Happy New Year!!!!

It's 1.1.11 (how cool is that?) and just like last New Year's day and the year before that, I chose a word to embody what I want to focus on this year.  Last year's word was SIMPLIFY, and it worked wonders around our home.  I purged like there was no tomorrow; stuff, our brimming schedules, more stuff, my tendency to overcommit, even more stuff.  Frankly, it's amazing we have any stuff left! 

In the absence of all the STUFF, came an amazing sense of PEACE just as I'd hoped it would.  And God got in on the act too, tossing us the opportunity to move to Illinois and REALLY get rid of the unnecessaries in our lives.  Start from scratch, even, in many ways.  I love it when He lets you know you're on the right track!

For 2011, now that we've cleared our home and our minds and hearts of all that stuff clutter, I want to bring my focus back on the quality of the lives we're leading.  That's why my word for the year is (drumroll please...)

I spent our plane ride back to Massachusetts this past week scrawling a multiple-pronged plan to nurture our minds, bodies and spirits in the coming months.  And I found the most wonderful quote to exemplify the plan.

"Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream"  Lao Tzu


More on that next week though, because the number one thing I need to force myself to do this year is to get more sleep - and since it's 1:30am, I'm already behind!

Goodnight, sleep tight, and Happy TwentyEleven!!!