Well, it's been a long time - 3 months! One of the decisions/goals for the New Year is to either maintain this blog or dismantle it. I've given myself 3 months...
The photo above is from a family camping trip to Round Lake this past summer. We have had basically no snow this winter down in the valleys (ok, about 11", but compared to the last 2 years, that doesn't even count). I don't have any winter pix from this year. I'm not missing the snow at all - last year at this time we had about 6 feet on the ground!
I've actually been doing some thinking about New Year's resolutions/goal-setting. I've decided to use a quote by Rumer Godden as the basis for my planning:
"everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person".I am attempting to set goals in each of these 4 areas, and while it seemed simple/easy to start with, as I tried to get specific, I realized that a single goal could lead to several others. For example, in the physical 'room', my goal is to exercise 30 minutes per day and eat more nutritiously. That "nutritiously" is where it gets complicated. I want to eat healthy, good-for-me food, that supplies all the nutrients I need to stay well. So, that means (to me) organic, homemade, grown in my own garden, etc. Which leads to a previous 'goal' - make my own yogurt, then perhaps cheese. I already make all my own bread - when do I start grinding my own wheat? I know, I know - first I have to get a grain grinder - cart before the horse. I've already attempted growing my own wheat (on a very small scale) - I CAN do it. Very labor intensive to harvest & clean, but I can say that I did it.
The emotional area is even more complicated - just defining this area is thought-provoking. What came first to mind was the phrase "peace of mind." Let me tell you, describing THAT opened up a can o' worms! So to begin in this area, I'm going to work with Sarah Ban Breathnach's book "Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy." She outlines six guiding principles which contribute to well-being & inner happiness: gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy. A beginning step is to keep a gratitude journal, writing down each evening five things to be grateful about that day - even if the first one is that that day is done! "The more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you."
