Pushing That Reset Button

Hello everyone! So, here we are in a new year...Happy New Year everyone! I hope that everyone had a safe and happy start to 2011. I know that it’s already January 3rd and I’m a little late, but hey, can’t be helped…lol ;-) I was a good blogger and posted a greeting to go up at the stroke of midnight here, so I got it in under the wire :-)

For me, today seems more like the “start” of the new year because it’s a Monday and I was so laid back with the new year coming on a Saturday. I guess that today feels more like “back to business day”, so it’s feeling more official to me in some ways. Don’t get me wrong…I love a weekend holiday, but today for me feels like a reset button has truly been pushed :-) And I imagine it must feel like that for some of you out there too!

I must admit, I’ve been struggling a bit on the personal front lately, but I’m ready to face things with a whole new perspective in my life. And it’s not all about the idea of the new year fully…it was just time, but it certainly never hurts to have a shift like a new year to be a helpful catalyst in these things :-)

My blog over the past several months has become indicative of how my life has been of late…kind of detached and not engaged fully like I want it to be. I know that some of you who have visited my blog in the past and are still visiting it (bless you…thank you) may see a difference, or maybe you don’t (bless you again). However, I feel it and see it. I want my blog to get better as I get back to better feelings in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I wake up every day and am grateful for the blessings in my life, but lately I just have the need to feel more fully here again. I want to feel more awake in my own life again, so I’m opening my eyes today :-)

As some of you may know, I mentioned here before about some health issues I’ve been having, well I’m happy to report that I’m going to be fine. I got a bit of a wakeup call in regards to my health and even though it has been physically painful to go through, this situation has refocused me. So as they say, it’s all good :-)

Therefore, I’m re-dedicating myself to writing this blog. This blog grew out of my need to express myself and to engage with others and that idea got lost somewhere. I’ve loved writing my whole life, but I’ve found it very difficult to write here over the past several months. But I realize now that some of that stemmed from my disconnection in my everyday life. So I’ve taken a good hard look at myself over the past few days and I realize that I want more in my life…creativity, engagement, etc.

Today seems like a good day to begin again in many ways :-) I have always loved being creative and I’ve been yearning for that again lately. One day I sat wondering what could I do to bring more oomph and expression to my life again…and I sat there pondering this. Then I smacked myself on the forehead and said, “Well you do have a blog you know…so express your little heart out!” LOL. It was one of those light bulb moments and so now I’m just going to get out of my own darned way! ;-)

So today I am coming back to my blog with a new perspective. Hopefully I will have something good to share here from time to time and I’ll write more often like I used to do. This will all be step by step, day by day, but it will be fun to peel back those detachment layers that I’ve built up. This will definitely be a good thing as I dust off my fiction writing aspirations. I hope that you will come along with me as I hit the reset button… starting… now! :-)

Until next time…

It's All About the Journey

Just wanted to share a sunny picture. Hope you enjoy it!

I had a pretty great weekend :-) Brit Boy and I didn’t go anywhere special or doing anything out of the ordinary, but it was a good quiet weekend and I had a chance to reflect on something I just accomplished. So all weekend, I was basking in the glow :-)

For those of you who are new readers or those who may have forgotten since I didn’t bring it up much ;-) , I was taking a freelance and features writing course over the past several months, well it was actually a year and a half. I didn’t bring it up a lot because there wasn’t much to tell from day to day and also I’ll admit, it was a bit of a struggle sometimes :-) But here’s the absolutely beautiful thing that is bursting out of me right now as I write these words…it was difficult, but I did it! And I don’t say that to say “hey look at me”, I say that because I am just so darned proud of what it means for me as a person…something that I needed to prove to myself…that I can see a difficult task through until the end.

I don’t know if I would have been so candid with you all when I began my course eighteen months ago, but it is SO SO TRUE…the truth does indeed set you free! :-)

See, I know me and I don’t have a great track record with things like this. Oh yeah, I’ve gotten through life fine, but I’ve never really made it through the tape at the finish line in this way for a long, long time. So this milestone lets me know that I still have drive within…something that I thought that I’d left in my wake too long ago. But the beauty is that “she” is still in there…the authentic me that I forgot in the flurry of moving across the water and becoming a wife. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret my journey over here at all, but some days it has seemed like my determination dropped off somewhere over the Atlantic. Well, with the completion of my course, I feel that I went diving deep and found my drive again. Hallelujah! :-)

I turned in my final lesson on Friday and I immediately began to smile on the outside, the inside, and everywhere possible :-) I know that this may seem a modest milestone to the wide world, but in essence it is EVERYTHING, because today I join countless people all over this planet who are celebrating something amazing in their lives…whether it is large or small. We all wake up every day and are bombarded with terrible news and so I think that this makes it even more important to celebrate those joyous moments in our lives that make our hearts sing! :-)

I haven’t found out my final grade and of course I’m intrigued to find out the result. However, I mean this with the truest honest heart…I have already made the grade. I took the journey…so the destination is just the icing on the cake. I’m truly grateful in this moment and I just wanted to share my joy with you all.

Have a great day everybody!

A Day of Going Forward

Today is the one year anniversary of the day when I passed my Life in the UK test. I loved that day a year ago. I had made it over a hurdle and I was one step closer to settling here in England. I felt good about myself that day because I was going into a territory where I couldn’t ask a friend what it was like, and I began to relish the unknown.

This was a great step ahead for me on my path back from being so depressed after my mom passed. I had just sort of checked out on my own life before this. So preparing for this test was a great help in getting my mind going forward again. It was a baby step and it took a string of baby steps before I was able to look in the mirror and see me again.

I think that January 30th will always be a special day for me. It was a day when I got my confidence back. It was a day when I reached a goal. It was a day when I started to ask myself ‘what next’ again. And to evolve in life, I realized that growing is what I’m here on Earth to do. And that’s what makes life exciting for me :-)

This is a day of reflection for me. It's the day when I remember stepping back into life again with both feet.