Gratitude Given in Advance vs Resolutions

 

Happy New Year to you all! I began my blog journey eleven years ago with a New Year’s blog so this is always a special day for me to write & reflect. What is it about the not-so-simple turning of the calendar that makes us reflect & urges us to be grateful for another year? I, personally, am so glad we have that demarcation in 'time’ for quiet thought and resulting hope for the upcoming year.

        So I am always one to put aside a resolution and try something new. In my mind I think it may be easier than 365 days of that certain deprivation or something we look to attain in that coming year. The reality is that what I tend to choose is essentially harder than a resolution. Let me explain this year’s reflection on the matter.

        I’d first like to say thank you to some of the most thought provoking authors/speakers who have had a positive influence with helping me to move myself, my spirit forward in 2022. They are Mike Dooley, Sonia Choquette, Lorna Byrne & Rhonda Byrne. They all have contributed to a better understanding for me of the universe, my angels & guides & my life in general. So they are the reason I chose this year’s New Year’s topic.

                     Gratitude Given in Advance

Four words ~ Sounds simple? Well, I do practice gratitudes. That is to say that every day I am grateful for friends & family, for a lovely home & job. At the end of the day these are ‘easy’ to remember. Mike Dooley emphasizes ‘Thoughts Become Things’ and that is a cornerstone for me. What I have found is that the imagination it takes to be thankful for something that has not yet occurred is way more difficult for me but I know so powerful if I can finally learn to be consistent with those thoughts. So for this morning of New Year’s Day I will keep it simple and say that I am grateful for the successful dinner meal that I served to family & the improved breathing I have been able to do (since I have a cold). I want to emphasize to myself that I am grateful for the freedom & imagination I have in abundance that it will take to successfully begin & be consistent with this journey today, January 1, 2023! So much better than a resolution! Happy New Year!

Weed or Flower or Weed??...

         You have to love springtime, especially you gardeners out there. The birds are busy. The flowers are popping. The weeds are well just being weeds. They are everywhere you look. You may spend time weeding a bed and you turn around & there’s another & another. Well you get the idea.

        So when is a weed not a weed but a flower or a flower not a flower but a weed? Well the good news is you don’t need to read gardening book after book to find out. It really just depends on you & your very own, unique perspective on your garden. For me, right now this very day – wild strawberry is a weed. It is so pervasive this spring I want to scream! The violets I have in my beds are blooming so pretty right now, however the ones that have crept into the grass, well those very same are weeds to me – this year. (I might, however, tell a friend or stranger that I have ‘naturalized’ said violets into my lawn!) Is that crazy? Well, weeds will do that to you. We devote so many hours in the spring trying to eradicate and control the uncontrollable.

Three colors of Lamium & Forget-me-knots

Beautiful weed?

I am fighting the losing battle with a weeding tool my Bestie recommended – a Japanese sickle sharp-edged blade garden handheld weeding hoe. (see pic) It’s a mouthful but it’s a game-changer as far as time spent, effort made & success rate. Crazy again? Well weeds and their flower counterpart will do that. I plan to win this year’s battle with this handy tool this year. When I walk around showing off this year’s efforts, I know my friends only see the gorgeous perennials I love so much. When I visit their gardens I only notice the beauty in their beds also. That is the sanity that replaces my crazy.

So I will consider my efforts good exercise, excellent therapy and a perspective shifter. At this very moment I have a framed photo of the above dandelion in its soft, lovely seed form on my mantel. The weed has become a flower or a work of art & definitely a perspective shifter. Why be crazy after all? Life & spring are way too short.