Source: flickr.com via Barbara on Pinterest
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful time ringing in the new year! I spent New Year’s Eve with my husband and my new family (in-laws). I love the holidays, and was so happy when I got the chance to implement a new family tradition of hosting a NYE Dinner Party at our home. I decorated, cooked, and baked and counted down the hours until the family arrived. We enjoyed a delicious dinner that was both festive and fun! We watched movies, played video games, and had a heartfelt champagne toast at midnight. I honestly can’t wait to host it again next year – bigger and better!
While 2011 was a very good year for me, I’ve opted to not post my reflections on this blog and to actually just meditate on the year in the privacy of my own thoughts. As with any year, and any day for that matter, it had its moments of ups and downs many of which I am very grateful for. And I as prepare for much of the same in the wonderful year to come, I am very excited about where this new year will take me.
Several years ago I dropped the habit of making new year’s resolutions and instead adopted the lovely idea of simply making 1-5 goals and working very hard to accomplish them. So with that being said, I have a few creative projects that I started in 2011 that I will see through in the next month or so and many other random ideas that I would love to bring to fruition this year. How is this any different than making resolutions? Well, first, goals are not sweeping declarations and proclamations such as “I will not curse in the new year!” and “I will lose 50 lbs and get into a purple polka dot bikini!” My goals are reasonable such as launching my new website and painting more often. See?
So in line with those ideas, I’ve also decided to switch up Simply Harmony a bit to reflect more of my passions – my art and writing – and to use it to document more of my creative journey as a writer & artist. I’ve already started to make some small changes here and there, and I plan to make several more and update the design in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
Speaking of changes, I’ve also made a few regarding how I spend my time on the internet. The fact is that blogging, Facebooking, and Tweeting are very time consuming! The more time I spent online doing all of those things, the less time I had for my “real life” and goals. So in October, I shut down my personal Facebook page, because to be frank it was a waste of my time and not helping me at all with my personal and professional goals. (I still have the blog fan page.) I’ve also started to get annoyed with my Twitter feed towards the end of the year so I decided that this year I will clean up my feed so it is a true reflection of my interests and not some random person that I followed back out of courtesy. And the last change is how much time I plan to spend online this year, and to be honest, I plan to scale it way back!
So as I busy myself with my new centered way of living – painting and writing my heart out – I will continue to make the time to share the things that inspire me and all of the fabulous ways that I’ve found to live my life in a chic, healthy, and blissful way.
Cheers to 2012!
This past week I realized that we are halfway through 2011, and it made me think about those few lofty goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the year. My main goal was to commit to writing more this year. Considering all of the life changes -my beach wedding/elopement, relocating across the country, and a 2nd wedding with family and friends - I’m very pleased with my progress. Another one of my goals was to begin writing my novel, and though I haven’t begun yet, I definitely plan to tackle that goal the second half of this year. Other goals include strengthen my faith and working out regularly. Though I am pleased with my overall progress, I know I can do much, much better. Luckily I have 6 more months to get it right!