Tag: Habit/s

Simply a Moment| 1.15.25.

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The sky’s a brilliant blue, nary a cloud. The only white is snow, still very much here, clinging steadfastly to roofs and the ground. Our highs have been in the 20s, since our snowfall a week ago Monday. Even the birds and squirrels are staying put in warmer places. Can’t say I blame them.

I’m contemplating my own venture out “into the nature” as my grand niece Dolly (then age 3 years and now, mid 30s), dubbed going outside In today’s type of weather, her forays “out into the nature” are pretty much relegated to taking her boys to the school bus stop in the AM and meeting them, at said stop, in the PM. If I do venture out, it will be for a quick, brisk walk mid afternoon: today’s high is forecast to be 31 ~ feels like 21 degrees below zero. Brrr!

Fast Forward to today ~ Friday, 17th January:

I left off Wed, 15th Jan, with all good intentions to finish and publish this post – then 142 words, +/-, before the sun set. “Dinna” happen … Spent yesterday with quilting stitchin’ friends, catching up, sharing stories and just enjoying ourselves: good food, good tales, good time. Only one of us – the eldest ~ 82 years ~ is an “old cat lady” (definitely not me!). Psst: Quiet as it’s kept – or maybe not so – I’m second in the age line: only two weeks younger than she)….

I generally start the day’s writing with handwritten journaling on 5 x 8.5 papers, dot grid, disc punched, loose leaf papers. I often use mini sticky notes to plan as well as capture the day.

9:01 AM ~ Another WH ended and I’ve thus far, entered 272 words . I’m not a word counter, i.e., I don’t set a number of words per session goal tho’ perhaps I do aim – somewhat- to reach 500+, and during Jami Attenberg’s 1000 words weeks challenge . My basic goal is to establish the “write daily” habit throughout the day. And especially, to establish the habit of doing an evening writing session. I can do this tho’ it WILL BE A TRUE STRUGGLE ‘cause once the sun sets, so do I. However, the days are going to get longer – DST or not- and there’s no better time than the present to revise and ramp up my writing practices.

So I shall end this post with this quote from W. Timothy Galway:

“There is no need to fight old habits, start new ones instead.”

And for the record, this post, tho’ it’s taken me several days to finish, is a mere, plus or minus, 432 words. Onward!

To be continued!

Cheers~

in with the new | 2024 …

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I started this post on Sunday, 12.30.23, listening, as I have most Sunday mornings, to the wshu radio musical program: Sunday Baroque. I know, feel it in my bones, that I’ve been listening to this radio musical treat for at least 24 years of Sundays… Sometime, earlier in 2023, the program’s start time shifted. It appears to me that streaming took over. I know I can/could figure it out or at least contact the station or consult the website but I haven’t…”Next week,” I tell myself… the good news is this Sunday I get to tell myself “next year”! Solving this puzzle goes on – to the top ?- of my 2024 list…

What happened to Monday?

Today, Tuesday, 2 January 2024, I am writing this post during my daily 8 Am Writers’ Hour zoom session. I started this gig in 2022 ? (date escapes me ) and have been “faithful” to starting each day, M- F and within the 55 minutes circle of time, to writing. Some people do a word count; I haven’t —-yet!

This is the time of the beginning of the New Year when many resolve to make this the “best year ever.” I do not exclude myself. My plan is to “get my life in order” which is no small feat – I’ve been focusing on just that task for decades – and I do mean decades! Some days I win. Some days, I manage to take those three steps forward, backwards…

Many also choose a word of focus – a one word to guide one’s actions throughout the year. In my writer’s room, I am surrounded by my words, gathered since 2009, when I first started this practice of focusing on a single word for 365 days to help guide my thinking and actions. My first word : JOY.

This year, rather than choose a single word, I’ve decided to revisit all my words chosen and incorporated in my daily life these past 14 years. I have almost all those words in wooden form, each made for me by a dear friend’s husband.

I’ve shared the fact that I am also a big fan of Gretchen Rubin, as she often describes herself: “the Happiness Bully.” I first “met” Gretchen via her book, The Happiness Project, a 2009 publication. I have purchased and read all her Happiness -themed books; I listen to her weekly Happier podcasts with her sister, Liz Craft, also a writer, and prior to Covid’19 pandemic, attended her writer’s book tours (also with her sister). This year, 2024, I am participating in the year-long Happiness Project Revisited .

And, for me, a major component of Happiness is staying true to my daily intentions to bring peace, calm, order, via implementing beneficial habits to my daily life. One of those habits, dare I say life long, is writing. Write2024 also happens to be this year’s focus to listeners of Gretchen’s and Liz’s annual challenge. Again, dare I say “ A match made in heaven” ?! (Currently I’m typing this on my iPad and it is being uncooperative with making an Interabang: a combination question and exclamation mark. Grr!)

It is 10 AM. Writers’ Hour has been over an hour and I, distracted trying to make the Interrobang on the iPad, lost track of time as well as my train of thought. I see I shall have to take a photo of my words, A – Z…

To be continued…Do you have a word for 2024? Please share in the comments and a link to a blog post if you wrote/published.

Write On!

Cheers~

Happier | 8.25.23 …

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I’ve spent most of the past couple days sorting through papers for notes and ideas I want to retain…I have the bad, bad habit of writing things down on any and all available pieces of paper …and while doing so captures the moment, retrieving and using my “brilliant idea or thought” is more often than not, just a notion.

I tell myself that I should capture these “brainstorms” digitally in/on one of my iToys, er uh, tools – my watch, phone and or iPad. Yes, perhaps, but the pencil and paper are so handy and besides, I’ve been using them far longer than the digital tools have been in existence. But, as James Clear, author of Atomic Habits shared in his weekly Aug 17, 2023 newsletter, 3-2-1 Thursday:

“Some things work and some things don’t. There’s is almost always another way to get where you want to go. Don’t keep trying to open a locked door.”

Perhaps that is the key. Perhaps I will set up some sort of digital repository for my brilliant ideas.

Perhaps…

Attention!

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… Catching my own is more than a notion. A lot vies for mine, as evidenced by the “plethora” – a favorite Norman word – of notes, both sticky and un – that I write, on whatever’s available, usually with a pen. And, as I am prone to handwrite, know that I avail myself liberally. Quite.

I believe Habit was my word for 2019. A chosen word for any given year – and I’ve been choosing one since 2009, easily – doesn’t just disappear when the clock strikes 12:00 AM of the new year. The words become and stay a part of one, forming a “dictionary,” so to speak.

I began writing this post during Writers’ Hour last week – I had only typed 92+ words. Note to Self: remember I have Apple Notes on all my devices and can not only type but also write with the Apple pen and my voice, i.e., the microphone, which comes in handy when walking, too!

I think I want to embrace the “technology” just so I will a) break the habit of writing on assorted pieces of paper and b) have more time to spend exercising my creativity vs shuffling through random notes and thoughts and ideas and, and, and…

Doing so will, I am 100% certain, result in my being:

… less, disorganized, frazzled, overwhelmed, scatterbrained;

…more creative, experimental, fulfilled!

… Happier!

What’s one small thing you might do to make your life happier?

Cheers~

*Dostadning: https://www.dostadning.com/home

PS.
Photo taken on a walk earlier in the month of a left-over Holiday yard display.

an idea… maybe

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  1. Several years ago, well to be exact, in 2015, I bought a small table loom and yarn with the idea of practicing weaving. It has become a bucket list item…
  2. Last week, 2019, I treated myself to a tin of FineTec pearlescent colours. These watercolors, when painted on black watercolor stock, are brilliant…
  3. Today, 1.2.2020, I had an idea related to documenting my 2020 habit journey: I will weave  – Rumplestiltskin anyone? – and paint  – Monet? – habit trackers to document my OLW journey, one or more months…

Joining Carole for Three on Thursdays…

Cheers~

my word, continues …

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Over the course of the past month, I’ve been considering candidates for my 2020 word. Last week, I thought I’d settled on the word CULTIVATE – one of many candidates. Others in contention: create/creative; finish; focus; garden; grow; Yes to No!, etc. The list of candidates grew longer and yet, nothing just quite grabbed me.

Saturday, I started reading Wendy Wood’s  Good Habits, Bad Habits, a book that’s been in my TBR stack easily a month, six weeks. The  book has received favorable reviews; the more I read, the more convinced and comfortable I became that YES! Habit was going to continue to be my word in 2020.

Habit permeates all aspects of life:

  • complicates yet eliminates decision making;
  • fascinates yet eludes;
  • helps and hinders;
  • liberates and traps;
  • confounds and explains
  • etc; etc; etc.

I am really looking forwad to continuing my journey with Habit. 2019 was a year of flirtation; I just didn’t really get very involved. I plan (hope?) 2020 to be an entrely different story.

In 2019, Juliann of Chasing Stories invited us to join her, the last Tuesday of the month and share an update on our experience with our words. She isn’t going to continue hosting our sharing;  I volunteered to keep the practice going in 2020.

I hope you will share your 2020 word and join the monthly updating the last Tuesday of each month. For this month, December 2019, please leave the link to your post in the comments. The January, 28, 2020 post will  have the inLinkz (link up) active.

I look forward to our 2020 One Little Word journey.

Happy New Year!

PS. You can read  about Juliann’s 2020 word here

 

unraveled wednesday | 11.20.19 …

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Nearly twelve hours ago, 7:00 am, I settled in my favorite spot, the dining table in the Great Room (aka as the kitchen/dining area) and proceeded with MSQT – morning solitude and quiet time. I opened my journal and began to write: I am on a quest to create a new habit by eliminating an old one: writing on whatever’s within reach.” The consequences of my current habit: a myriad of notes on a myriad pieces of paper… My goal is to contain random thoughts and reflections, miscellaneous ideas, to do items, forget-me-nots, brain explosions, and lapses, etc in one-to-two spaces/places …only!

Thus, I have spent the entire day – still at it as I pen this post at 5:50 pm – sifting through a few months’ accumulation of random sheets of papers  and transferring thoughts, quotes, ideas, lists, forget-me-nots, etc onto/into one common journal. All of this against the background of today’s Congressional impeachment inquiry hearing, still in process.

In the above photo, a hat I’m knitting – started last winter – to donate; a delightful book on forest bathing that friend Laura introduced at our beach weekend – I love trees, and that’s a topic for another post – and a pretty cool 3-D birthday card…

My stomach’s beginning to growl and the second hearing’s begun so I shall sign off…joining Kat and friends for this week’s unraveled wednesday.

Cheers~

 

 

unraveled wednesday| 10.30.2019 …

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Honorehat

~me, 2009~

I made the witch’s hat in 2009 for Kayla, who was then 9.  Fun to see my  then state-of-the-art smart phone. Obviously, I hadn’t (and still haven’t) perfected taking  state-of-the-art selfies…

So, here we are at the end of October…just 62 days left in this year! Where does the time go? How did 303 days unravel so fast in what seems like the blink of an eye? I know this month has almost whizzed by, partly because the last LOAD layout a day challenge for 2019 ends tomorrow. The prompts, based on Tom Hanks’ movies and career, have been not only fun but also informative. I have learned as well as enjoyed the stimulation. Over this calendar year, thanks to LOAD challenges in February, May, August and July, I’ve made a minimum of 97 scrapbook pages: stories of me, people (family & friends), places and things. I am not necessarily (at least I don’t think I am) moved by time-bound challenges: our layouts have to be posted by 3 AM, Pacific Standard Time (I’ve never been up at that hour) to qualify. I generally finish and post by 7 pm EST…however, I do think the accountability metric helps move me to completion. I wonder how I might translate that into other areas of my life?

The next 62 days are going to be busy, busy with birthdays: Norman’s is Friday, mine two weeks after that, two weeks later, Elias will be two, and then two weeks into December, my sister’s! That doesn’t even take into account Thanksgiving and Christmas preparation and celebrations! Nor the 1001 other activities: eye/dental and medical appointments, concerts and events, dates due, general life items, and projects on my calendar/planner.

Clearly, if ever, the time is here for me to call upon my better habits and say out LOUD: YES to NO! No, I won’t add a single solitary bright shiny new activity or project to an already packed list…and to that effect, I am not undertaking NABLOPOMO (even tho’ I don’t think it’s still in existence, I did post daily last November);  I am going to make a gratitude journal but it won’t be time bound, i.e, required to be completed within a 24 hour period! Saying YES to NO! will be a huge contribution to days filled with those activities that light my life and fill me up.

I’m continuing to practice the Continental knit stitch; am reading Just Mercy  and Stillness is the Key; started The Water Dancer and have several books on my phone that accompany me on my walks. I just remembered I (still ) have a Christmas stocking with a few/some rows to finish; guess I’ll resurrect and get movin’ on it again.

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday and Juliann for One Little Word monthly update.

Happy Halloween, y’all!

Cheers~

 

unraveled wednesday | 7.31.19 …

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I have quite a library of books about journaling – no surprise. Last week I bought Be A Blessing, a journal created  and written by Debbie Macomber, the author. It’s colorful, fun and she uses a gardening metaphor. I think I’ll buy copies for my nieces’ Christmas presents.

I finished the journal! And soon it will be wending its way to my friend in FL. I opted for the elastic band; she also weighed in and said she liked that option. Wish granted. Thanks for your suggestions and votes.

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My next quilting project is to assemble approximately 75 of  the above squares – each different and made by members of my quilting association as a gift/thank you at the end of my presidency, 2015. Obviously, I didn’t rush into completing this quilt; it has literally taken me this long to find a fabric I liked that complimented the variety of the blocks. All very colorful. I think the fabric works.

And that’s the way it is on this, the last day of July 2019. My, how time flies! Feel that way to you, also?

Joining Kat and friends for another Unraveled Wednesday.

Cheers~

PS. Several readers commented on yesterday’s post about habits and the “need/desire” to make a few adjustments to their own mornings. Check out this link on the process of using a tiny habit to create a new one.