New Year, New Me

In November our family hit a rough patch and it has been an intense and immense journey the past few weeks. There had been a lot of soul searching, questioning, worrying, wondering, analyzing, medical concerns, spiritual concerns and more. In the course of that time I lost a significant amount of weight, wasn't eating much for several weeks, not sleeping well and feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders as I tried to support my little family finding its way through this time of crisis. Needless to say everything else quickly went by the wayside and we went into survival mode, big time.

Found this beautiful photo of my little family from about 10 years ago while going through a box last weekend. It has been the source of great peace and happiness to me to see the joy in them.

While all the problems and challenges have not faded, things have gotten better and I am a stronger, happier, better person for the journey. I received a blessing a few weeks ago wherein it said that I would look back on this time as a blessing. I can already say that is true in a very specific regard right now. I have grown and learned and changed myself and my relationship with God is vastly greater than it was a few short weeks ago.

I have had the opportunity to talk about my spiritual journey publicly a couple of times lately and with many friends privately. It has been a blessing to share what we are learning in life, our past experiences and grow together in life. I have learned so much from the dear people I love. I have also experienced the blessing of recognizing how many wonderful friends I do have and what they will do to help in a time of crisis.

Amazing people I have around me and if that isn't one of life's greatest gifts I don't know what is! Sometimes we go through hard things to see how loved and appreciated we are and to see the blessings of others' service -- and to allow them the blessings of selfless service. I cannot count the amazing kindnesses that have been extended to our family in the past few months. Purely amazing.

I find that during these times of growth are when I have the most profound experiences that I want to share here and discuss here with you. So I have a long list of new blog topics to cover in the next few weeks. Finally here at the beginning of February I feel that excited energy to charge into the new year and really take it on. Full of goals and excitement. Looking forward to engaging here with you more.

I am also very happy to look forward to the Winter Olympics beginning tonight. I have always loved the Olympics, especially the winter games, and find them so inspiring. Such a great way to get the excitement and energy up for taking on a new year. Can't wait to sit and watch every night we can with my family. A festive fun activity for winter nights.

 I am also headed out to Alt Summit at the end of this month and have been busy the past week getting plans in place. I registered last summer and it seemed like it was years away still. February 2018?! And then suddenly it was February 2018 and I had completely forgotten what month Alt was happening. So I got a hotel room, not at the host hotel unfortunately, but it's close.

I won't have a fabulous new wardrobe to take with me, I won't have a fancy new blog design to tout, or any great partnership with a big corporation to share. I still won't have 1 million readers or have had my home shared on an international design website. I'm just going to go as humble little me and hope that at best I get some new business cards designed and ordered to take with me. Keeping it simple only because that's all I can do right now.

I think it will still be a great experience and all those social/popularity things can't be worried about. I am looking forward to meeting some online friends I have been acquainted with for almost ten years now and never met in person. There are new friends who I will be having some deeply personal and amazing conversations with too - that's already planned.

I also have a Valentine's Day gift/project I am working on that desperately needs to get going. I'm running out to paint part of it right now so it has time to dry while it is warm. There are so many things I must do and so many fun things I want to do. That keeps life fun and exciting I think and I am feeling a lot of joy in life these days, even though it is far from perfect. It's my good life and I am so grateful for it.