Well, I made a commitment to post weekly to this blog, and now I am not certain that I am going to be able to stick with it.  I am unsure about exactly where I want to take the blog.  I am also lacking inspiration to write -- even though I am grateful for many things in my life, for whatever reason, I just don't feel like writing about it.  And, of course, I know that I don't have very many readers at this point, so the blog is feeling a bit like a fruitless exercise.

But I have decided to accept where I am with the process, and maybe I can even find something to appreciate about it! 

Because I am lacking my own inspiration, I have decided to share part of one of my favorite poems.  It is entitled Saint Francis and the Sow, by Galway Kinnell:

I hope that 2011 has been treating you well so far and that the new year has given you many things to be grateful for already!

The year did not start out in the best way for me -- I caught a cold on January 1st!   But it was a pretty fast mover, so I am feeling almost back to 100% today.

Even with the cold, I have had a lot to appreciate this week.   Here are just a few of the things that I am grateful for in this first week of 2011:

• ringing in the new year at a "Holiday Hootenanny" hosted by my dear friend Kelly.  It was a dessert party, and there were enough cakes, pies, cookies, candy and other goodies to feed a small army!

• sticking to my goal of working out 5x a week.  I actually worked out every day this week, and I think it actually helped in fighting my cold.

• getting good news with respect to a medical test I had to have done this week -- whew!

• enjoying a yummy clam concoction (maybe clams casino??) several nights this week courtesy of Kelly's mom Pat -- delish!

• a great vegetarian meal last night at an Irish pub in downtown Raleigh, Tir Na Nog.  Who knew that an Irish pub could have so many veggie items on their menu?  Tom and I hadn't eaten there in years before last night, but we will defiinitely be back!

• I am super-psyched to be starting Mondo Beyondo's Dream Lab with Brene Brown on Monday, January 10th.  There's still time for you to sign up!

• and finally, I am extremely appreciative of one of my newest friends in the blogosphere, Fur Elisse, who I "met" as part of the Reverb 10 challenge.  She literally gave a New Year's shout out to every single person who commented on her blog in 2010.  I certainly wasn't expecting the recognition when I went to her site, and it was very touching.  Thanks Fur Elisse -- I appreciate you and your blog!!

What are you greatful for in the early days of 2011?  I'd love to hear from you!!

I can't believe that 2010 is over today!  I have to admit, it was one of the best years of my life, and I am sad to see it go.  It was far from perfect, but the good outweighed the bad by far!

I am particularly grateful this week for a little trip that Tom and I decided to take to Charlotte, NC.  We took the train from Raleigh, which was very relaxing.  We got a lot of reading done!  Even though Charlotte is only 3 hours away from Raleigh, we haven't spent much time there at all.  It was fun to explore the museums, restaurants, and bars.  We even got to take in a Bobcats game!  All in all, it was a really great trip!

Underneath the Firebird at the Betchler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, NC

I intend to spend some time appreciating myself today, as I think everyone should on the last day of the year.  Check out my original post on this subject here.  As I said then, please join me today and appreciate yourself for all of the wonderful things that you do and for all of the great qualities that you have.  And don’t leave me hanging here by myself – please share one thing that you love about you!!  And let’s think about what we might be able to do to develop our gifts even more in 2011!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

As soon as I got caught up on the Reverb 10 prompts, I got behind again.  Oops!! ;o)

The prompt for December 17th was: Lesson Learned.  What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

The best thing that I learned about myself this year is that I am more capable of change than I previously thought.  I am no longer a proverbial spring chicken, and I think that, in general, many people get more and more set in their ways as they get older.  However, this year I learned that I can change if I really want to.  I don't even know what prompted me to focus on creating change, but somehow I managed to change a lot about myself physically, mentally, and emotionally.  I hope to carry this forward into 2011 so that I will be even more balanced and happier than I have been in 2010!

The prompt for December 18th was: Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

The one thing that I really want to try next year is that I want to learn Spanish.  In high school, I had no choice in  the matter, and I was assigned to take French classes.  I have been vaguely wanting to learn Spanish for some time now, but the urge has gone stronger in recent years.  Tom and I want to take a trip to Barcelona (yes, I know there is a different dialect there) and other Spanish-speaking countries.  Plus, I think it's just a great skill to have!  I have free access to Rosetta Stone through my job now, so 2011 is the year to get started in earnest!!!

I have to admit that there wasn't anything that I really wanted to try in 2010, and it makes me a little sad.  But I am happy to have a new challenge to tackle in 2011!

Today’s Reverb 10 prompt is: Friendship.  How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year?  Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

This prompt troubled me when I read it.  I wanted to be able to give a profound answer that would deeply touch the friend that I decided to write about.  However, the more I churned the prompt around in my mind, I realized that I don’t think that friendship has changed me or my perspective on the world this year.  I don’t know how I feel about that, but it’s the truth.

I have several friends that I consider to be “good” friends, “close” friends.  Even so, I don’t really see or talk to these friends all that often.  I have only one friend that I generally communicate with on a weekly basis, although sometimes it’s a little more or less often than that (she knows who she is, and I am very thankful for her!).  When you’re not in touch with the vast majority of your friends on a regular basis, I think it’s difficult for them to truly influence you or your perspective on anything.

Thinking about this prompt brings up a lot of unresolved issues for me.  I have always thought that I wanted even closer friends, at least one or maybe even two that I would communicate with several times a week.  But then I wonder if this is really possible for people who live with a significant other.   Maybe I only have room for one truly close friend in my life, i.e. my husband.  Oh well, even if I do have room for more, it’s not exactly like anyone is beating down my door waiting to sign up. ;o)

I almost deleted that last sentence because I think it sounds sad and depressing.  Really though, it’s just a fact.  What I like about this prompt is that it gives me something to reflect on, and, if I decided that I want to manifest something new in this area, I can “send out reverberations for the year ahead” as suggested on Reverb 10!

One of my favorite sights this year: @ the Bermuda Aquarium

Today’s Reverb 10 prompt is: 5 Minutes.   Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes.  Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010.

The wonderful, big events of 2010 pop into my mind quickly – my wedding, the honeymoon in Bermuda, the fabulous trip to Belize.  There is no doubt that I want to remember these things.

The saddest events also come easily to mind – putting our two cats to sleep, attending the funeral of our dear friend’s baby.  As much as I think that I would like to forget these events, they are a part of me just as much as the good times are, and I simply can’t deny their impact on me.  I know that I would experience a gnawing feeling of incompleteness if I erased these experiences from my memory.

It’s the smaller experiences that I have more difficulty conjuring up in the 5 minute time frame.  I want to remember how warm and safe I felt when I snuggled up to Tom in the bed on cold winter nights.  I want to remember the tremendous feeling of peace that I experienced during the times that I meditated.   I want to remember the times when I engaged in heartfelt conversation with my closest friends.

So many things happen to us in the course of a year.  I find it fascinating to think about which memories we choose to hold onto and why.  What is the story that you are conveying to and about yourself in conducting this 5-minute exercise?   This question really provides me with some food for thought for 2011!

Getting ready to start my vows!

Today’s Reverb 10 prompt is: Appreciate.  What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year?  How do you express gratitude for it? 

The one thing that I have come to appreciate most in the past year is myself.  It makes me feel a bit strange to admit that, but it’s true.  Throughout much of my adult life, I have suffered with the feeling that I am simply not good enough.  A couple of years ago (about the time that I started this blog), I consciously decided to work on loving myself exactly as I am.

It’s been slow going, and this is the first year that I have felt real appreciation for myself and the things that I do.  This journey of self-love and appreciation is so important to me that I even included it in my wedding vows when I married Tom on May 15 of this year.   For a reason that I can’t fully explain, it is difficult for me to share this with the world, but here is the part of my vows where I talk about self-love:

“I promise that I will continue to work hard at loving myself, something that I have gotten better at but have not always been very good at.  This may sound like a selfish promise, but if I don’t love myself the way that I should, then I can’t expect to love you properly.  I recently read a quote that said:  When it comes to the subject of loving others, you must know this:  how you handle your own heart is how you will handle theirs.  I promise you that I will handle my own heart with love and compassion.”

I truly look forward to continuing this journey of self-love in 2011.  And I express my gratitude for myself in an interesting way – I make recordings telling myself how wonderful I am!  Ok, so now I wouldn’t be surprised if you are thinking that I’ve really gone off the deep end!  But I got this idea from one of my favorite authors, Cheri Huber.  I recently took an email class with her, and I highly recommend her latest book:  What You Practice Is What You Have:  A Guide To Living the Life You Want.  There is much more depth to the process than what I’ve portrayed here, and if you read this book, you will understand the importance of the recordings.  I am immensely grateful to Cheri for the wisdom and guidance that she has provided to me on my path of self-appreciation! 

It's time to take some Action steps!  Photo courtesy of Tom Schmucker/Swivel Eye Photo

Today’s Reverb 10 prompt is: Action.  When it comes to aspirations, it’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.  What’s your next step?

This is a cool prompt for me because I was planning on writing about this topic anyway.  I have already started to take action on a couple of my aspirations with the help of StickK.com.

When I truly make a commitment to something, I like to go public with it.  It keeps me very motivated to stick to what I have committed to doing.

Just a few weeks ago, I made two commitments: (1) to exercise 5x a week for a year and (2) to blog at least once a week for a year.  (I actually made a third commitment, but I find it a little too boring to be “blog worthy”).

I really needed to get back on track with my exercise program.  As I mentioned in my last post, I have been having problems with my foot for almost a year now.  This has forced me to give up my favorite exercise, which is running.  For awhile, esp. during the summer, I rode my bike a couple of times a week.  But once it started to get colder outside and darker earlier in the day, I realized that bike riding was no longer going to work.  Plus, I wasn’t doing it very consistently.

So, about a month and a half ago, I finally broke down and joined the Y, mainly to swim, because it's low impact on my foot.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t stick with it though (I kinda hate going to the gym and would prefer to exercise outdoors by myself), and that’s where StickK.com came in. 

I registered my commitment to exercise 5x a week with StickK.com, and my husband is my referee (so that I can’t lie and say that I exercised when I didn’t – thanks honey!!).  The best part for me is that StickK.com allows you to put some money on the line when you make your commitment. 

In my case, for every week that I am unsuccessful in meeting my goal, I will give $10 to the “anti-charity” of my choice, which is the George W. Bush Presidential Library.  I could have chosen to give the money to a “real” charity of my choice, but it wouldn’t have been as motivating for me.  I don’t want to give that George W. Bush library any of my money!!!  Whereas I wouldn’t mind one bit if my money went to something that I consider worthy, like breast cancer research.

I have just started the fourth week of my StickK challenge, and so far I have been successful, yippee!!

I also committed to blogging once a week through StickK.  I had been blogging very inconsistently for about two years now, and the inconsistency made me unhappy.  I don’t really have a plan for the blog at this point, although I truly am interested in finding a new community of like-minded people (see my December 9th post).  I just want to see where a year of consistent blogging will take me!

It’s been easy for me to be committed to blogging since I discovered the Reverb 10 challenge.  We’ll see what happens once December is over!

I also wanted to note that I don’t receive any money or any other kind of compensation from StickK.com.  I am psyched that I found the site and that it’s working for me, and I wanted to share it with others in the hopes that someone else might benefit in the same way that I am!

Today's prompt on the Reverb 10 challenge is:  Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present?

This is the prompt that has resonated the least with me since the start of the challenge.  I have felt almost no body integration this year.  I started running in 2007, and I absolutlely love it.  But on December 26, 2009, I was out running and experienced a sharp, shooting pain in my left foot.

It's now almost a year later, and my foot has not fully healed.  I have had a cortisone shot, been in physical therapy, etc. and yet I have not been able to heal myself.  I haven't run in what feels like eons.  So for me, 2010 was a year of frustration with my body. 

I am hoping to turn this around in 2011.  Body integration, here I come! ;o)

I am continuing on with the Reverb 10 challenge:

The prompt for December 9 was: Party.  What social gathering knocked your socks off in 2010?  Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

Honestly, I did not attend many social gatherings in 2010, which makes me feel kinda lame.  So I don’t have a lot of parties to choose from.   In fact, I think that the only parties that I attended in 2010 were ones that I actually threw, which I find a bit depressing.  Anyway, I would like to choose my wedding reception as the answer to this prompt, but if I am honest with myself, the whole event was a little too stressful for me to say that it “knocked my socks off.”

However, Tom and I did throw another party about a month after we got married.  We got married at the beach on Fort Fisher, NC, about two and a half hours away from our home.  We decided to keep our wedding very small (we had only 15 adult guests and 4 children), so afterwards, we wanted to throw a party for our friends back in Raleigh who weren’t at the wedding. 

I had a nasty cold for this party, but I had so much fun that day that I completely forgot about it.  Almost everyone that we invited to the party came, which I think is a rare thing these days!  It was fantastic to see some friends that we hadn’t seen in awhile.  But the best part came after most of the guests had gone, leaving Tom and me with two of my amazing friends that I met in massage school, Kelly B. and Lisa. 

Lisa and Kelly B. are like no other friends that I have.  I don’t get to see either one of them that often, but when I do, it is always a blast.  We mainly just end up laughing hysterically for most of the time that we are together, over things that I can’t ever remember afterwards.  They are willing to let their proverbial hair down more than anyone else I know, and I always feel younger and lighter after spending time with them.  Even though our party started at 2:00pm that day, it didn’t end until after 10:00pm, when I had to call a cab to drive Lisa and Kelly back to Kelly’s place.

I don’t think that the written word can adequately convey the absolute F-U-N that these two women bring with them everywhere they go.  So here are just a few of the over 200 pictures that we took of ourselves that night (we went a little overboard!)

I love these girls!

Love you Lisa and Kelly B.!!!!

The prompt for December 10 was:  Wisdom.  What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

I made two very wise decisions this year.  The first one was the decision to marry Tom.  Technically, this decision was made in 2009, but since we didn’t actually get married until 2010, I think that my decision to go through with the wedding counts! ;o)

Having been married once before, I was opposed to getting married again for many years after I got divorced.  I just didn’t want to have to go through all of the pain, heartbreak and legalities a second time.   But, as I spent more and more years with Tom, my position started to soften.   After years of being together, I hated having to call myself his “girlfriend.”  I also eventually realized that I would be strong enough to make it through a second divorce if I had to.  I survived the first one, as difficult as it was (it was not my choice at all and it devastated me).  And I knew that closing my heart and refusing to be vulnerable was not the right answer.   So I changed my mind, and I am so happy that I did!

My second wise decision in 2010 was the decision I made to switch jobs back in August.  The biggest struggle in my life by far has been my inability to find a career that I enjoy that can also pay the bills.  I graduated from law school 16 years ago and have been struggling ever since.   Every single day of my life, I worry about money, my “career” (I put it in quotes because I don’t feel like I have a real career), and if I will ever find something profitable to do that I really love.  And it’s not that I haven’t tried -- in 2003, I left the legal profession altogether and became a massage therapist.  I started a couple of other small businesses as well.  Unfortunately, these businesses just didn’t produce enough income to support the lifestyle that I wanted to live (which was and is fairly modest, by the way).

So I went back to legal work part-time in 2006 to pay the bills, and still kept at the businesses.  But, financially, I wasn’t doing much more than paying the bills.  I wasn’t saving, and I didn’t have much income for discretionary spending.  I wanted to be in business for myself, but it just wasn’t working.  I was unhappy and frustrated, and I am pretty darn sure that Tom was frustrated with me as well.

Then, this year, an opportunity fell into my lap to go back to legal work full time.  As much as I don’t want to keep doing legal work for the rest of my life, I simply couldn’t say “no” to the salary that this job provides me.  The hours are fantastic, and I am generally not stressed about my work (although there have been some definite recent exceptions that I won’t go into).  If I have to do legal work, the type of work that I am doing now is what I enjoy the most out of everything I’ve tried.  And I am finally saving quite a bit of money, which is truly amazing.  The best thing about it is that the job term is not indefinite.  I’m not sure exactly how long it will last, but 4 years is the absolute limit (although I don’t think it will last even that long).   This gives me a feeling of not being “trapped,” which makes me a lot more enthusiastic about my work.  This is truly one of the best decisions I have made not just this year, but in quite some time!!! 

The prompt for today, December 11 is:  11 Things.  What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

11 things that my life doesn’t need in 2011 are:

1.  Anxiety

2.  Perfectionism

3.  Self-Doubt

4.  Comparisons with other people

5.  Negativity

6.  Inaction due to fear

7.  The appearance of being “normal”

8.  Scarcity thinking

9.  A need for certainty about everything

10. Concern about what other people think

11.  The 30 extra pounds I carry around

Ideas 1 through 10 were lifted in large part out of Brene Brown’s new book:  The Gifts of Imperfection.  The book is awesome – go Brene!!!  I am going to go about eliminating 1-10 by participating in the Dream Lab with Brene Brown, Andrea Scher and Jen Lemen starting in January, 2011.  Thanks for the opportunity ladies!!!  I hope others out there will join me!!

As for # 11, I have committed to working out 5 days every single week for an entire year.  I have a specific commitment process that I plan on writing more about later!

I can't believe that I have finally caught up on the prompts -- Woo HOO!!!