I love this photo above! It depicts how my life has been lately, and how I feel surrounded my waves of turmoil, my only path out a rocky terrain. But each day, the water of my troubles gets lower, and I’m finally able to breathe.
It’s been a rocky year! And once again I’ve failed at my goal of keeping up with my blog. But so many things have come up that it’s hard to keep up with it, and I find myself pushing it low on my list of priorities. 2015 has ended, we’re two weeks into the new one, and I turn FORTY in four days!
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, and the last few months of 2015 and beginning of 2016 brought on a lot of stress and trauma. Car problems, house problems, remodeling problems. I lost an aunt around the holidays and had a few scares with some family members who got sick and hospitalized, including my dad and grandmother only a few months apart. My pet rooster (JoMean) was violently killed by a neighbor dog practically right in front of me. A beloved cat passed after struggling with feline diabetes, and another (Riley) got very sick only a week later. Then another beloved pet member (Romeo) went missing for a few days, and I almost lost my will to remain positive and grateful. way too much to handle to close together without any breathing room in between. But lo and behold, everything worked out and Romeo came home, Riley is getting better, and we are making positive changes to everyone’s diet and routine.
JoMean
But throughout it all, I finished a story, sent edits off to my editor on another, and started even another. I cleaned up my own diet and took on a Fresh21 cleanse (another blog topic for later perhaps?) after battling some severe allergy issues. I remembered to speak gratitude over my life and found my Word of the Year.
During those writing spells, I tried to plot, yet again, and found myself stuck, putting it off, finding myself editing instead of writing. Hey, editing is just as important, but I’ve got to write in order to have something to edit. (You can’t edit a blank page after all, says Queen Nora Roberts!) I forgot my own advice of doing what works for you, and I tried to plot my novel in hopes it’d go faster. It definitely didn’t go faster, because I got stuck for months!
I should probably add that throughout all this, my husband and I have been remodeling while living in our home. I can’t even think about it right now, but it’s kind of taken a downward spiral after finishing the kitchen, and that’s another topic for another day as well. Needless to say, throughout those months, I found some great crockpot recipes! And one day, maybe I’ll have a floor again!
I’ve got a lot of goals for the year, but I find myself being less goal-oriented as I get older. It’s sad, as I feel I should be more focused and more goal-oriented, but I’ve also learned how important it is to have some down time. Maybe that’s because 2015 was a whirlwind of busy-ness, and I’m ready to slow down. Hopefully that downtime will include having more time to read this year!
What about you? Do you have any specific goals for 2016?