Sunday, January 5, 2014

Another No Mail Day: A Year of EXPLORE


If you live anywhere vaguely near where I do in the United States, you know that it's cold outside right now. Snow, freezing rain, the whole deal. And I'm sick. Sick and feverish and stuck in bed sick, feeling glad that my cat loves the warmth of my feverish existence and has decided to curl up next to me while I catch up on old Rookie playlists, languishing somewhere between sleep and being horribly, crushingly awake.

Still managed to read a little Flavia.



Musing more on 2014, let's talk Another No Mail Day. Instead of trying to do weekly wrap up posts, in 2014 it is my intention to occasionally check in with one word, and use this word as inspiration and guide for decisions.

In 2013, I made some great things happen -- chiefly, I became a full time youth services librarian and became comfortable planning awesome, fun, literacy-based programming for kids on a regular basis. I read a lot of books, finished a few craft projects I'm proud of, and felt more confident being myself. My boyfriend and I spontaneously spent Halloween at Disney World.  It was kind of the best. I made some big decisions and was lucky enough to be able to hold off on making others.

Alongside all that wonderful stuff, though, it seems like life has lost something; more weekends are spent inside, more time is spent watching television, more time not thinking, more time not acting. More time being exhausted. More time worrying, stressing, and trying to figure out how to deal with that. Everyone goes through these slower, quiet times, and I don't regret taking things easy and spending plenty of time relaxing with loved ones... but feeling exhausted and down takes a toll.

Rounding the new year and thinking about how things feel in my life and how I would like to feel in the future, it was easy to choose this year's theme: explore.

Thinking about the feelings and experiences I value, explore kept bubbling up and wouldn't let me go. I love learning new things, feeling adventurous, creative, and brave. I love examining things, finding things, trying things, traveling. I love discovery. I love sharing, connecting, organizing, and documenting. I've come more and more to love the practice of gratitude, and I love shining a light on and appreciating amazing things. These are all vital and as things move forward in life they're things that I don't want to lose.

After all that, dear friends of this digital age, what better way to stay committed than write up a post sharing your not-actually-very-lofty intentions?  And hey, here's this shiny blog just left sitting here -- let's fix that!

In 2014, let's explore together. Let's see where we can go. We'll figure things out.

Also, I made this graphic for some reason. Ta dah!

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