I'm Beginning my Year with PURPOSE!

Here's my late Happy New Year's post. I spent 2019 making and having a baby. Mr. Sam joined us in August and he's a bundle of smiles.

That being said I've had a good excuse for not writing. I've come to terms with the fact that this is an "on-again, off-again" hobby for me. I've had my off year and now I'm ready for an on year.

The fun part is that each time I return to writing I find I've evolved so the blog does too. This year I'd like to introduce my (current) dream job.

I stumbled across an interesting Venn diagram on Pinterest a while back that is supposed to help you Find your Purpose.

This being circular you can fill it in at any starting point you choose.

What I get paid to do is easy because I already have my own small massage business. This is my chosen vocation because I found I had a talent for it at a young age. Being in my eighth year of business I can put more words to why/how I'm good at this job. My lower energy creates a very relaxing space for clients and my thoroughness inclines me to give an effective treatment to resolve physical issues of discomfort and decreased mobility. Basically, I can fix you as I put you to sleep.

What am I good at? Besides making really cute and fairly well-behaved babies, of course. Well, I fancy I'm really good at organizing and planning things. I like to clarify that I'm an organizer, not a cleaner, although I do enjoy some forms of deep cleaning. And then I am up late some nights because my brain goes into planning mode, somewhat unexpectedly, and I have a really hard time turning that off until I have some if not all the details of some project laid out in my mind.

These two aspects go into what I love doing. Recently my nighttime reveries were occupied with party planning, girls' nights specifically. I couldn't sleep until I had charted all the permutations that a social night for mommies could include. That may become a post of its own.

My organizing talents are generally aimed with the intention of creating beauty and efficiency out of chaos. My favorite example of this is creating capsule wardrobes. I find great satisfaction in using my keen eye for color and form to create an interchangeable set of outfits from overflowing closets. My intuition for composition also translates to interior and landscape design.

What does the world need that I feel that I can offer? A little bit of guidance to work toward harmony in any and all areas.

So to put my Purpose into a few words: I'm an editor.

I certainly don't feel qualified at this time to call myself a Life Coach, but I can offer my services and talents as a Life Editor. I can answer questions and help identify areas where changes may be needed and then follow through with the skills to make changes happen. It's easy to sell the more superficial tasks of tidying up but I feel that clearing things out can get to the roots of other issues as well.

So here's my dream business right now: "Prune to Bloom Life Editing". This hearkens to my skills using my green thumbs. My favorite gardening task is pruning in general but pruning roses specifically. My mother can vouch for me there ;) The idea with pruning is to remove dead or diseased parts and then to train the plant into the shape that best supports its growth. I feel this approach can be used for other areas in life, hence the name I've chosen. Bonus: I can make an acronym out of Prune that also handily describes my method.

But to see that acronym you'll need to tune in next month. I feel there is enough content in actually laying out a full description of this dream to fill another post. I'm already excited about this! Perhaps it's just the excitement of identifying my purpose in life which is something we all seek for. I hope that my enthusiasm will rub off. I'd love to hear if you've also Found Your Purpose.

Happy Blooming!

Opening and Adding to My Virtual Time Capsule

Happy (belated) New Year! Many apologies for not adding much to the blog-verse in 2017. My excuse: I was too bus adding some adorable-ness to the world at large = I made a baby girl instead of writing. Basically I was either too nauseous, too tired, or too busy taking care of my boys with the little oomph I had to spare for most of the year. Julianna was born in October and then it was the holiday season; not a great time to try picking up blogging again.

But now we are a month into 2018 and I'm ready to get back at it.

In getting the juices flowing, I've redesigned the look and direction of the blog (hope you like it) and read some of my old posts to remember what my voice sounds like (when I'm saying more than, "Share with your brother," or "Please let the baby sleep!)

Looking back at my post last year to ring in the new year I saw that I had been proud of completing a mini bucket list to prepare for my 25th birthday. The idea behind that was that 25 is my favorite number and I wanted it to be a banner year. I'd say I succeeded; 2017 was a pretty good year. In my brain it is divided into Pregnant or Not Pregnant and Nauseous or Not Nauseous.

In January I was Not Yet Pregnant and I experienced my first foot zoning session. (It's so nice being a massage therapist and being able to exchange. I'm also open to bartering.) It was quite validating to be told that my energies were generally good and that I was clearing some generational patterns.

I found out I was Pregnant in February and had a brief Not Nauseous period to enjoy getting excited and start hoping it was a girl this time.

Then the Nauseous time began. Instead of being just a first trimester thing, it was more of a first half sort of thing. And it was worse this time than it was with my two boys. That was my first clue that it was either a girl or twins. My cousin gave birth to twins at the beginning of the year, so that really did feel like a possibility. It was quite a relief to see only one Jelly Bean in the first ultrasound.

Despite being Nauseous, I managed to get my little massage business set up again and continue practicing. Massage actually proved a decent distraction. This is also my second pregnancy where I ended up doing some serious singing. With Jon it was being in the back-up choir for a production of The Pirates of Penzance with the University Choir at BYU-I. This time it was a community choir Easter production of Handel's Messiah. The performance was towards the end of the overall Nauseous stretch, but I did finally cave in and ask for a Zofran prescription because I wasn't taking any chances of having to miss the performance, and my last minute solo. It worked so we will remember to get that at the beginning in future rounds.

The highlight of the Not Nauseous term was our summer trip. It wasn't as involved as our month-long road trip in 2016, which was nice. We took a train over to Denver to see Charles' brother and a train museum that was featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. Plus there was small petting zoo. Overall, it was a win-win. The boys had fun (trains... enough said) and they were pretty well-behaved the whole time. The train was a great idea. We didn't have to keep the boys in car seats so they were able to wiggle a bit and stretch out better for sleeping purposes. I'd highly recommend it as a mode of log-distance travel. We need more trains.

And then October came to end the Pregnant round and Julianna was born! Yeah for having a little girl. I was hoping she'd come while I was still 25. She cut it close. Her birthday is 10/10 and mine is 10/19.

I've joked with the nurses at her appointments that maybe I should have named her Mary Poppins because I think she is Practically Perfect in Every Way :) She does everything she is supposed to although I'm starting to create a theory that each new baby grows faster than the last. She will be 4 months in about a week and I just had to switch her clothes to the 6-9 months size. But she has a smile to match. My little angel.

To end this reminiscing, I'd like to just mention that my only official "resolution" for 2017 was to read more. Period. I listen to plenty of audio books, but I desired a return to the written page. I'll say that I succeeded in reading more than I have in a while. I finished a series (although it took most of the year).

This year I am expanding on that decision and have tasked myself with a reading list of some of the Classics. I took a Facebook quiz last year that revealed how many "classics" I had read. I felt I needed to add the stories that have been made into movies I've seen to get a decent score. That was humbling. So to give myself a bit of an ego boost I sifted through our shelves to find some of the titles that I have missed. I managed to fill an entire shelf.

So far I have finished The Picture of Dorian Gray which I had started back when I was weaning David. I felt I had to start there because I am a self-proclaimed Finisher. Now I am reading The Iliad. I recently watched the Myths and Monsters series on Netflix which referenced several stories from Homer. They were already on my list, but watching the show bumped them up in my time line. I think I'll kind go at this list in a chronological-ish order.

Hopefully 2018 will be filled with both reading and writing (but not necessarily great amounts of 'rithmetic).