Anticipating and Prioritizing 2013

Greetings, blog friends.

Merry Holidays to you all.

Since I've had the past week off work, I've been off my normal routine. One of the things to slip by the way side was blogging. I needed a bit of a computer break, and while it felt a little strange at first, it was actually kind of nice.

It's typical for me to be lost in thought during this time of year. I've been thinking about the past 12 months, considering the lessons learned, thinking about how those lessons have changed me, and wondering how I can put all that to good use in the upcoming new year.

In the past I would have done a year-end recap on my blog. I'd show you all the stuff I did, things I made, road trips we took. But this year, as I scrolled through the archive posts for 2012 I was overwhelmed at the thought of recapping all of that - mostly because the running theme was my mom's illness and subsequent passing, and also because I just don't have the emotional energy to do it right now. {So, if you want to see what I did this past year, please refer to the archive list on the left sidebar of my blog - and we'll call it good.} ;o)

Carrie and I were talking about an online class she took recently related to goal setting. {She reviewed the class on her blog here.} In our discussion, she mentioned that one of the things that stood out for her was the subject of priorities - think about your priorities, then think about how you actually spend your time...

Leave it to my girl C to be the one who puts things into perspective for me. That was just the conversation I needed in that moment. I had already started a list of things I want to do in 2013: play with clay, crochet an afghan, make a quilt {or two or three...}, spend time art journaling, and the big one: less time on the computer/more time on my yoga mat.

Everyone told us that this first Christmas without my mom would be tough and I have to admit that part of me didn't fully believe that. I hadn't spent Christmas with my mom since I was a little girl, so her absence this year wasn't going to affect me like some people assumed it would. Hm. Wrong.

It wasn't the physical absence of my mother that hung over me during the holiday season; but more the vulnerable feeling of our own mortality that has been hard to shake. Losing someone so dear has changed me. It's changed me in ways that I want to write about, but not blog about. It has changed my priorities in terms of who I spend time with, and how I spend that time. It has made me want to spend my precious time more wisely. And thanks to my conversation with Carrie, it has me thinking about my priorities.

I'm still not sure how this shift in my priorities will change how I blog, but I know it will. I'm excited about the new year and how it will change who I am and how I move through my days and weeks. I trust that it's going to be just perfect, with a whole new set of challenges and lessons to learn.

I'm ready, 2013!

Happy New Year, everyone!

♥