Another Night Out

I had one roller coaster of a week. There was some really awesome highs and some really crappy crappy lows. It was wonderful to get out with my book club friends for a night of wine tasting and salsa dancing. Oh, how I needed the break and 'adult' time.

Here is to next week being a better week.

More Magazines To Grab

I am very excited to share these new publications with you!! First up is the lastest issue of Step By Step Wire Feb/Mar 2010celebrating their 5th year in print! SBS Wire shares some exciting news for wire loves in the letter from the editor. Now, instead of just 4 or 5 issues a year, they are upping to 6, YOO HOO!. So, this is the Feb/Mar 2010 issue and I have a project inside. On page 36, you'll find step by step instructions for my "Waste Not, Want Not" resin and wire bottle caps. Yep, the ones I showed you last week, only filled with wire instead of words.

The Best of Step By Step Wire was a surprise to me! I was in Barnes and Noble, saw it on the shelf and said "hey? what's this?" Then flipping through the pages I found I have two projects in here!! How cool is that? I am honored to know that the editors of SBS Wire thinks two of my projects are in the top 25 of the last 5 years!! Honored!! The two projects are classics of mine... Berry Wineand Sandy Lanterns. If you have been on the fence about ordering either of these projects on their own, then definitely order the magazine. That way, you get both projects and 23 others!

Ingredients for Soup

Check me out just a few minutes ago with my unwashed hair in a just rolled out of bed ponytail, all bra-less (not that you can see that!) still in my pajamas, rocking a sweet little pair of earrings.

I really lucked out in the big Bead Soup Party of 2010. I got the best partner! THE BEST! The wonderful and talented lady of the blog Jewelry Of Distinction, Barbara Lewis, is my partner. Look at what she sent me?!? Seriously, people, seriously. My soup has the best ingredients. It is as if my soup will be made with fillet mignon and organic potatoes. Heck, I have more then soup here... I have stew.

I am working on gathering my own ingredients to add to the pot. We need some onion and carrots and tomatoes too... no celery though, I hate celery. The big bead soup reveal party will be happening in just about 2 weeks. Stay tuned, it is gonna be fun! In the meantime, check out the Bead Soup Party flickr group and check out all the other goodies getting cooked up.

As for what I sent to Barbara's studio/kitchen:



I can't wait to see what she cooks up! OH, and if you want some of your own fabulous torch-fired enamel beads by Barbara Lewis, check out her etsy shop HERE. I love her colors.

Relief

Thank you so much for your support everyone. Andrew's IEP meeting went really really well today and I am thrilled to report he has qualified for services through the Committee for Special Education. He is going to continue receiving the services he already has and they are going to be testing his "pragmatic language skills" too (yes, that is wiki link and wiki isn't always accurate, but if you want to find out more, check it out). I can't tell you how relieved I feel to finally have documents in my hand say that school has to help him and that he won't be brushed under the rug. *sigh* such relief.

State Of Mind

Jacob's room on a "dirty day"

I was passing by the boys' rooms the other day when I saw further proof of just how different these brothers are. These doors (photo above and photo below) are side by side, separated by all of 6 inches. Jacob is on the left and Andrew is the room to the right. Jacob quite clearly finds comfort in order and Andrew finds it in chaos.

Today, I find myself channeling both the boys. On the outside, I am sure I appear much like Jacob's room. I am clean (took a shower first thing this morning), I am organized (there are several appointments and important phone calls on my plate today all well planned), and there is just a tiny bit of "unkept"-ness to me too, like the unmade bed there (it is raining today so I am bit weathered, shall we say, with droopy hair). On the inside, I am feeling like Andrew's room, and unlike him, I am not finding it comforting. I have millions of thoughts in my head today, like those millions of legos on his floor, and lots of random wants too, like those half open dresser drawers of his.

I haven't talked much about Andrew lately. For those of you new to the blog, Andrew is my middle child, 10 years old, in 5th grade, and he struggles with mental illness, specifically: early onset childhood Bi-Polar Disorder NOS. There are a couple reasons I haven't mentioned things lately. First, so much of life with Andrew feels like the movie Groundhog's Day... the same thing over and over, I don't want to bore you and I am not looking for a dozen you're-a-wonderful-mom-comments. Second, my blog is really a form of personal therapy for me, and more and more lately, I find myself wanting to keep this little place all to myself. I want to try to keep it positive, and separate from those things that have me down at times. Plus, I usually get a few emails after one of these posts suggesting I should be medicated, those I can do without (don't take this the wrong way, if you sent me an email, you know if you were tactful or if you weren't... I am talking about the not tactful ones). Also, I have said before, that for some reason, I feel kinda guarded lately. Letting everyone in to see this side of my life can be hard sometimes. Just sometimes though, because anyone who knows me knows that I am very very open to talking about anything under the sun.

At the same time that I have all the reasons why I don't talk about things, I have reasons I feel I should. So many of you have followed this blog from the beginning and you were there when Andrew was first diagnosis, and you were there through the struggles in school, and the suspensions, and all the medication nightmares. I think there must be those of you out there worrying about him and part of me wants to set your minds at ease. Along with the "you need to be medicated emails" are the very thoughtful and heartfelt ones that tell me I am not alone. That there are those other moms out there that have children with mental illness too or strong people that share they struggle with it themselves. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it when someone shares their stories with me. It always brings tears to my eyes and hope to my heart. Unfortunately, I don't always respond to them because I am left with feeling so overwhelmed that I don't know what to say.

I am babbling again. Anyway... there is a lot going on right now with our little boy. Meds were changed again back in December. We had a "good" month or so, mood-wise, but he has been steadily declining again. Doctors have said on several occasions that we may be dealing with an Axis II personality disorder, though it can't be officially diagnosed until age 18. He is on very strong medications (lithium, abilify, and lamictal) and the fact they aren't working has us confused and shaking our heads, and trying to find out what our next steps are. School is doing everything they can for him, and tomorrow we have his IEP initial determination meeting. And no doubt, that is what has me wanting to talk today, and makes up about 900,000 or so of the million thoughts in my head). Right now he is struggling with ELA (english language arts, aka: reading and writing), and testing showed his reading level to be between mid 2nd grade/early 3rd grade. NYS testing here is scored on a rating of 0-4, we found out on the Social Studies test, Andrew was the only 5th grader in the school that scored a 2. Ugh.

We aren't fighting for him alone anymore, and that is something exciting to share with you. As a result of the Home Based Crisis Intervention program we took part in back in Sept/Oct we were referred to a group called FACT (family access crisis team, I think) that has set us up with something called "Care Coordination" for Andrew. It should be starting in the next couple of weeks. Basically, we are assigned a social worker who will create a support team with the sole purpose of making Andrew's life more "successful". We will find areas he is struggling in and come up with ideas and plans to attack that struggle. And not just with school! Andrew struggles socially too, so there will be a "skill builder" for him to help show him how to make friends and act in public... not that we haven't tried, but maybe it will be better coming from someone else. We are told there is "respite" for us too. I truly can.not.wait for it to get started.

I will be sure to share with y'all the results of tomorrow's IEP meeting. We have a great child advocate that we have been paired with that is an absolute pit bull and wonderful source of information. But still, keep us in your thoughts. We could use all the love we can get.

Andrew's room on a "clean day"

It Fits Perfect

happy dreams darkly bright

I have been experimenting again.(imagine me ringing my hands together and laughing like a mad man when you read that last line) My Wordless Wednesday post showed a little sneak peek photo of this new resin bottle cap design. Did you see it? LOL, not likely. It seems my resin has turned and gone all cloudy and yellow. Oh well, it was old. I had hoped that it would clear when it hardened, but alas, it is still a wee bit cloudy. Unlike this photo huh? LOL. We had a rare afternoon of sun yesterday that was begging to be photographed.

I am kinda excited about these new bottle caps. You might remember these caps using up lots of wirey scraps and made into pendants. I have been thinking for a while now that I wanted to find a way to set some of my mixed media paintings into small bezels, set with resin, and made into cool components. As I was making these though, I couldn't quite get the look I was going for with the tiny paintings/drawings, so I let my mind wander and pulled out that tattered copy of Shakespeare sonnets I have been using for my latest series of paintings. I opened to a page and picked a word. Suddenly, all sorts of words were jumping out at me.

There are many times when I see "inspirational" things with words or phrases and I wonder what *I* would say given the opportunity. Most of the time I can't think of a thing that hasn't already been said. The other day was different. The sentiments just seemed to roll out. I love this phrase that jumped out to me "happy dreams darkly bright". It isn't anything Shakespeare said, these were words from different sentences on different pages. I like that... I really like that.

The other phrases that are in the few caps I made are "loved clearly", "dream that it may be", "treasure beauty in love", and "nimble tears for sweet ♥". Yeah, for some reason, "love" comes up a lot in a book of sonnets... go figure. LOL.

Anyway, fresh resin is on its way to my studio. I plan to make more of these (I gotta lotta caps in my studio!) I would love to hear your thoughts though. Should I be making these into funky mixed media jewelry pieces for y'all or do you want the components to play with yourselves in your own jewelry designs? If I make them for you to use, do ya like one loop to connect to (like a pendant) or two (like in this bracelet)? An inquiring mind wants to know.

Hey - A GIVEAWAY!

Look what I just found!! The blog Make + Do is giving away a copy of my book!! Hurry... you only have until Sunday to enter!

The Bonnie Express

Remember back before Christmas when I showed y'all the special thing I was going to attempt to make my Sister? Well, that project totally crashed and burned. The yarn wasn't right, the gauge wasn't right... the whole thing wasted about two solid weeks of knitting and was completely ripped out. Ugh.

BUT, one day, during that two weeks of wasted knitting, my sister stopped by and showed me an ad from the store Express with a sweater in it. She said "I can't stop thinking about this... could you make it?" To which I thought... "ah, no? can't you see me making this coat for you? hello? this isn't exactly easy, you know." Naturally though, I caved. She has that effect on me. Big Sisters with little Sisters will know what I am talking about. How could I not attempt to make her what she wants? SO, I set to making my first ever "original" knitted pattern!!

It is inspired by that Express sweater but changed up quite a bit. It also turned out mid thigh length making it more coat than sweater. The yarn is Cascade Ecological Wool in the color Coffee. I am calling it "The Bonnie Express".



I tried desperately to get it done in time for Christmas. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. It was wrapped in the condition you see above. Each one of those rows on the back takes about 20mins to get through and there are more then 100 rows!! That is a lot of time spent sitting on my butt. Sister has called me no less than 100 times since Christmas with the question "um, so Sister, is my sweater done yet?"

I am working on it, Sister. Soon, it'll be done soon.

Wordless Wednesday

Tending The Flame

Last week, I talked about my creative fire and how it was in some serious need of attention. I have been using the analogy of how I light our home fire each day and linking it (look, there is my word!) to my creative life. So far I have swept away the ashes of the last creative fire, and started to gather kindling for the next fire in the form of signing up for a new class and I have been having fun revisiting some of my favorite bead forums.

Visiting the forums is something I haven't done in ages!! While writing my book, I wanted to put myself in a bubble so that I was sure that all my ideas were my own. I wanted no unconscious influences... know what I mean? But, the forums can be such a huge inspiration. There are so many individuals sharing so many ideas, it gets your own ideas going. You see one thing and think... hey, what if I changed that up? what if I do it like this? what if I used different colors? Then, once in the moment of creating, even more ideas come. It is awesome.


So anyway, last week, once the ashes were clear and I had some kindling ideas, I struck a match, literally, and lit my torch. I have to tell you about a conversation the hubby and I had a few weeks ago. He commented on my lack of bead making of late... to which I responded "it has been so long since I made beads, I have no idea what I want to make." Do you ever get that feeling? Too much time away from something and you forget how to do it or where you should start? There was so much more to the thoughts going through my head when I said that to Ron that I can't really articulate it. He told me... just do it... just make anything.

You got to see the results of last week's torch time on Friday. Today's photos are the results from torching Saturday and last night. I can't tell you how long it has been since I was up at 6am and the first thing I did was race to the kiln to see my beads. Seriously. There has been a major lack of anticipation round these parts and I am excited to have it back.


These new beads are miniature paintings. I had the idea that I wanted to take the flowers I create in my mixed media pieces and give them life on the surface of a bead. There are so many layers that go into one of these. Each one takes at least 30mins to make (some longer). That is a long time to hold your breath while doing line work, LOL. I am completely in love with these new styles of beads. In LOVE. They have me kicking my kids out to the bus as early as possible, flippin' that kiln on the minute they are gone, and losing track of time until they come back home later in the afternoon.

Now, all these thoughts are swirling around the analogy of lighting a creative fire, right? What happens when you first light a fire? Y'all know this. You get a big burst of orange and you think things are lit, but, BUT, if you aren't careful, the fire burns itself out in seconds. Am I right? You have to keep feeding it or you end up having to start from the beginning all over again. Let's hope I can keep this spark alive and really get this creative fire blazing.

A Night Out

Ron and I got a very rare opportunity to pretend we are childless adults this weekend. We are still recovering from our 3am return home, we aren't as young as we used to be, many cat naps were taken yesterday. LOL, there was a death match game of Paper Scissors Rock that started around 2am, and I had to drag Ron away. It was hilarious because he was saying we would be home by 10pm, in bed and watching X-Files.

What had us out of the house? One of Ron's best friends (the best man in our wedding actually) turned 40 and we got to go to his surprise party!! Most of the fellas in Ron's old high school crew are turning 40 this year. And I must say, a lot of nostalgia comes with 40 it seems. I have never gotten so many hugs in one night!! The man love and hugs between the boys was even worse. You would think they were going off to war. I have known these people since I was 16 years old and yet, I missed to moment when we went from beer, jello shots, and drinking games to $90 bottles of wine and making song play lists on Rhapsody. Weird, but awesome at the same time. I like this grown up version of us so much better.

Anyway... the kids are home today. We have some stuff to do. I had some great time on the torch Saturday morning and I waiting to get back to my experiments, there are really exciting beads in the works here. Stay tuned.

(ps... a huge thanks to Lindsey and my Mom for taking our three kidos off our hands for the night! YOU GALS ROCK!!)

Channeling Aliens

I think that if you were me and you had watched a few too many late night episodes of Season 2 of the X-Files with your hubby, had weird dreams about your sister being preggers in an Amish farmhouse, and were listening to "The Host" (a book about alien beings invading earth and using humans as "hosts" for their alien souls) on cd in the studio while making beads, you would make crazy Mod Dot/Plaid "Hybrid" beads too. And you would love them as much as I do.

Snatch one up for your own out of this world creations... HERE!

Insert Shoulder Shrug Here

Please excuse the bead poop (aka: the bead release) still inside these beads, they are fresh from the kiln. After weeks and weeks and weeks away from my torch, I have no clue what I should make!! LOL. With just a little time yesterday to play, I had Mod Dots on the brain and I decided to experiment with some different color combinations. So far, nothing has me jumping up and down. I will be back at it today though. There is still hope.

Redeeming Qualities

Only took about three solid hours of cleaning to get the studio in shape. I thought it only fitting that it redeem itself today after that horrible display earlier this week. I told you that one wall looked like part of a dungeon! Now, I just need to get that glass desk of mine in order and it'll be time to get that fire lite. And seriously, with a studio temp like that (see kiln temp in last photo)... a fire is quite literally needed, lol.

Happy Wednesday Everyone.

More Totally Twisted Classes!

I have really got to focus if I am going to be prepared to teach this year!! I have been having tons of fun designing my class kits. I had this cool stickers printed for the fun boxes all my class goodies will come packaged in.

I have already told you about teaching at Bead Fest Wire in April. (and yes! there are still spots available so go sign up!!) Now, I get to tell you that I will be teaching at Best Fest Philadelphia too!!

Here is what the schedule looks like for August:

Thursday August 19th 9am-12pm Framed: Start the morning off learning my cool technique for making custom coiled "frames" to any shaped bead. Cost $175: included in the class kit will be a one of a kind set of my "plaid" style beads, sterling silver wire, copper wire (for practice), some colored copper wire too, chain and play beads too.

Thursday August 19th 1-4pm Timeless: After lunch, I will be teaching this fun bangle design. One of my favorite designs ever, truly! In this class you'll get to work with a variety of gauges of wire, experiment with coiling, and how to make "snail" style links. Cost $165: included in this kit will be one of my fab lampwork glass discs for your faux watch face, all the wire you need, and for this class, we will make a practice version with copper that features a coll hammer textured copper disc as the focal.

Thursday August 19th 5-8pm Bang, GALS!: Oh yeah... all Kerry all day long! The third class of the day will be an evening class showing how to "use whatcha got" to create a great bangle. What's that mean? Bar glasses as bracelet mandrels, nail polish bottles to make coils... all sorts of goodies can be grabbed in a pinch to help shape your wire!! Cost $175: included for this one, just like all the others, is all the beads and wire you need to make a bangle of your own and the materials to make a practice version too.

WOW!! What a long day that is going to be!! But I am so so excited to be a part of this show. If you can't make it to Wire Fest in April, come see me in August. You won't be sorry, I promise you.

Lighting A Fire

Each and every morning, since the weather dropped below 50degrees, I gather what I need to start a fire in the wood burner in our living room. I sweep away the ashes from the day before. Crumple up some newspaper, layer in some cardboard from the recycle bin, build up a little tee pee of kindling, and strike the match. When the flames take hold, I set to tending that fire all day long, adding more wood, poking and prodding it as the day wears on... keeping our house toasty warm and down right inviting. Part of me loves this routine, another part loathes the monotony of it. Such is life right, and thankfully, I have a hubby that realizes when I am having a loathing-the-monotony type morning (usually on the weekend) and he steps in to get it going.

For some reason, the phrase "light a fire" has been in my brain for the past week or so. Not because of this morning routine though. I feel like I need to be better tend to my "creative fire". I know a lot of you think I am some sort of bottomless pit of energy and creative awesome-ness, lol... but you are wrong. Sorry. Maybe I make it look like that sometimes, and sometimes it is like that, but for the most part, I feel like a lazy creative bum. I need to light a creative fire under my backside and get my mind warmed up.

Okay, so lets look at my "creative fire" like it is sitting in my wood burner waiting to be sparked. (We may need to spread this out over a couple of posts.) What do I need to do first? I need to clean out the ashes from the last creative fire. *sigh*... boring but oh so necessary. I am a little embarrassed to share this, but I am going to shame myself into not letting it happen again.

Check out the current state of my studio...


Looks like a someone went a drunken creative rampage and is most likely suffering from a severe twinkle light induced hangover, lol. But I digress, that is a different analogy for a different day.

The studio, quite frankly, is a mess. And I don't want to be down there. I have taken to calling it the dungeon. I can't breathe when I am down there. My OCD alter ego, Carrie, starts twitching and panicking and before I know it, I am right back upstairs avoiding the studio all together, spending way too much time surfing the web wishing I wear being more creative, and settling on knitting in a big comfy chair instead. My creative fire won't burn if it doesn't have oxygen and if I can't breathe, then yeah... you get where I am going with this.

I started doodling some ideas for dolling up the studio, giving myself more reason's to be down there. Thanks to my handy hubby, there is a new "metalsmithing" station in the works. That means a big new desk!! Because, literally, I have been banging out metal stuff on the floor, I am not kidding (see photo below). There are plans for some custom hubby-made shelving too. All of this is going against a wall I have never show on here. It is the wall between this new basement and the "old" basement. That wall used to be, um, well... underground, so it is muddy and black and nasty further validating the term dungeon for my studio. With the new desk and shelving, this wall will be completely covered. Nice.



You can see in that first photo that there is a lot of clutter going on in that back right corner. Not only is this my studio, but it is also my storage closet for all things studio related. Previously mentioned alter ego does not like looking at clutter. So, last week, I put up a temporary divider in the space. I used to have one down the center of the room, but I need that space. The divider now sections off about 1/4 on the room (6ft from the wall to be exact) making for storage behind, lovely blue curtains to the front. Don't ask about the treadmill... I don't know what it is doing there... it doesn't even work!

Okay... with all that... and some old fashion tidying and elbow grease, the old ashes are gonna get swept away. And I will need to start to gather some creative kindling. I have already started that bit, yes jumping out of order just a little, with this little goodie!!

But more on creative kindling another day.

Bead Soup Party

My pal, Lori Anderson, is hosting a fun Bead Soup Party on her blog! I am excited to say that I am taking part in it too and there is still time for you to sign up as well. Pop on over to Lori's blog and check out what the party is all about.

Beside Myself

I had the most amazing experience yesterday...





IT IS HERE!! Well, not here here... it isn't ready to ship yet, but, my advanced copy of Totally Twisted: innovative wirework & art glass jewelry arrived yesterday!! One of my editors emailed me Monday afternoon letting me know that the advanced copies had arrived in the Colorado office and she would be overnighting me a copy. I so very anxiously awaited the FedEx fella and shortly after I posted my blog yesterday, I heard the knock on the door.

Rebecca at Interweave is such a wonderful woman. She packaged the book like a gift and what a special gift it was. When I ripped back the tab on the mailing envelope, I thought the book would fall into my hand but having the anticipation last just a little bit longer and holding a gift in my hand was absolutely perfect. I held that pink and brown package in a hug for a few minutes as tears welled in my eyes. I had to catch my breath before I could open it.

Once I opened it, truly, it was was like holding one of my kids for the first time. Seriously! There was instant joy and tears and love and relief and overwhelm and surprise and awe. Sounds a little nutty right? But really, I have just gone through a 16 month pregnancy and yesterday I got to hold my bundle of joy for the first time. LOL. I sat, unmoving despite a serious call to use the bathroom, and looked at every single page. I love the soft satin matte finish and feel of the cover... the smell of the press room and ink of the pages... the bold colors oozing out of it... just amazing. I am so proud, and not of myself, but of the book itself. Goodness, I can't wait for you too see this.

After my bonding time with my new baby, I started to make the calls to let everyone know my news. First to my hubby of course, then to a friend, and my Mom of course. She was the first to get to see it. As she has done with all my children, Mom instantly was trying to steal it away to her house. LOL. She is a very proud Momma too.





My friend wouldn't let me spend the afternoon holed up in the house. Despite the 100 straight hours of snow that has been piling up here, she said some celebrating was in order and she treated me to lunch at Panera. Her necklace, sorry about the blur, is one of the first beads I ever made!! Such a great sentiment of how far I have come.

Later in the evening, I got to share the book with my Dad. He has been a pressman for 25 years and of course, looked at the book through a pressman's eye. He liked the work, but naturally, a little sad to see it was printed in China. He said they did a good job with the printing, commenting that it was offset printing on a sheet fed press, not on a web, with 4 color process not pms. He said that he loves all the color and had he been printing a job like this, he would have been very excited to go to work. Makes me wonder if the pressman in China grabbed a sample copy and took it home to show his family like my Dad does with many of the jobs he prints. While showing my Dad, Mom was again trying to find ways to steal the copy away to live with her.

Ron and the kids had their time to check it out too. I showed the kids the special dedication that is just for them. It reads "to jacob, andrew, and lauren... look kids, momma wrote a book". I had an interesting chat with Jacob. I said "see, your name is in print." And he said " 'Jacob' is in print in a lot of places." To which I said "yeah, but those are different 'Jacobs'... this one is you." I know the kids will appreciate it when they are older. I hope they will look back and see all the hard work I put into this and how I was still their Mom at the same time. My Dad has pointed out to me several times that 'someone' was left out of the dedication... where is the thanks to Ron, my hubby? Ah, I know, I may seem like a bad wife, but this one is just for the kids... the next one can be for him. ;)

Tonight... hubby is making hot fudge sundae cake to celebrate!!

Link

Sometimes, I surprise myself. I like when that happens. I will have a bunch of thoughts in my head, a way that I am feeling, and I dwell/stew on that particular mind set for what feels like an eternity. Until... until something comes along and pops me in the face, startles me, and reminds me that, silly girl, your thinking is all wrong. And usually, what ends up doing that, is myself in the form of something I find in the archives of this blog. Another thing that amazes me is the very obviously cycle to my thoughts and feelings that, for some reason, can be completely oblivious to me. Yes, I mean oblivious. I don't see it until I point it out to myself. And although that sounds odd, hang in there, I think this is going to be an interesting post, and it will all come together in the end. (or at least I thought it would two days ago when I started writing this, not so sure about that coming back to it later, LOL)

It is that time of year again. The time when the calender turns, we all reflect a bit, dream/resolve/promise a lot, and the world seems to bubble with a sense of hope and possibility. I find some years I feel the sensation more than others. This year, I don't feel it as strongly as I have in the past. And that is okay. I am almost thankful for it. There is less mania to the possibilities and a little more grounding. I like that. I was thinking back on the goals I set for myself in January 2009. I grinned at myself this morning when I saw that I had succeeded at a few of those goals, and laughed at the things I wasn't so good about. They are things I will probably never be good about, oh well. I did make more art, and will keep that on my to do list this year. I learned some new things and I did cut out a lot of computer time (though I could still cut back more). PJs are just too dang comforting so I didn't get out of the house as much as I could have, and people, seriously, my business spread sheets are blank (I am going to be kicking myself for not following through on that one).

This year, goals haven't even entered my mind until I sat to write this post. I knew I had set goals last January, looked them up in the old blogger archives, and those last few sentences are the gist of my thoughts about goals this year. I guess this just isn't going to be a goal oriented year for me. You see what I mean about some years being more inspiring than other and how this one is not, yes?

While searching the archives for my goals post, I also made a point to find my word post from 2009. That was the post that smacked me in the face this morning. I have had that nagging feeling that I talked about a few weeks ago and for some reason, that post, the word post, made me stop in my tracks. Made me say to myself a bunch of things all at once. (bare with me some make me sound rather full of myself, but that is okay, it is good to give yourself some compliments once in a while) I thought... dang, look how thoughtful I was (that is the thing I surprised myself with), my stars I was sorta eloquent, "tokens" was such an awesome word and it made me see so many blessings in my life, I so should have stuck with the journal, HA!, what is the new word going to be?... Each one of those thoughts, that seemed to all come at me at once, really seemed to validate and at the same time alleviate my concerns about feeling like I don't do enough or that I am not connected to my life enough. Because I *am* enough. And duh, Kerry, look at the dates of your posts, I get this way around this time of year. See, obvious but oblivious.

Anyway, I am starting to ramble, it is time to pull this all together. I loved the word Tokens last year because it made me pause in so many moments and think to myself "what is this a token of?". Granted I wasn't good about marking them down in a journal, but oh well, I still found those tokens and acknowledged them and kept them in my heart. I wasn't good about sharing those tokens with you here on the blog, and maybe that will be something I am better about here with the new word, but hmmm, I don't know. A little part of me is really feeling kinda guarded about certain things lately. I will think on why that is some more and that will be a post for another day.

As I thought and thought and thesaurus-ed on words in seeking out *my word* for 2010, I tried to find something that would help me continue to grow as a more connected and grounded person. I want to work on being mindful in moments and having intention in my actions. Then it came to me... my word for 2010...

Link (lingk)

-noun
1. one of the rings or separate pieces of which a chain is composed.
2. anything serving to connect one part or thing with another; a bond or tie.
3. an association or relationship.
4. a causal, parallel, or reciprocal relationship; a correlation.

-verb
5. to join by or as if by link or links; connect; unite.
6. to connect with or to become connected with.

I have had my new word with me for a few days now and I am already in love with it. It makes my stop and think "what is the link?"... what is the connection?... how can the pieces be brought together?... where is my grounding?... See, it has so many meaning and ways to be interpreted. I love my new word.

Now, what is your word?

(and ps... sorry this is a little on the choppy side, LOL, I had to keep coming back to it over several days and it just doesn't seem to flow like I thought it would. Such is my life. I wonder if I will look back at this post in 2011 and think is was as eloquent as 2009.)

Christmas Vacation Is About - Day 6

... working on big Social Studies projects. (Thank heavens my Mom saved the family tree I created in 1995!)

Christmas Vacation Is About - Day 5

... staying up too late on New Year's Eve and having a cranky afternoon the next day. LOL...


HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! I can't wait to see what is in store for 2010... should be a fun ride.