Monday 4 January 2016

Happy New Year!

I have not blogged in way too long. I miss it. To start the year off, I am going to post a couple journal entries from a 30 day journal swap that I just sent out. I hope you enjoy!

Happy new year! Make 2016 the best year ever!

26/30 -free entry 
9/10 people fail at their new year's resolutions. I just read an article on this this morning. I hope it's ok that I just relay the article and my thoughts on it. The author of the article suggested that instead of making a list that we are bound to fail at and feel worse about ourselves because of (Because seriously, I am not *Actually* going to get a gym membership but it sounds nice J ) that we all pick a word. Just one word, one thing that we want to work on and whenever we need motivation, just remember that word and our goals for the year. I think it is kind of what I am working on with being the person I want to be. Every choice I make, every thing I buy I think ‘Is this the person I want to be.’ (I failed at this on new years. I felt pressured into ‘needing’ to go to a party and I ended up not feeling very good about my choice. I went to a dinner at a friends house and then went to a barn party. So I ended up feeling bad that I had left the friends dinner before early, and left Sean at the friends house to go to a barn party that was freezing cold and full of kids too young to be drinking. I should have just stayed at the dinner party and kissed my boyfriend at midnight and then went home to watch a movie with him. That’s the person I want to be) some of the words that the guy who wrote the article suggested were. SURRENDER. SERVE. PRAY. RISE. 
I like the idea of creating a ‘theme’ for the year. So many goals can fall under and into that 1 word. I think I am going to need more time to come up with my word but some of my ideas are intentional and focus. He actually mentioned these words in the article as well but I just think they fit so well. Especially intentional. I am going to be intentional about the kind of person I want to be. Intentional about maintaining the relationships I want to maintain, intentional about going to church, intentional about choosing to value school over work (so that one day I can have the job I want!) Intentional about being eco conscious when making choices regarding food/gifts etc. Intentional in creating homemade gifts for people rather than just choosing something at a store. I actually think I want to improve my etsy shop as part of my ‘intentional’ year. I was so appalled at the amount of gift wrap we used for Christmas-most of which is not recyclable. I bought a bunch of Christmas fabric when it went on sale on Boxing Day and I want to start sewing reusable gift bags for next year with the hope that instead of 4 bags of GARBAGE just from the paper, we have no garbage and just a neat stack of pretty and reusable fabric gift bags. I think I am going to try sell these bags and the dream of a no garbage Christmas in my etsy shop. Maybe craft fairs too. If I can reach even 1 family and convince them to buy into my dream of a garbage free Christmas, so much paper would not be wasted and put in our landfill. I read a statistic that 20% of Canadian dumps are made up of garbage relating to Christmas.  I think I just found my word. Intentional.

 Here is an excerpt from the article by Drago Adams in case you need inspiration in finding a word for 2016! To help you get started ask a few questions. What do you want to focus on this year? Or what’s in the way? What do you need more or less of? What needs to change?