The End, or The Beginning

And that’s when I know it’s over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it’s the end.

(Junot Díaz)

If this quote has a more profound meaning than something like a new year beginning and an old year ending, sorry, its gone right over my head.  You will just have to figure it out for yourself.

I have my own conundrums to sort.  Somewhere back in 2016 I lost my joy of writing.  I would like to find it again. Maybe I lost the joy in a lot of things and that’s the root of my problem in a rather joyless year for the world in general.

But, you know, who the hell wants to hear about all that all over again.

Today my right knee hurts for no good reason and it’s making me sad.  See, this is what I find myself doing.  Complaining to whoever will listen (even if it’s only the little voices in my head) about insignificant crap. And if I were to write down these whiny complaints, that would just magnify shit.  No one needs shit magnified, do they?  So then I don’t write anything at all for a day, or a week, or nearly a month, and that’s easy, and it becomes a habit which gets progressively harder and harder to break.

So here is my brilliant plan for 2017 to blog my merry way to happiness.  Because for me, blogging was once joyous. I’ve set my goal at mildly entertaining for now and will work my way back up.

I have created a new category called “2017 Book of Lists”.  I will make lists of good things.  There are always good things.  If I can’t immediately see the good things I will list the bad things, but only as a last resort.  And only if they are so bad they’re funny.

Here are some good things that happened today.

1.  I used up the bag of leftover taco hamburger from the freezer.  No one is more surprised by this than me, except maybe for W who is always surprised when I spend longer than 15 minutes in the kitchen.   Normally I freeze leftovers and throw them out once I’m not really sure what they are anymore.
2. The cheesey potato hamburger casserole I made was edible!  No, you know what? It was GOOD.  Or we were both abnormally hungry.  It could go either way.
3. I also used up a bunch of apples that had seen better days by slicing them up and covering them with a sort of cake batter before baking them.  It was a nice change from apple crisp.  My mom used to make something like it, juicy sweet moist apple cake, maybe called Apple Brown Betty, but also maybe not.

Perhaps I should have called this a list of FOOD things that happened today.  Whatever, I am off and running, day one done like dinner.

Happy first day of January, what always seems to me to be the longest month of the entire year.  I don’t think filling it up with lists will make it any shorter, but ‘more fun’ is a possibility.  Hey, getting blown up by an asteroid is also a possibility, would you rather have that?  Yeah I didn’t think so.

Art du Jur 83

Or maybe I should say “art du réveillon de Nouvel an,” which might mean New Year’s Eve art in French, but to be safe, don’t quote me.  These are footprint pictures I did for one of K and C’s bathrooms for Christmas, because my son admired the ones hanging in mine that I did for myself.  Don’t ever admire something in my house unless you really mean it.

The photo was taken at night in not very bright light, so the colours are a little weird, but there’s never a lot of natural light in bathrooms anyway so maybe this is what they’ll look like, except less blurry.  Also I think they would look better hung side by side.

Okay!  My year in review!

Ha ha, sorry to scare you, I’m just kidding.  I survived it and that’s what counts.  If I don’t feel like looking backwards at the things I lived through, I can’t imagine why anyone else would want to.  My life is just not that damned interesting.  Onward and upward to another new start on the road paved with good intentions.  That doesn’t always lead to hell, does it?

Whatever.  I have a plan.  It may sound as if it’s made up of very vague resolutions. Because it is.

1.  Try to blog something every day, even if it’s just a picture or a quote or a weather report.  And once you are disciplined enough to do that, hopefully some of your posts will turn into something better.
2. Share your world fifty-two times!
3. Use your page-a-day calendars for inspiration!
4. Answer some WordPress prompts!  Maybe lay off the exclamation marks!
5. Creating art every day is a pretty lofty goal, so try for twice a week.  And if there’s more than that, well yay!  I mean just yay, with less excitement.

Have you ever been so overwhelmed with all the things you want to do that you just sit down and don’t do anything?  Wow, I hope it’s not just me who does that.  And I hope I’ve gotten that bad habit out of my system for a while with such a slack assed December. Pardon my French.

January, my least favourite month ever, with 31 dreary days, is coming right up.  I would like to fill it with fun.  I have two half bottles of red wine in the fridge to finish up (in five ounce increments per day because that’s what diabetics are allowed) so I need to get right on that before it all goes bad.  I have several art projects on the go, and several more in my head.  Chapters had their calendars on for half price today so I walked down there and bought three of them.

PREPARED is what I am.  Bring it on, 2016, I’m ready for you.

Happy New Year everyone.

So How Is 2014 Going For You So Far?

photo from Facebook page therapy room with Joanna Cross

This year (well, last year, actually) I downloaded this e-book to Kindle on my I-Pad.

365 Days of Writing Prompts

by The Editors, WordPress.com.

Then I promptly forgot about it, until today when I began wondering if I should try once again to do a post a day for a whole year.  I fell short by about twenty posts last year but  I like to set lofty goals for myself and then break the rules.  They’re self-imposed, so no one cares, least of all me.  And if I don’t like the prompt I can just use it as a springboard to talk about something completely unrelated, which is often how my brain works.

I also have a word-a-day calendar to improve my vocabulary, but already, skipping ahead and tempting bad luck,  I’m noticing the words are ones I’ve heard and used before, and that has made me all pouty.  Then I read somewhere that awesome things will happen if I choose not to be a miserable cow.

So here goes.

The first prompt is named “Stroke of Midnight”. 

Where were you last night when 2013 turned into 2014?  Is it where you’d wanted to be?

I was tucked up in my bedroom fast asleep, and yes, it’s exactly how I expected to (not) see in the new year.  If you really need to know, I missed midnight by a good three hours. That’s either very pathetic, or extremely smart on my part.  No hangovers in this house. Is there a bah-humbug phrase for thumbing ones nose at the celebration of another year biting the dust?

But even without a mad drinking party the night before, there are days (and a lot of them happen to come along in January) when I suffer from a severe case of clinomania (an excessive desire to stay in bed.)

There’s our first new word that did not come from my calendar, but from somewhere completely different,  snuck in to the middle of nowhere, and here’s the next one.

 – orenda (n.) a mystical force present in all people that empowers them to affect the world, or to effect change in their own lives.

I don’t know, I think the New Year Gods are trying to tell me something.  So, look at that!  Post number one done, three hundred and sixty-four to go.  We are on a roll and slowly working our way up to world-changing mode. Hang on to your pointy party hats.

Just Jazzy 71

Holy day of the week, it’s another Holy Thursday!  And there’s exactly one week left in the first month of 2013.  Let’s not let the uncertainties about tomorrow rob us of the beauty of today.

Stop worrying about tomorrow. You did that yesterday.

Just Jazzy 67

Ouch.

This is how my alter-ego started her day.  She partied way harder than I did last night and may need a couple of days to recover.  Have a happy first day of 2013 everyone, while Jazzy sleeps this one off.

Just Jazzy 66

Here’s wishing you 12 months of happiness, 52 weeks of fun, 365 days of peace and love. But for now? Go ahead and party like there’s no tomorrow.

Bells Will Be Ringing

Busy day, a lovely surprse visit, time spent with good friends.  Treasure your happy Christmas.

Bells will be ringing the glad glad news.
Oh, what a Christmas to have the blues.
My baby’s gone.  I have no friends
To wish me greetings once again.
Choirs will be singing Silent Night.
Christmas carols by candlelight.
Please come home for Christmas.
Please come home for Christmas.
If not for Christmas, by New Year’s Night.

Friends and relations send salutations
Sure as the stars shine above,
This is Christmas, yeah it’s Christmas my dear.
The time of year to be with the one you love.

Then, won’t you tell me you’ll never more roam
Christmas and New Year’s will find you home.
There’ll be no more sorrow, no grief and pain,
‘Cause I’ll be happy, happy once again.

Mmmmm, no more sorrow, no grief and pain,
‘Cause I’ll be happy Christmas once again.

What I’m Looking Forward to in 2011

If we look at great expectations on a number line we’ll see that all of mine hover around the zero mark. That’s really the only thing that makes them great because it’s so easy for them to drift either way. No plummeting or soaring required. That way if something fails to happen or turns out all wrong, it’s okay. Kick it off into the minus zone and carry on. And if something beautiful and joyous and wonderful comes along I can gratefully embrace it and leap up to the plus side for however long it lasts.

Anticipation can be a crippling waste of the present moment if it grows big enough. I try to keep it in perspective so that it won’t consume me.

So, in other, faster, less round about words, there is really nothing major on my personal agenda for this year. Might take a trip to Ireland. Maybe go on a river cruise in Europe. Get hit by a bus. Have a heart attack and die. There are a lot of possible scenarios out there.

Right now I’m going to start a second blog site and begin writing a story of some sort or other. The rest of you here have all inspired me. Everyone has something interesting to say, and I think if I type away for long enough perhaps my own unique something will pop up when I least expect it. Stranger things have happened I’m sure.

Seems to me to be as good a way as any to start off a brand new year. One day at a time, one word after another, moment by moment by moment.