It's been a week again. Where the hell do my days go? Beautiful day today. This warm, sunny, afternoon is definitely one of my five "I'm grateful for..." items today. I'm still trying to write in my gratitude journal regularly, although I'm just not, nor will I ever be, that every day girl. What else am I grateful for today? My crock pot (and the meatloaf cooking in it). My funny little dogs, who never leave my side when I'm home. Diet Pepsi, my worst habit at the moment -- pert near two liters a day. Baseball hats -- every day is a bad hair day when you have a mop like mine :)

Fun quote in my Simple Abundance blurb today:

"Year by year the complexities of this spinning world grow more bewildering and so each year we need all the more to seek peace and comfort in the joyful simplicities"

-- Woman's Home Companion, December 1935

Boy...if they thought the world was complex and bewildering back then, imagine what they would think now. Just pondering the things I had to do this morning to knock a few things off my to-do list and thinking that my grandmother, certainly my great-grandmother, would have found to be off the charts in the sense of annoying and unnecessarily time-consuming. I suppose they would have had other equivalents in the hum-drum parts of their days, but for me, I so very often find myself wrapped up in things for hours on end that really do nothing to benefit anyone. Most of these are technology related, and while I may try to avoid it, it's no use.

Anyway, I shall focus this week on trying to find peace and comfort in the joyful simplicities of my day. For instance, blogging. Doesn't require that I go anywhere, spend money, or deal with other people -- it just makes me happy to sit here typing away. Twenty minutes a day is all I really need. Coffee tomorrow with my girlfriend -- that's simple and always joyful. Listening to the boys in the back of the car when I pick them up from school, yammering on about the very dramatic events of the day. Listening to the radio and finding a song or two that I want to download. For now, I'm gonna find peace and comfort in an overdue hot shower :)

Happy Monday, All.

6:30pm, and I should be preparing something for my poor children to eat. Will stop here for a minute instead. I gotta tell ya -- Monday won. I just could not, for the life of me, get my head out of my ass today. Have now taken ten minutes to sit down with my daily meditation from Simple Abundance, and I'm in a better place. Yesterday's blurb was all about accepting real life, and today's is about blessing our circumstances, whatever they may be. I would imagine those two things are meant to go hand-in-hand, for one couldn't very well bless the circumstances of their life without accepting them. The basic idea? By blessing even the things that torment us, there's some element of spiritual surrender, and therefore the opportunity for us to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm not one to spout spiritual mumbo-jumbo, but this one, for me, is a no-brainer.

Let's use my current funk as a perfect example. I am in a funk. I prefer that to saying 'I am depressed', although we can all agree that I am indeed, depressed. Have been for several weeks now. No desire to do anything...apathetic, in fact, about most things. I've been fighting it -- cursing it -- trying to get out of it. Guess what? I am still very much in a funk. So tonight, as I sit here, I'm going to bless my funk. Yep. Bless it. How off-my-rocker do I sound? But it makes sense. By saying that I'm thankful for the ability to get through every day feeling less than myself, feeling depressed on some level, then I'm also accepting it. And tomorrow, I'll bless it again. Maybe by Friday, I'll feel differently.

I started last week to keep a gratitude journal, listing five things every day that I'm thankful for. Today, I'm going to max out my entry and add every single blessing that I can conjure up in my little pea-brain. From hot water to furry friends, I'm blessed all over the place. I'm also, for the most part, grateful. I just don't stop often enough to acknowledge how grateful I am.

Last item for the record, before I close. I have never been one to examine the finer points of life, analyzing how I feel throughout the day or the week. This is all new. It's new for several reasons, but mostly because I am making a concerted effort to explore my own happiness, or lack thereof. It may last a month, it may last a year, but I'm enjoying the journey. The exploration of my day(s), which were formerly plodded through uncontested and therefore unquestioned, may just lead to some fantastic findings. If not, what do I have to lose?

Just a friendly note - don't even bother entering the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway. No point. I'm winning :) If you haven't seen this architectural gem/interior design doozy, you have to check it out. They have really cool 360 degree tours of each room on the website. Beautiful!!! Bill and I are most in love with the kitchen, which is only rivaled by the unbelievable view of the mountains.

It's a FANTABULOUS ski-in/ski-out lodge-esque home in Stowe, Vermont. I am entering every day (at least on the days that I remember), and I am most definitely going to win. No idea how I'm going to find my husband a new job, or convince him that we're moving to Vermont, but I'm thinking it will be more like a vacation home, great in summer and winter, and we'll just rent it out when we're not using it. My guys have been complaining of late that they miss their winter sports -- skiing and snowboarding -- so I'm gonna fix that. Checked flights. No direct route from TPA to BTV, but there are good connections through Newark. Yep, it's all sorted. Can't wait to spend Christmas there next year. Here's a map of the ski trails. Book early if you want to join us, space will fill up quickly.

I'm always surfing on Etsy, looking for new and exciting ideas for gifts. Awesome place to find that certain something for that hard-to-buy-for person in your life. Anyway, in anticipation of Valentine's Day, they are featuring a fantastic shop/artist today, GumballGrenade's, that is very much worth a look-see. Here's one that I love, titled I Bring Only This:

Sweet, no? I know I'm a cheeseball, but I dig Valentine's Day.

Here's an exerpt from today's message of Simple Abundance on the topic of embracing the 'path of joy': Many of us unconsciously create drama in our minds, expecting the worst from a situation only to have our expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Inadvertently, we become authors of our own misfortune. And so we struggle from day to day, from crisis to crisis, bruised and battered by circumstances without realizing that we always have a choice.

This, dear friends, was written explicitly for Moi. It describes a process I go through daily. And it's not just in the context of a situation I might be experiencing at the moment. In fact, it's usually my brain, in overdrive, already skipping to the scenes of tomorrow and the next day. Rather than live in the moment and enjoy whatever it is I'm doing, I've already hit fast-forward and am pondering what could go wrong in a hundred other areas of my life. Where does all that get me? Absolutely nowhere.

One of the best books I've ever read: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, by Eckhart Tolle. It's currently on sale at Amazon -- $6.60. The best $6.60 you could ever spend. I just ordered three more copies, so that I might be able to share the wealth. As I gave my last copy to someone, I will keep one and start to re-read. Great stuff. Basically, a new way of looking at the moments in your life. A how-to on living in the present. His other book, A New Earth, is equally amazing.

Oh, the number of days I've spent pontificating on what happened yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow. Again -- where does that get me? I really have to make a conscious effort not to let my brain do that. I really don't do that well, but am thinking that my new approach to embracing the simple, the joyous, might just get me there. Would be great if I just had an 'off' button on top of my head that could switch me to stay faithfully in 'the now'.

With that in mind, I'm going to experiment a bit with my afternoon. I'm going to do all of the things I have to do today in the present -- appreciating the time I have to spend with the kids, the sunny weather, the freedom I have to do what needs to be done.

Here's my afternoon/evening:

2:00 appt. with therapist

3:00 pick up Keira at school

3:15 stop at grocery

4:00 pick up Liam at school

4:30 shoe shopping with Riley

6:00 Riley has tutoring

7:30 dinner

8:30 iron on Daisy Scout patches for Keira

Pretty hum-drum, wouldn't you say? But it doesn't have to be. It could be, instead, an exciting adventure with my beautiful children, an opportunity to engage them in conversation and find out about their day. Yeah, that's it. The more I consciously think about it, the better chance I have in finding joy in the present moment.

So... following the media backlash after Ricky's fanfriggingtastically stellar performance at the Golden Globes on Sunday, I just need to post this............

And might I just add that he is looking incredibly fit these days, buff in fact.

The whole nonsense about his over-the-top monologue made me think for awhile. I was shocked at first, and a bit disappointed that it was so mean-spirited. Yes, it was pretty hard core. Yes, he targeted some pretty high-profile people in the audience. After seeing the response from many of those targeted, however, I've changed my tune. It's called a roast, People, and generally speaking, it's funny stuff.

Here's the monologue:

and Ricky's response to all the media attention, via his blog:

"Thanks to the twitterverse, the blogosphere, all the journos and the coolest stars for coming to my rescue. It was heartwarming to realise I wasn't losing my mind. Some reactions nearly had me believing I'd gone too far too. Nearly. Can't wait for the people who thought it was over the top to see my stand-up shows. Fuck me, they will shit themselves. Oh, and fans, take this opportunity to tell the world about Karl Pilkington. Tweet about that fucking head now! All new Ricky Gervais Show this Friday on HBO and An Idiot Abroad on Science Channel 22nd Jan. A genuine thanks by the way for all your support. Cheers."

Go Ricky!!!

While I'm out here in cyber space, dragging you along on my search for happiness, I'm also going to bore you to tears with my attempts at losing some poundage. It's the traditional pairing of the new year, no? Find happiness, lose pounds. While sounding very cliche, it still sounds like a win-win to me, once I'm able to achieve either/or. You will note, here, that I'm not calling either of these plans a resolution. As a good friend of mine answered someone when asked about his resolutions this year, "I'm not making resolutions, I'm making changes". You go girl!

Relatedly, I was perusing one of my favorite websites today, The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/) and found an article of some interest on this topic: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-02/10-most-effective-diets-for-2011/?cid=topic:mainpromo6

Turns out that my personal favorite place to 'diet' (I hate the word), Weight Watchers, is ranked number three in The Beast's list of top-ten effective ways to lose weight. It's been over two years since I've been to a meeting, but tomorrow morning, at 7:30am (on Saturday, mind you), I'm going to be in the front row. It's time.

My eating habits are horrific at the moment, my visits to the gym have become bi-monthly, and Weight Watchers is the one place I can go and know that I'll get results. The program is do-able. The food is edible. More than anything, the motivating factor for me is that there is a scale. Once a week, no matter what I've been up to, I have to show up and get on that scale. I'm somewhat competitive by nature, more with myself than anyone, and the contest of me vs. myself is nearly always a successful one. If I can't beat me, then who the hell can I beat?

Anyway, first weigh-in tomorrow morning, which means what? Well, out of the gate, it means that I will (1) do whatever I possibly can to take a poop in the morning, (2) I will don the lightest outfit I can find in the closet, and (3) I will pray heavily through the night that my starting point is no higher than a buck seventy-five. I know that's about where I am and I could just kick myself for getting there. Goal: a buck fifty-five. Twenty pounds. That's it. Who can't lose twenty pounds?

Bonus factor here is that (a) I have a million W.Watchers recipes from the last time I did this, and (b) I now live in the ever-abundant United States, where you can virtually diet just by shopping in your local grocer's freezer section. Okay, that's not the answer, but those frozen W.Watchers entrees are going to be my best friend when I'm cooking other yummy stuff for the fam and find myself in a pickle. So...here's to me and my newfound mission. Twenty pounds by April 30th. No problem.

I LOVE THIS MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!

He's on my list -- yep. The list of five famous guys that, should I come upon them in the airport, at the mall, or backstage in stalker-like fashion, I have carte blanche. No idea what I would actually do if I met him, I'd probably just be a bumbling moron, but it's fun to think about. Anyway, he's hosting the Golden Globes this year, so tune in on Sunday. On another sidenote, Bill and I just started watching Extras -- another series you should not miss. Effing BRILLIANT.

Clip from last year's Golden Globes.


Clip from Extras.


Did I mention? I love him. :)

I'm missing 'home' these days. A friend of mine just posted this fabulous video about Hungary on FB, so I thought I would share. Cool to see how many things were invented by Hungarians, and fun to see all the places I love. If you ever get a chance to go, don't miss it. Hopefully one day, I'll be back there. With any luck, my kids will finish college and decide that they want to go and live/work there. It's a place that changed my life...a place where I spent almost a third of my life...

The land of the Magyars...

Hey out there in Blogland...Happy Hump Day. I've had an uneventful one, mostly self-imposed do-nothingness. Met up with a few friends this afternoon and tried to talk through my current slump. I have plenty of positive thoughts, lots on the to-do list, much to be doing, just no get-up-and-go. Laid in bed until pert near noon today, also obsessing about why my mojo took a vacay and forgot to mention when it was coming back. Tomorrow's gonna be a new day...I say that every day, but this time I'm serious. Gonna pick at least three things on that bloody list and just...well...do them. Biggest item on that list, the one with lots of stars next to it, is to get my big booty back to the gym. Saving that one for Monday. Why do I always make fitness and diet a Monday thing? In actuality, I'm guessing that sets me up more often than not for failure, because if Monday doesn't work out, I'll just put it off until the following week. Grrr....

Someone also said yesterday that this batch of blah-diddy-blah days most likely has something to do with the weather. I LIVE IN FLORIDA, for God's sake. Even with the mild cold spells we've had so far this year, you can't get any more sunny than this. Nope. I just think it's all in my head, and that I'm focusing way too much on this new hobby of mine called focus on the happy. It must be possible that too much focus on being happy could make one unhappy, no? Geez, I sound like a deranged guest sitting on Dr. Phil's sofa. Nevermind. I'm staying right where I'm at, in hot pursuit of Simple Abundance.

The daily passages for the past few days have been relatively unrelated to my life, but there was one last week, on Jan.6th, that really made me think...
..."Standing Knee-Deep in a River and Dying of Thirst". It's actually the title of some cheesy country song, with which I will not torture you, but the general jist of the song/the passage is pretty good food for thought. Basically, it's the idea that we rush through our days from one place to another without appreciating all the things, and more importantly the people that can help us to find and/or experience happiness. They are standing right in front of us and we just keep on rushing by. It's a 'can't see the forest for the trees' kinda thing...stuck in the details, totally obblivious to the big picture.

Relating it to my own life, I'm reminded of just how much time I spend focusing on each individual tree -- today, so far, it's been Riley's yet-to-be-honed writing skills, and Keira's un-patched Daisy Scout uniform, and the dinner that I haven't made, and my unfinished to-do list, and ... When I stand back and look at where my brain goes, it almost never, if ever, goes naturally to the places of abundance in my life. Rather, I spin my wheels all day long, thinking about the places that are lacking and/or unfinished. Why is that? Why can't I just open my eyes in the morning and be thankful for all those fabulous things I take for granted that are readily available and abundant? A hot cup of coffee. A kiss goodbye from my monkeys in the morning. A day with which to accomplish things. I guess it just means re-training my brain, which otherwise goes automatically to all the unfinished business. Sounds like a daunting task.

I'm trying to focus on the positive, but not necessarily the simple things. Maybe therein lies the secret. For the next three days, I'm going to find three simple things that are present in my every day life and be specifically thankful for them by writing them down. Meanwhile, I'm going to find a way to knock at least three things off my ever-growing to do list every day. If I only get to two, so be it.

A friend of mine posted this tune this morning on FB. It's actually from the Dinner for Schmucks soundtrack. On a sidenote, my recommendation would be to skip the movie and buy the soundtrack. It was good in places, but for the most part the storyline was just all over the place. Anyway, I love this song...it makes me happy. And since that's the topic of the day/year...how to be happy...thought I would post it. Have a super-dee-duper-dee day, People!!!

What a morning
Made to order
What a rainbow
We'll go there someday

See that blue sky
Knows no limits
That's why the clouds stay away

It's so easy predicting the way
People shrug in surprise
When they hear what I say

Hear laughing doubters
I'm laughing louder
I don't really care

There's a song in my ear
I've been hearing for years
Somehow it always appears

What a way to
Spend the day you
Can't turn a corner
Without making friends

Every second
Life gets better
I don't know where it will end

It's so easy to know what they'll say
When i walk through the streets almost every day

Dear laughing doubters
I'm laughing louder
I don't really care

There's a song in my ear
I've been hearing for years
Somehow it always appears

Dear laughing doubters
I'm laughing louder
Why should I care

There's a song in my ear
I've been hearing for years
Somehow it always appears

Rango - Behind the Scenes (ET) NO JOKE SOOO FUNNY

Since the topic of the day is 'what makes you happy'...this is going to make me really happy. Keira and I can't wait to see it. Crunchy, creamy, cookie, candy, cupcake -- sounds good to me! Perhaps with a dollop of Johnny Depp and a cherry on top...

How Happy Are You Right Now?

That's the question of the day from the pages of Simple Abundance (herein, SA). Oyyy....do I really have to answer that? Honestly? Do you mean, how happy am I in general, or at this exact moment in time? Can I plead the 5th? If not, I'm gonna say... I have absolutely no idea how happy I am in general, but right now I feel pretty darn happy to be sitting here, frittering away my Friday morning, pondering what might make me happy. Guess it can be said, as it has all along, that it's truely a luxury to have the time to ponder such things.

The quote of the day (from SA):

"Perhaps if one really knew when one was happy one would know the things that were necessary for one's life." - Joanna Field

After I read today's passage, asking me how happy I am, I did some research. Joanna Field, it turns out, is actually the pen name for British psychoanalyst Marion Milner. Had never heard of either, so went to Amazon to see if I could find her journal, A Life Of One's Own, published in 1934. After reading the reviews, found a used copy for 99 cents, and it's now on it's way to me. I love finding treasures within treasures. Would add here, literary treasures make me happy.

Anyway, Sarah Ban Breathnach (herein SBB, author of SA), likens Field's journaling to detective work, as she "searches through the minutiae of the mundane in hopes of finding clues for what was missing in her life." Quick sidenote. I had to look up minutiae - n. pl. mi·nu·ti·ae. Small or trivial details.

This idea of wading through the trivial crap encountered throughout the average hum-drum day struck a chord instantly with me, as it describes a fair number of my days, and I had to find out what Ms. Field was journaling about. Apparently, she kept the journal so that she could find the triggers of happiness in her day-to-day life. Seems logical enough. Since I just started journaling again as well (separately from this, to save anyone who might read my blog from the snoozefest comprised of the detailed thoughts rolling around up there), I'm going to take my cue from Joanna, and jot something down every time I find a way, as SBB puts it, to "savor small, authentic moments that bring us (me) contentment."

Funny how the simplest thing can be suggested and sound like an epiphany, no? Directions: write down your feelings, most specifically your happy feelings, when you have them. Not exactly rocket science, is it? Also interesting that as I sit here typing away, I feel happy. Nobody around to ask for something. Phone set on 'silent'. Sound of water trickling in the background. Just me, myself, and I piddling away on the laptop. Maybe I'm on to something here.

Let's go back to A Life of One's Own for a minute or two. Imagine, that a few weeks before Christmas, purely coincidentally (I'm actually not a big believer in coincidence), I finished reading a book that I picked up in the $3 bargain bin at Big Lots. That book is called A Life of One's Own, by Ilana Simons. Different book entirely, same title. What are the odds that a month later, I would stumble across Joanna Fields' version, published 73 years earlier, and feel the need to order it.? It's not as if one literary work referenced the other -- they came to me completly independent of one another. Very strange. And yet, comforting. For me, it's very simply a matter of the Universe sending me a message. The message is not that I need to go out and get a 'life of my own', per se, but rather that both of these books have an important message for me. After reading the first, I'm convinced.

Simons' A Life of One's Own is almost written in journal-like format, but is called a 'guide to better living through the work and wisdom of Virginia Woolf'. I have never read a single word of a Woolf novel, even in college. After finishing the book/guide, I very quickly decided that (1) I will read her 'guide' a second time and (2) that can happen only after I read To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. Since I don't know much about her novels, even after reading a book based on her thoughts and ideas, I played close-your-eyes-and-point and decided that To The Lighthouse shall be my first (and who knows, perhaps my last) Woolf novel. It is also en route to me. It appears that I'm going to have to clear my schedule next week and plan on some quality reading time 'of my own'.

The beauty, as I read back on my post today, of having nobody really tuned in to my ramblings, is that I am able to follow the point I'm trying to expand on, and that is all that really matters. The point, in summary, with something like coincidence thrown in for good measure, is that it's universally important to identify, to seek out, the things in life that make someone happy. None of us do that often enough...find the quiet moment where all is well in the world, and there is a feeling of contentment. As I mentioned earlier, I have it right now. Question is, why can't I keep it indefinitely :) In any event, I will spend the weekend focusing on finding that awareness, the ability to recognize when I feel happy. That's homework worth doing.

My New Modus Operandi...Simple Abundance

I started to talk about this yesterday, this treasure of a book that has been floating around the house for years and never been opened. I have decided that I'm going to use it on my journey to finding peace and contentment in my already amazing, albeit slightly chaotic, life. I'm jumping in a few days late, as it's meant to be cracked open on Jan.1, but I kinda like the idea of new beginnings having a slight delay in program -- just seems more like real life.

My posts have always been about entertaining someone, adding an ounce of comedic value to someone's day and making them laugh a little. Guessing that won't stop here, although the direction I'm taking will be more for the chicas than the chicos. Sorry guys. Not really anyone checking in at the moment anyway, so it's really is all about ME. I was thinking that I would read the passage every day and do the old-school journaling thing, pen to paper, but I'd rather blog. Who knows, my ramblings may even inspire someone along the way.

The book...will just give you a passage from the back cover that pretty much sums it up:

"Simple Abundance...Embrace its gentle lessons, savor its sublime common sense, dare to live its passionate truth, and share its extraordinary and exhilarating gift with every woman you encounter: the authentic self is the Soul made visible."

Cool, huh? I love that the word Soul is capitalized, the way that God is/should be capitalized. In my mind, that is to say that Soul = God. Undeniable, in the way that I see the world. I have bounced back and forth over the last several years on the topic of 'is there a God'. I have decided that there most definitely is. What that means from the standpoint of my thoughts on organized religion is a whole different can of worms, and I'm probably going to steer clear of those discussions. In summary, I like very much the idea of embracing the spiritual, loving, and being thankful. All of those things require a love of God, as it were, and I'm absolutely down with that. It's not my place to stand on a soapbox, and God knows (hee.hee.) that I'm not going to come forth with any revelation that's not already been put out there, but part of the process here is therapy through thought. Meditation via blogging, if you will.

So...what do I like so much about this book? Initially, I was leery, assuming it would lead down a traditional Christian path, eliminating all other ideas about religion when discussing the spiritual. I'm not opposed to that, as I grew up in a Christian family and for the most part, that's where my set of beliefs and my faith reside. That said, after lots of reading and pondering. I have a lot of different thoughts and ideas about God and the Universe that are most definitely outside the lines when compared to what I grew up believing. I think it's called spiritual growth, and I dig it.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I was contemplating the ginormous stack of fix-yourself books on my nightstand. I wake up every morning, and it's the first thing I see. The daunting task(s) that lay before me. How am I going to improve my marriage? What's the best way to increase/improve my emotional intelligence? How should I go about keeping the sparks flying in the bedroom after oh-so-many years? How can I talk so teenagers will listen? And the list goes on...and on...and on... I picked up that cumbersome stack this morning, chucked it in my over-sized Barnes and Noble shopping bag, and took it on a field trip to my therapist's office. Jeff, who outside of my hubby is the only other sounding board I'm using for the time being, was in complete agreement. It's time to put that stack on a shelf for awhile. I'm going to pick one of those books, and put it UNDER my new friend, Simple Abundance, and on TOP OF my frivolous fiction of the day. Three books on the nightstand, stacked in order of importance. Now, that's a bit more manageable.

So here we go, on a journey to discover Simple Abundance. C'mon along...

Dear Long Lost Blog,

What can I say? To you, my neglected-but-often-thought-of friend, I can say that I'm sorry I've been missing in action AGAIN for so very long. Yep. April 11th, 2010 was the last time you heard from me. Oops. What happened, you ask? Where have I been all this time? I've decided I'm not actually going to go there for now. There's no point really. The exercise of the day is about embracing the future, not the past. Suffice to say that I am celebrating, with much jubilance, the departure of 2010, and I have no immediate need to go back there anytime soon.

Can I get a Wooooooohoooooo??!!! January 5th, 2011. New year. Clean slate. Fresh start. All that jazz. I don't usually get excited about a new year. I usually spend a good 24 hours recovering from the hangover that inevitably follows the 'celebration', and just keep on truckin'. This year, I have decided that there's absolutely no reason not to get excited...shout it out...relish the idea of a new chapter in my life. Truth is, I didn't really celebrate the new year on January 1st. My new year is starting, rather, on the 5th. I've actually been in a bit of a state for the last week, since about Dec. 26th in fact, that one might call a funk. Funk would be a great word for it. I was sitting here today, on the fence about whether to start blah, blah, blogging again, and it dawned on me that this strange but therapeutic form of communication with the cyber universe (in reality, virtually nobody) is/was something that I've always enjoyed. I like to write. Don't care who's reading. So here I am. The old format, that is to say, the newer old format, shall most likely fall to the wayside. Not sure yet. In writing to an audience of none, that's certainly my prerogative (never knew that's how you spell prerogative).

So what's my plan? No idea :) Thought I would start with the idea of a new beginning and go from there. I was taking inventory today of the books on my nightstand. Somewhere down the road I will get to the list, but bear with me here. With the exception of the über-popular Girl With A Dragon Tattoo (quite frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what all the hoopla is about), those books all fall into the fix-yourself category. That said, the sub-categories are incredibly diverse. In any event, it made me think that there are a lot of things I would like to see happen in 2011, improvements in my life and in the lives of the people I love. And why shouldn't 2011 be THE YEAR?

Will come back to all this in a minute. Continuing with today's ponderings... On the other side of my bedroom, in a little sitting area I cherish immensely, I noticed a book that I've probably moved from one place to another three hundred times and never actually opened. It's a book my mom has, a book I bought at a used-book sale, called Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy. Today, I decided to open it. Who doesn't need a little more comfort and joy in their day, right? How much energy had I spent moving it, whilst not gleaning a damn thing from it? It's one of those books where there's a message/passage for every day of the year. Since it's January 5th already, I had to play catch-up and read the first five. Wow. It turns out it's really good stuff. As the title suggests, simple stuff. Reading those things, in turn, got me thinking about you, my long lost blog, and to make a short story long, that's how I ended up here. Strange, where a day may take you. With regard to my initial proclamation (Born to Woohoo!), I don't think I've ever doubted my tendancy towards all things Woohoo-esque. I have been woohooing since I could walk. The question is, what happens when you put all that woohooing to good use and channel those woo's and hoo's into something worth getting excited about -- your own daily existence.

I will leave you on that note, Dear Blog, in the hopes that I think of you as fondly tomorrow and return for another attempt at examining these thoughts I'm having...the main idea being that my year might just be full of life-changing revelations. Hmmmm....