Saturday, January 01, 2011

It's a new year

And a new year, calls for new things.

It began a few weeks back. AdRi was away on the east coast, coaching a baby out of her sister. I told her she should have brought her softball glove, but she opted to leave it at home. The baby still came, and she indeed did catch it, and we have a beautiful new nephew to add to the growing brood of nieces and nephews and babies galore. And rumor is this summer may see the return of Camp R.

But I digress. New things. Case in point #1:
Before:
before

Chop chop. Time to let a few things go and lighten the load.
chop chop

You can see the updated version in my About Me page there at the top of the blog, which, by the way, is a fairly new addition here. There's also this page to check out, if you like.

There are so many things brewing in my cauldron for the new year, and today I plan to stir it up a bit. I can't possibly write all about them in one post, so over the course of the coming days I'll share bits and pieces with you here. But here are a few thoughts....

Last year my word for the year was Shine. I wrote about it here. And while I didn't ask myself every day how I was going to shine that day, I have been reflecting these past few weeks on how Shine was instilled in my life throughout the year, and it is amazing to me.....

For the first time in my career, I entered my work in a design competition—the most prestigious of competitions in my book—and I won. I MC'd a fundraising event, I was recognized with Most Future Thinking Master Gardener of the Year. We hosted a fundraising event in our garden for a national and a local LGBT organization. I donated over 300 hours in volunteer and pro bono time to causes, political candidates, and organizations I believe are working to make the world a better place. I started a podcast. There are many more things to add to this, but these are a handful of ways I incorporated Shine into my life, and my life reflected it back to me, ten-fold. There is a powerful tool here; part manifestation, focus, dreaming, hard work....and it's so easy to rush right on and move on to the next....the next list of to-dos, or goals, and we all know those are never-ending. Instead, I've forced myself to reflect and capture the past year, to look at it, to tally some numbers and hold things in my hands, to examine it closely and acknowledge where I've set the bar and jumped over it, and where I didn't.

But now it's a new year, my long hair is gone, and I'm ready to step into a new one. Are you ready? I am. Let's do this thing.

8 comments:

Heather said...

I love the new cut! Happy New Year Lelo!

A Lewis said...

I think it goes without saying that I'm right there with you. Lightening the load is perfect. Happy New Year friend.

danger garden said...

Your new hair rocks! I look forward to another full year of LeLo posts!

Anonymous said...

Hi LeAnn, My gosh I had no idea how many projects you've got under your belt. Makes me dizzy just thinking about it all. Serious Kudos to you! And congrats to the new nephew. I love your new do. Shine on!

Kate said...

So many things about this post inspire me. Let's do this thing!

Emily said...

gorgeous haircut!

e said...

Feels good to chop it off, doesn't it!? I'm looking forward to that myself...

Let's do this thing!

Rozanne said...

Props to you on so many amazing accomplishments.