The End of Achieve...The Beginning of Reduce....

Happy New Year!!! (plus 3 days)...

Weeellll... here I am!  I said I'd be back in January and I ended up actually posting toward the end of December.  I'm so glad to be back!

So... how ARE you?!  It's been a while, and I want to know what's going on in your world...
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Uh huh... really?   How did that happen? 
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Oh my gosh! What did you do then?
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Wow!  That's AMAZING!
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Can I tell you something?  I think that you are soo creative and fabulous and absolutely priceless.  I love that about you!  Thank you for being here.  Thank you for sharing with me.

How have I been?  Well!  Let me see....





Perfect... complete with dead ends, backsliding, monsters, black-outs, screams, turns, hills and valleys.  Hence my "break" from blogging.

But.  2013 is here.  I know it will not be without it's own adventure (and I've already had one!), but I took some time toward the end of last year and really set up some plans and goals, including... again... my One Little Word.

Last year's word was Achieve.  I used that as my topic for 10 Things on the Tenth last January (can anyone tell me if that is still going on? Is Storytelling Sunday still a "go"?).  I can't say I was super successful with Achieve.  However... within my "10 Things", I listed one item using the word "reduce".  And that is the One Little Word that poked me in the heart when I was pondering it toward the end of last year.

REDUCE...
...reduce my stress level.
...reduce my time spent away from my home.
...reduce my weight.
...reduce the amount of bad foods I eat.
...reduce the clutter in my head, heart and home.
...reduce my debt.
...reduce my over-commitments.

I guess many of the things on that list are similar to my "Achieve" list... but you know what?  I am so much more at peace this time around.  Reduce does not mean "eliminate" or "perfection" or heck, even "achieve".  It means "make smaller or less in amount, degree, or size".  And I am so in love with that... I have already ACHIEVED many of the REDUCE items listed above... and I know I can reduce MORE.  Every day.  A little bit at a time.

And that makes me happy.

Along the lines of reducing my stress level and over-commitments... I am INCREASING the amount of time I spend on art-y/craft-y/scrapbook-y each WEEK.  So many weeks went by, last year... in a row!... where I never touched a single thing creatively.  This year... I've already started.

While blogging is a creative outlet for me, and I most definitely am BACK, the break I took toward the end of last year really helped me REDUCE the pressure I was putting on myself to be here.  And that has made all the difference in the world!

So... *insert Kermit-the-frog 'Yay' and arm flail here*

I'm BACK!