You keep at it, girl.
Less than four months now...
and the weather's getting warmer,
your clocks are back to normal...
...you will get to June.
Everything will be okay.
Stay cozy, keep smiling, and
do something for yourself everyday.
Great things are in store for you.
Love,
YOU
This is my monthly intention for March.
Self-explanatory, really, and the fact alone that it's March has me smiling.
With this month is:
the end of Daylight Savings,
Spring,
a cousin's Sweet 16 party,
Easter Break,
...lots of happy things lined up.
I've also enlisted in this month's 30 Days of Lists, that I blogged about here.
I just want to smile. I want to try to NOT let external circumstances dictate my smiling and happiness. I will be MAKING smiles happen on my face.
Let's see how this month goes.
Happy March!
T.G.I.F.
*thanks for all the help yesterday, instagram buddies
(past, not passed...haa haa!)
This is my monthly intention for February. Now that the enchantment that comes with the first few weeks of a new year is fading, it has really started to sink in: I'm without him.
After six years with Tomas, and a couple weeks since 'breaking up', I feel like we are broken up. That's actually the first time I've used that phrase. I haven't officially said we're broken up outloud. I guess I still haven't. Haa haa! (You see why I need this month for mourning?)
I've never done this before, so excuse me if it's all coming out weird. I've crushed on guys, who didn't crush back, and sure, that hurt a bit. I've fallen for guys who sorta fell back, and when it didn't amount to a relationship, felt full-fledged heartbreak. I'm no stranger to heartbreak, but I've never been through this before.
I've been with Tomas for six years, and he's been my constant. He's been my phone calls, my cuddle buddy, the one I share news with first, and...well...'the one' in general.
He's been my one.
...and we didn't work out.
Now what do I do?
It's been hitting me really hard since my grandmother left. I'm just starting to wrap my head around it and I find myself going, "Am I single? I'm alone again, aren't I?" I am without an other.
I miss him terribly. I love him very much, but it was me who ended it. ? ? ? Yeah. It was me who thought it wasn't fair to him for we to be 'us'. He's been wanting so much more from me for such a long time and I...can't. So, on top of feeling alone, I feel guilty, and it's placed me in a FUNK.
I'm allowing myself to mourn this month.
I'm going to grant myself the space, the time, and the silence to heal.
I'm going through a break-up and it feels like a death, but I want to MAKE IT PAST THIS.
Thanks for understanding.
Happy love month!
xOxO,
Hi! Welcome back to reality: 2013 edition.
Ugh. So school is back in session as of yesterday morning and I'm prepared for the flow of freezing, exhaustion, burn-out, and stress. Teacher Life, yo! It was the first day back to school after Christmas Break last year that I had my nervous breakdown. Haa haa! Yep...I had to call out sick the next day, and the hour-long bubble bath sessions began.
To combat some of the poop that January brings, I'm entering this January weilding my one little word repeating to myself:
I placed it right on top of my dresser, where my face is every day.
I predict it'll change as the year goes on, but for now THIS IS THE GOAL.
I've got a few stategically planned ways to make this happen,
which I will share with you at a later date.
- - - - - - -
Have a sweet Thursday.
This is a post reflecting on my first year doing Ali Edwards' one little word practice.
To learn more about it, read here.
In a few days, I will share with you all the one little word I've chosen for myself for the new year, but before I go into a post on that, here is my reflection on 2012, my year of { movement }.
The word awkwardly and profoundly chose me the last week of 2011 when I wrote my all-important post about 'the shift' that occurred, when I expressed starting 2012 feeling "stuck...and not knowing what to do about it."
{Movement} appeared in my New*Years*Eve post 2011 >> 2012 where I said I was "hoping with all my being at the stroke of 12 midnight that this is the year movement will be made," and then I added,"...please, in the right direction.
I had wrote in that hopeful post that physically I wanted to run more. I wanted to bike as much as possible. I wanted to take up salsa again. I wanted to roller-skate. I wanted to swim. I wanted to play in the sand.
Emotionally: I wanted to examine where my relationship is, and where will it go.
Mentally: I wanted to move toward making firm, executive decisions to do things that will bring me long-term happiness. Decisions about money, job, vacations, organization, hobbies...how I want to live; where I want to live; who I want to live with...
Even if in inches or millimeters, I wrote back in that first olw post, I wanted some kind of movement in the right direction taking place.
... AND BOY, DID IT EVER!
I moved the first day of the year by bike:
There was a grandiose movement of my perspective of how I thought about my teaching job that I had grown to hate.
Movement was made visual with a sweet little | Year 1 on Instagram | video I made back in February.
I got movin' to The Brooklyn Flea...
...where my heart was left amongst the knick knacks and trinkets. See post here.
I got through the dreaded month of March by creating a doable Movement Challenge for myself:
...and approximately 52 miles later, this movement challenge got me to April in one piece, where I kinda sorta did another movement challenge. Woot woot!
I moved a bit to the whole-page scrapbook layout side of paper crafting:
It was a fun little visit, and I hope to do more when inspiration strikes.
I can't believe there was { movement } in the gardening department:
...even if it was a measly classroom garden of marigolds and moonflowers. Heck, I got twelve Special Ed 3rd graders to make their garden grow! One day, I will have a grandiose tomato and fresh herb garden, but this here...this little window-sill plant party, this is where it started.
{ Movement } in the right direction, documented. :)
With my one little word of movement, I found myself taking relish of even natural movement: the movement of seasons. The movement closer and closer to Summer was like an internal mini firework party:
Memorial Day weekend made me so happy. <-- (I'm obsessed with this post.)
Once Summer hit, there was time and peace for { movement } in the right direction to occur.
It came in the form of teaching myself Photoshop Elements 10:
...and well, DUH! OPENING UP MY STAMP SHOP:
This was a major form of { movement } for me. Hip hip hooray, say I, in the most joyfully quiet sentimental way possible.
From my creation of my stamps to the opening of my STAMP SHOP, to a movement down the east coast on a road trip I'll never forget:
So much movement!! From Savannah, Georgia, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Ocala, Florida, to Myrtle Beach, SC, to Washington D.C. ...this east coast road trip moved me all the way down and back up the east coast, and moved me as a human a little bit. I did so much growing up and realizing on that trip.
Next greatest example of movement was the late-August Sweet 16 Photoshoot I conceptualized, created, and shot:
I love working on my photography skills, my creative backdrop-making skills, and everything involved. This was a lot of fun, and has been a long time coming. Plus, when you have as much family fun as we did this day on this 'shoot'...come on! Movement well made.
Then, there was movement to a new classroom, and school started up.
Muddy movement was a must:
The rest of Fall's been a bit of a blur, but these past few months have address the hardest
{ movement } of all which might be movement apart from my guy.
I'm left in a bit of confusion about that part of my life, but everything else, because of this year of {movement} has been made more clear. I have moved in the right direction this year, even if ever so slightly, but it feels good to have had some positive change occur, or any change occur for that matter. So much of 2011 was stagnant and still and stale, and declaring movement as my one little word a year ago got the engine running.
Even when I wasn't whole-heartedly declaring "MOVEMENT" as motivation for something with my fist in the air, it was really with me all year, in everything I did. Sometimes it was a little spark in the corner of my eye, but sometimes it was pounding in my heart as hard and strong as a waterfall.
I am so grateful for this one little word practice. I am thrilled movement's been my word. I believe it will never leave me, just give birth to challenging and appropriate other words, acting like the grandmother to each new little word that my future brings.
I am so excited to share with you all my word for 2013 in the next few days.
I hope to see you back here for that, and link up to any one little word related posts you may have written in the comments. I'd love to read them.
Happy almost 2013!
Three years ago, yesterday, I posted my first ever blog post. I posted a tiny, off-center picture of a mint-colored moped because I just love mopeds so.
Three years ago, yesterday, I had lit the fire of what's become for myself and so many of us a beloved and favored hobby. More than that, though, it's completely shifted my world closer to all I want it to become.
When you profess and read and study and explore and delve into things that make you feel alive and connected, you are conditioning your life to be full of those things. Blogging has proved that to me more than one time over.
Take a look at yesterday! Yesterday, a product that I created and breathed into life (with a great deal of help from this blog) made it into the hands of some lovely ladies over at PAPER ISSUES who used my product -- MY PRODUCT -- for their art, and are helping to spread the word. This completely rocks my world, and who would of thought three years ago -- with that pathetic little moped post -- that it could happen? I certainly didn't. But I knew I loved to blog. I knew I loved to photograph and write.
Since that first ever post three years ago, there's been so many positive and exciting changes that have occurred...so much growth, and development. So much {movement} in the right direction, especially this year, after declaring it my one little word back in January.
And I feel like I have just scratched the surface.
There is SO much more I need to learn. SO much more I can't wait to blog about...like my move out on my own, my career change, my future babies...
...I am so grateful to have stumbled upon the blog-o-sphere. I'm so grateful for these past three years of blogging unconditionally...of letting myself make mistakes, and get frustrated, and push through in the name of SHARING, WRITING, PHOTOGRAPHY and FUN! I'm so grateful to you, readers and peepers, who shock me with your sweet comments, and repetitive visits! GAH! Thank you! So crazy.
It's taught me so much about who I am now, and who I want to become.
Happy three years to me & blogging.
Here's to a successful and sensational thirtythree+ more,
filled with creativity and opportunity bursting at the seams!
Read last year's two years blogging and thoughts.
This is an acrostic poem my student, Bianca, wrote about me this week:
Every line cracks me up harder than the last.
Her third-grade self is pretty hilarious.
The other day, she was taking a lap around the track, and midway through her lap, at the opposite end, I see her stop. Just plain halt and lean against the fence. It took her 5 minutes to pry herself away from the fence and make her way back to us. I saw she was pink and crying.
"Bianca, what happened?" I asked.
I thought she was going to say she hurt her ankle, foot, knee, wrist, shoe, broke a fingernail, etc.
"I miss my friend," she responded.
"You miss your friend?! You suddenly thought about your friend right in the middle of your lap around the track?"
"Uh-huh."
:)
That's my Bianca for you...
..she writes killer poetry. ;)
xOxO,
Happy last March hump day of the year!
This month needs to END.
...and speaking of #8 on this list ...
xOxO
a quote by Howard Thurman, minister, educator, and civil rights leader
. . .
If you're playing along with FatMumSlim's #FebPhotoADay challenge, then you would know today's photo challenge is words.
I chose Howard Thurman's words.
I think those words are important for me to have sink in. I had a whole explanation for why, but I 'backspaced' it, and I think I'll leave it at that.
What parts of your day make you come alive, reader?
Is it something from your home life, or is what makes you come alive intertwined in your professional life?
I'm striving for both, because what the World needs are people who've come alive.
See ya here tomorrow!
Thanks, as always, for stopping by!
xOxO,
