2011 is a year where the word that defines it is "heal".