Clarification

Yesterday, I posted about a word for the year. I read about the concept at Myrna's space and she links to the woman who first came up with the concept. The word I chose is Kindness and while I absolutely appreciate all the words of support - I did not intend for yesterday's post to turn into a love fest for me.

By Kindness - I mean kindness toward myself. While I have no trouble extending kindness to others, I have hard time doing the same for myself. For example - the photos. They are from this year's gingerbread house display at the Sheraton. They hold one every year and the houses are themed and fabulous. This year the theme was Holidays in the Movies. Well, you are thinking obviously I went - where does the kindness come in? And you're right, I did go on Christmas Eve, after I got off work at 2:00. The entire time I was standing in line (50 minutes) I was thinking of all the other things I needed to be doing in preparation for the holiday. I enjoyed the seeing the houses and loved them all. Max as you can imagine (from Grinch Who Stole Christmas) is one of my favorites.

I also really enjoy "It's a Wonderful Life" and it's a family tradition that we all sit down and watch on Christmas Eve. Well really I curl up on JB's lap and sleep through half of it - but I can recite the lines where ever you wake me up - so it's all good.

So - more on kindness - for me it's about me. I find when I bring my focus in then I'm able to do so much more for others. I don't know why - but it does seem to work that way for me.

So - as they year progresses, I will attempt to be kinder to myself. Treating myself to my favorite healthy snacks or stockpiling my favorite lunch soup when it's on sale and not feel guilty that there are 24 cans of soup in my garage - it was bought on sale and I will eat it.

I will be kind to myself when I spend the weekend making skirts, measuring, trying one, fitting and fine tuning, only to have them be too large when they are finished. Right now the way I handle it is to kick myself and ask how can I be so stupid?

I will be kind when I have a list of things I *should* get done and don't get through it all. And in the name of kindness - some days I will even list *hobbies* ahead of housework.

So - thank you all for your words of kindness and I ask you throw it back in my face when you comment on something and I respond with un-kind words about myself. I know I do it and some of you know it to as you've heard it. So, if you don't mind, please give gentle reminders and help me reach my goal. Happy New Year - 2010 is good so far.

Kindness

So - one of the things I wanted to get done this long weekend was to update my blog. Update the photos in the header adding photos of the three things I blog about most - The dogs, knitting and sewing. Obviously - that only partly got done. I did change the background, but I couldn't figure out how to get the photos into the little boxes in the header template. I sent a frantic email to Angie - [but since my kid (The Musical One) and her friend updated my desktop I can't copy and past into blogger anymore - so no links!!] asking her for help adding the photos to the template - because see how cute her header is? Yea - I want mine to look like that.

I recently found a new blog (again no linking) of a woman who knits, sews, is very organized and uncluttered. She chooses a word of the year and focuses on that word all year long.

This year I believe my focus is going to be on kindness - in all it's many forms. I think I do a fairly good job being kind to others although I will say that I'm failing at that at my job lately and that needs work. But really - I'm not very kind to myself. I believe that kindness will bring many rewards.

So - I will continue trying to figure out how to update the header and make the links work on the desktop again. However, I won't be doing a year in review. Trust me when I say I knit alot, I talked about the dogs, and while I talked and dreamed about sewing - there wasn't much of it being done.

Happy 2010 everyone - may the new decade bring all you desire.