Moments in Time

I've been saying "yes" a lot lately.

Yes to getting together with friends at a moment's notice. 

Yes to extra responsibilities at work. 

Yes to learning new music on guitar - an instrument I picked up just a few months ago. 

Yes to auditioning for a ballet (a spontaneous decision.) 

Yes to giving myself permission to dream and plan for the future, even if it could be disappointing. 

After a year of taking things slow, limiting my commitments, guarding my alone time as my most precious possession, and refusing to make long-term plans, I find myself becoming increasingly outgoing and involved in the lives of those who have managed to get inside my circle of trust.

(Maybe I'll write about that special circle of trust another day.)

How do you spend your time? 

We all have the same hours, minutes, seconds in each day, yet as individuals we can each decide to spend our time in an innumerable variety of ways. 

How does the way you spend your time make you feel? 

Depending on my activities, I find I usually feel either satisfied or anxious. These reactions can give me a clue as to whether I'm making the best choices for myself, though how often I choose to pay attention to those clues is another story.

As I say "yes" to more activities, more responsibilities, my "down-time" becomes busier and I have to concentrate on making sure I'm keeping a good balance in my life. Rather than become overwhelmed by the changes, however, I find myself invigorated by the possibilities and determined to succeed at my new endeavors.

Still, no matter how busy I get, at the end of the day my cat requires a good snuggle - and that is always a highlight for me. After all, our days are made up of such small moments that together create a lifetime. Thus it would seem those small moments truly matter in the grand scheme of things, wouldn't you agree?

"Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second."
~Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

She Believed She Could

Do you ever find yourself scrolling through quotes, trying to find the perfect sentence to describe what's on your mind?

It could be the essence of a feeling, an inner motivation, a thought that begs for analysis, wisdom passed down from famous people, or simply words set down in an order that strikes a chord within you.

Just me?

Because I do this nearly every day.

I have a theme or a mood that comes to mind, and my go-to source is Goodreads, where I search by word, phrase, author, or book until I discover three or four quotes that I find inspiring.

Sometimes I pair them with pictures I've taken, or I write them on pretty paper and stick them on my wall as a daily reminder.

More often they pile up in a long list and are forgotten until the rare occasions I scroll through my "collection" and remember why I was so inspired.

It saddens me that inspiration can be so fickle. Or maybe I'm the fickle one, because I can be driven with a fierce motivation one day and then forget why it was so important the very next day. Quickly my brain comes up with excuses for why my ideas are unattainable, or foolish, or imperfect. My plans to accomplish great tasks fall prey to distractions and an addiction to comfort.

Are there viable excuses that make this inability to complete a project forgivable?

Certainly. Unexpected events happen, headaches occur, or friends require quality time.

However, as I have grown in self-awareness, I know that I personally have a difficulty finishing what I start. There are a million ideas, which of course I want to tackle simultaneously, and then I overwhelm myself and get nothing done.

Seems incredibly inefficient, no?

Yet that is my life pattern - over and over again I become inspired, make plans, and then find reasons not to bring those plans into fruition.

(*On a side note, there are plenty of times I do accomplish great things! I also have an inner drive that hates to leave things unfinished and there are occasions where I nearly break myself in order to see something through. I am an enigma of contradiction.*)

No matter my successes or failures, I have a perpetual need to do better.

"Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it...yet." 

~L.M. Montgomery, (Anne of Green Gables) 

Rather than become bogged down by dwelling on what I have not accomplished, I will try to focus on what can still happen and pursue that.

"It's never too late to be what you might have been." 

~George Eliot 

What is something you've thought about doing for a long time but haven't felt possible? Something that perhaps scares you, or seems ridiculous for some reason or other? What if you tried it, and it worked? Allow yourself to hope and dream and fight for what makes you smile. What if you succeed in making your dreams come true?

"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says 'I'm possible'!" 

~Audrey Hepburn 

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." ~Maya Angelou

Shaking the Blues

Scrolling through various social media sites today, I couldn't help but notice "Blue Monday" being referenced by numerous people.

Not knowing what this special day might be (it seems every day of the year has to be titled something or other) I turned to trusty Wikipedia to determine what was going on.

Apparently it's calculated to be the most depressing day of the year, due to various factors (time since Christmas, breaking New Years resolutions, winter gloom, etc.)

Well, that sounds like something to celebrate...

After my initial smirking at what seemed like yet another over-hyped internet fad, I started to think about what logic might be behind this claim.

While I don't necessarily think one day needs to be designated as the most depressing of all, I can see why this is something people are connecting to. Personally I've been struggling with a sense of lethargy as I look ahead to more bleak months of winter and the monotony of work. There are no immediate changes or events on the horizon to be energized about, and I have to turn to inner motivation to accomplish even the smallest tasks - inner motivation that frequently feels weak and illusive.

Seems like typical January behavior.

With the freezing temperatures, snow piles everywhere, short daylight hours, and let down after the holidays, it's easy to slip into unhealthy habits and slough off those goals set just two weeks ago.

After all, I wasn't really considering my energy levels when I made those lists - life happens, my cat wants to cuddle, and there are hours of tv shows calling my name. Clearly I should re-sort my priorities.

Wait! What!?

*alarms go off*

Methinks "priorities" is misplaced in the above sentence. Little by little, these thoughts will eat away at my year until suddenly 2018 will be gone and what will I have accomplished? With little else to claim my time and attention, NOW is when I need to motivate myself to read, to sew, to write silly blog posts that maybe two people will read, to exercise, to practice my music, to learn new things and make checks on my to-do list so I can go to sleep at night with a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

So here I am, writing a blog post that I'm starting to think isn't very cohesive, cooling down from a high-energy workout and about to pull out my guitar to practice until the neighbors get annoyed. It's getting late, but I'm a night owl and this is when I get the most done.

I may be feeling those winter blues, but I refuse to let them get me down and rob me of what could be the best year yet. The only thing standing in the way of accomplishing my goals is myself, and that's a battle I'm willing to fight.

"Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Way is Shut

How was your freezing cold Friday? (Freezing if you are in MN that is. We are talking negative Fahrenheit. Yesterday was COLD!) 

Mine started with my garage door being frozen shut. Just a typical day, I guess. 

Thankfully the apartment maintenance guys were chatting in the parking lot so I pushed down my pride and asked them for help. 

Friends, my door wasn’t just frozen shut. Something inside had broken and even after loosening the door from the ice they still couldn’t get it open. 

Poor Shimmer (my car) was trapped inside a windowless garage. 

The younger of the two guys decided to check in the neighbors garage for a way in. It opened easily and the man proceeded to vault himself over the high wall between the garages, managing to avoid kicking my car as he descended into the darkness and opened the garage door from the inside. 

Oh! Guess what? It wasn’t just the opener that was unresponsive. Some spring or other had also broken so the pathetic door couldn’t even hold itself up. 

It isn’t every day a girl gets to back her car out with two guys manually holding the door open. It’s good to appreciate these things when they happen. 

Now we wait while they get a professional to fix my delinquent door, and meanwhile Shimmer will be experiencing the freezing cold for a few days. Poor Shimmer is not to blame but she will be the one punished. Such is the poetic justice of this unfair world. 

But soon she will be back in her warm garage with, hopefully, a functional door.

Dreams of Lovely

Greetings!

Welcome to Dreams of Lovely! For those who fancy an occasional dose of quirky, here is where I shall indulge in splattering words about in a whimsical manner that will hopefully make my readers smile.

Why am I starting a blog? With many imaginings and thoughts whirling through my brain at all times, I am in need of an outlet where I can attempt to express the chaos that is begging for release.

Also, as someone who toys with the idea of being a writer someday, one of my goals here is to force myself to actually concentrate on what I write and develop this underused skill to see if there is any potential to pursue.

It would be impossible to ask me to specify a focused topic for this blog - I have so many varied interests that I must be allowed to explore! One guideline I would like to share, however, comes from a verse that helped inspire the name of this blog:

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think of these things." ~Philippians 4:8

With that, happy reading!