A bit of January

So far, it's been a good January. The sun has come out, I've gotten to spend some quality time with my parents in Spokane, and for the most part, I've found myself in a fairly good mood - perhaps better than most Januaries. I've stopped being complacent about the things that matter to me, and I'm taking time to do things I don't normally do.

On the eve of the new year I read a friend’s blog post that mentioned something she and her husband did this past year in which they focused on one thing for a week at a time to help them develop healthy lifestyle habits. Inspired to try it for myself, I came up with 29 different challenges I thought were doable for a week (hoping to come up with more!), and I wrote them on slips of paper that I can draw on an assigned date. For now I’m selecting one each or every other Friday to begin on Sunday.

I’ve now completed three. Week one was drinking tea instead of coffee. Week two was learning a new word each day. This past week I gave something away each day. I’m learning interesting things about myself, such as the fact that I actually don’t really like coffee as much as I thought I did. As for learning new words, I’m looking forward to a moment when I can use “willowwacks” without skipping a beat. And I happily gave away photos (to people who'd appreciate them), books, half a bundt cake and jars of cherry preserves, and collected an assortment of things I will drop off at Goodwill ASAP.

This week I’m sending snail mail. It seemed like a nice way to keep up the momentum of sharing love and encouragement especially after the reality of the presidency hit on Friday.

As for the other visionary resolutions of 2017, I appreciated Susannah Conway’s Find Your Word guide this year to help me develop a motivating phrase to push me through this year’s challenges. I'm holding it close to my heart for now, though I hope sometime I will be ready to share more about it. And the other resolutions are goals for travel, my job, health, and a good smattering of goals for stretching myself, some of which are encouraged through those weekly challenges.

When horrible, difficult, or tragic things happen, I've often returned to that quote from Fred Rodgers that encourages us to look for the people who are helping. This weekend, I looked for the people who were marching and found they were literally everywhere. May I never forget what that feels like to be part of something so strikingly inspiring.