January 2 - Live the Questions

I don’t believe I have ever really thought about what questions may be feared in my life that are holding me back.  I know that I do like to have all the answers before I jump headfirst into something.  In reading about living the questions, it makes me realize that every year, I don’t have this at the start of the year.  The year holds a clear slate to begin again.

 Where will this new year take you?  Where will it take me?  Who knows where we are going now and where we will end in December of 2008?

I think the questions this year, not personally, but for the larger country include a presidential election.  People, mostly the candidates themselves and the pollsters, hope they know the answers.  What they often fail to realize and consider is that the imperfect human may say one thing one week and do another thing the next week.  This will render polls rather insignificant.

The Triple 8 Challenge - Reading

If you are interested in participating, please visit the “official” site for details. Below are my entries and partial lists. I will be updating as I can.

Books by Jimmy Carter - CAT 1

   1. Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope
   2. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid
   3. Our Endangered Values
   4. Christmas in Plains
   5. An Hour Before Daylight
   6. Always a Reckoning and other Poems
   7. Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith (overlap)
   8. Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation

Penguin Paperbacks - CAT 2

   1. Sun Kissed by Catherine Anderson
   2. The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lillian Jackson Braun
   3. Sister, Sister by Eric Jerome Dickey
   4. High Heels Are Murder by Elaine Viets
   5. French Fried by Nancy Fairbanks
   6. The Lipstick Chronicles by Kathryn Shay, Fiona Kelly, Vivian Leiber, & Lynn Emery
   7. The Corset Diaries by Katie MacAlister
   8. Hot Dish by Connie Brockway

Self-Improvement/Learning - CAT 3 

   1. Life Makeovers by Cheryl Richardson
   2. Ready for Anything by David Allen
   3. Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern
   4. Get with the Program by Bob Greene
   5. Make the Connection by Bob Greene and Oprah Winfrey
   6. Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach
   7. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, MD
   8. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by His Holidness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler MD
Books about Church/Bible - CAT 4

   1. The Bible
   2. The Catholic Faith Handbook
   3. Sources of Strength by Jimmy Carter (overlap)
   4. They Were Women Like Me: Women of the New Testament in Devotions for Today by Joy Jacobs
   5. Women of the Bible: A One-Year Devotional Study of Women in Scripture
   6. The Confessions of Saint Augustine (overlap)
   7. Prayers Before an Awesome God by David Haas
   8. What Paul Meant by Garry Willis
Books for Creating/Creative Help - CAT 5

   1. Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus
   2. Celebrate Your Creative Self by Mary Todd Beam
   3. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Oprah’s Book Club Books - CAT 6

   1. Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
   2. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
   3. The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve
   4. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
   5. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
   6. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
   7. The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier
   8. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolver

Books from College (These books were required reading by my college-aged kids and we still have them.) - CAT 7

   1. The Confessions of Saint Augustine (overlap)
   2. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
   3. Escape from Slavery by Francis Bok
   4. The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream by Davis, Jenkins, Hunt, and Frazier Page
   5. Watership Down by Richard Adams

Summer Reads - This category will remain slightly empty until June, most likely.  I spend about $35 on books to read over the summer each year - paperbacks that I think will be good while at the beach, at the pool, out grilling dinner.  Those included already are books I love and re-read every summer.  CAT 8

1. A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffet
2. Sammy’s Hill by Kristen Gore

January 2008

I have read Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance:  A Daybook of Comforto and Joy for many years.  I love this book as it has daily readings and it helps you along both an authentic and a creative path.

 As we start a new year, a new beginning as SBB calls it, we are called to realize that what we want comes from knowing who we are.  What we truly want does not come from the material things that we collect.

I have posted my aspirations for 2008.  These are the ones that I feel I can tell the world.  There are many more aspirations that are private, that I am not sure that I want to voice to the world yet.  They are written in my journal and are were I can see them, see the progress towards them, see if they are truly what I want.

Daily Meditations

Every year I read a book called Simple Abundance, which is a book of daily meditations.  I find that as I read I get different things out of each reading at different times in my life.  These readings are not totally spiritual, though some are extremely spiritual.  The readings are about living as your authentic self.  There are readings about how to organize parts of your life, how to bring out the authentic you.

Usually, by December, my life has caught up with me and I am seldom reading.  This year I vowed that I would read each December entry as a way to keep myself focused. 

I was particularly taken by today’s entry entitled “Passionate Kisses.”  There is a quote at the beginning of each reading and today’s just made sense. 

“A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point.” - Mistinguett

I guess I never really thought that much about kissing but that makes perfect sense.  In the beginning of a relationship a kiss is like a question mark.  It is another in a series of inquiries to help you discover each other.  During the more “quiet” or more “mundane” ( and that is not really the word I want but I am having troubles coming up with the word I want), a kiss is like a comma.  And during those truly passionate, finding and defining moments, a kiss is definitely an exclamation point!

Comfort Food - Simple Abundance for July 7

As I was reading the daily musings in Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance, I thought about comfort food and the college student.

Today’s reading discussing five types of food - haute cuisine, lean cuisine, comfort food, soul food and nature food (can’t really remember #5 without getting my book from its reading location).

How does the college student, living on his/her own for the first time, deal with comfort food?  If he is away from school, does the cafeteria smorgasbord settle for comfort food?  Or is it always comfort food?

Aspirations for 2006

Well, I have sat and looked at last year’s aspirations and goals. I have noted where they have gone, been accomplished or otherwise. Now I need to work these into my life in 2006.

• Submit art and get published. To this end, I am going to try to create something at least three days a week. My creating has gone to the wayside as work has increased. I am also, as a way to get published, going to look ahead to the themes major art magazines will have in 2006 so that I may have a creation on hand to submit. I will also join at least three swaps a month to keep me creating whether I want to or not. So basically, there are several steps within this one goal.
• Help Susan make a successful transition to all facets of college life - social, athletic (more on her own that coach run) and academic.
• Work on reorganizing the garage. The goal of being able to fit a car in it is rather unrealistic but it is possible to get it reorganized so that I am not afraid to open the door.
• Lead Simple Abundance faithfully this year. Be sure to post a starter to each monthly thread.
• Be more active as a mod at OrganizedHome.com.
• Read 2 books a month - including re-reads.
• Fitness - I will walk 500 miles this year. In past years, I have done a month by month goal and then get disappointed when I don’t reach it. I will say this - Jan and Feb will have 20 miles each. I will list the rest of the months by mid-Feb. I will walk more during the summer months here due to our lovely weather.
• Fitness 2 - Once the kids are back at school and the tree is put away, mid-month, I will do Pilates 4 times a week.
• Budget - I will attempt to not overdraw my debit account at all in any given month this year. Sometimes this is hard for me. It should be easier this year as I renegotiated my pay structure mid-year last year and it is a set amount per week.
• Budget 2 - I will pay my utility - electric and gas come together - on time.
• Budget 3 - I will pay off debt as I can.
• I will become adept at utilizing menu planning so as to maximize the money spent on food and the variety in our diets.

Review of Last Year’s Aspirations

Here are my aspirations from last year.  I have a section below that sort of lists where I went with them.

• Have my art published somewhere. I am aiming for print publication but in an online zine will work also.
• Help the twins make the transition from high school to college smoothly.
• Finish decluttering garage so that at least one car will fit in it. Since, at this precise moment, that is all the cars we have, it would be nice. The unfortunate, or unrealistic, part about this is the garage is the only storage space I have so it may not really work as a garage for a car.
• Finish Simple Abundance totally this year.
• Read one new book each month.
• Keep a monthly goal of miles walked. Try to meet or exceed the monthly goal each month.
• Work to establish a new budget starting in June with the new college expenses that will come with two more teens going off to college in August.
• Utilize menu planning to maximize the money spent on food.

While I submitted many places and in many formats, I did not reach my goal of being published in 2005. I am going to carry this aspiration over to 2006 with more detailed steps to getting published.

Aspiration 2 is definite! Both twins have had successful first semesters.   Elise had a low grade of an A- so even though homesick on occasion, she made the academic transition.  The homesickness went away as she got more involved on campus.

Aspiration 3 is well, unrealistic.   This has not happened. I did some decluttering over the summer months but not enough for a car to fit in. I am going to keep working on it throughout the 2006 year but most likely will not do much until at least March due to weather.

Simple Abundance was read in totality.  This did happen. I have started a 2006 group in aspire: book group at OrganizedHome.com.

Overall, the books I read in 2006 would average out to one new book per month. Actually, I read 25 new books, not including re-reads, in 2005. Unfortunately, I seem to clump these and do not read consistently throughout the year. I will work on this more in 2006.

Any fitness goal I had sort of fell by the wayside as work picked up. I am going to try this again this year.   I am going to set a miles goal for the year and break it into monthly chunks that reflect the walking weather here in upstate NY.

I am working slightly out of my budget at the moment so need work in this area.

I do utilize menu planning occasionally but do not do it regularly so need more work here also.   By utilizing this on a regular basis, I hope to keep within my food budget and introduce my family to a more varied, healthy diet.