New Year's Day ... and other thoughts ...

    For many years I've had several New Year's Eve "rituals." I would do all of the cleaning, purging, and organizing of things that signified the end of the year.  Freshly laundered sheets on the bed and those types of things.  There was a Southern wives' tale that whatever you did on New Year's Day you would be doing all year, so I wanted to get all of my Domestic Goddess chores done on the 31st so I could spend the 1st doing things I enjoyed.  Arts & crafts.  Writing.  Being in nature.

    Unfortunately, none of that happened yesterday because I was violently ill all day.  So I'm being especially intentional with my words and actions today.

    Another of my NYE rituals was burning the little slips of paper in my "God box."  The people, places, things, events, emotions, etc., that I had turned over to a Higher Power to get it off my heart and shoulders, or out of my head.  I also started a routine of taking a shower just a few minutes before midnight to "wash away" the ending year, and step into the new year clean and ready for the coming good.

    I did manage to do both things last night, although my shower was about two hours before midnight here.  (it was midnight somewhere, that's my story and I'm sticking to it)   My slips of paper also evolved over the past two months to being intentional words of forgiveness, letting go and release.  Forgiving myself, or others who had harmed me in my past.  Letting go of my negative feelings about what happened (guilt, shame, humiliation, anger, pain, resentment).  Releasing myself to be joyful, or releasing the others to be who they always were and not who I thought they were or wanted them to become.  It was immensely healing, especially the cathartic process of watching the pieces of paper burn last night.

    In early December, I got a beautiful deck of journaling prompts from Tamed Wild [<link], and have decided that I will incorporate them into my blog here on random days.  Today's for example was a simple and easy one: I am happy today because... I have stopped throwing up!  Dry heaving water is not fun at all.   

My friendships with both
ended at the same
time. Jay moved and
Rick showed an
ugly jealous side.

    Not exactly profound, but honest.  I journaled some of them in December, but not the full deck, and the ones that I felt were the most amazing, were writing a story about my future, and the letters to my younger and future selves.

    I also ordered a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron [<link there], on the recommendation of a beautiful woman I recently started following on Instagram, Gina Luker, who is restoring a 200-year-old home in Alabama.  However, honestly, the book had been in my shopping cart for at least two years.  I just kept pushing it down in exchange for craft supplies, or most recently, Diwali ornaments and stocking stuffers.  I cannot wait to see what happens in her new home and to catch up on the restoration of the first home that started it ... The Shabby Creek Cottage.

    My friend, Erica, sent me a page from one of her past journals this morning, and with her permission, I am sharing it here.

*in this time between snowflakes and sunshowers...* i heard a voice in the silence whisper:  learn everything you can.  there won't be many moments like this so be still and watch the world spiral around you.  ask questions.  be curious about yourself, the world, the connections that you seek, the future you would like to create... and start now, for this is reality. this is the time to give yourself all the love you have been seeking.  a time to face and embrace the shadows, to love yourself completely for all that has passed and all that has yet to come exists in this moment.  meet yourself there... 

My January tree

    I love that this life of mine is evolving with every turn of the wheel and that there are creatives in it.  Erica.  Jane and her Wren's Nest Art Studio at Thornbush [<link].  Gina. 

    This is the year of my forever home.

    And full transparency:  my links are just links, not affiliate links.