Formerly Gracie

When I chose “Persevere” as my One Word for 2012, I had NO IDEA how eerily prophetic it would be.

I wish there was an anonymous place online where I could pour out everything that happened to us in 2012– blow by devastating blow. Maybe one day I will find the strength to tell our story, dear reader. Or perhaps I’ll just continue to repress it and drink every night. Bottoms up! 

For now, just know that 2012 was christened the “Year of Suck” for a reason and “persevere” was more akin to “survival at any costs”.

Since one follows the other, my focus in 2013 was “Rebuilding”– rebuilding my marriage, rebuilding my career, rebuilding my LIFE. 2013 was about getting back on our feet and remembering how to trust again. We moved back in Texas in mid-2012 to be closer to family, but didn’t move into our house until the end of the year– our VERY OWN house again.

(That was such a monumental shift from where we were just a few months before that I feel like this requires pause… and deep sighs and yoga breathing.)

We got settled. The kids went to a new school/daycare while I went back to work for a brief period. We got back on track.

One of my biggest lessons in 2013 dealt with letting go of certain relationships and learning how to moving forward. I think that was also part of the rebuilding process, but how could I adopt the same idea in other aspects of my life?

I thought about what it means to set boundaries for my time and energy.

Limits? Too negative-sounding. 

I considered focusing on myself for a change— my needs, my wishes, my ambition, my comfort.

ME?! haha! That’s completely contrary to who I am!  

I want to stop consternating on “what if” and really focus and tend to “what IS”.

And with that, I  landed on my One Word for 2014: Cultivate

Cultivate carries many meanings– To prepare and work on. To promote growth with labor and attention. To foster or attend to. To devote oneself to an art, science, etc. For me, it comes down to one thing: 

What is worth harvesting?

I read a Salary.com post tonight called, “8 Reasons You Should Turn Down That Job Offer“, and realized that I had held Every. Single. One. of those jobs in the past two years. Why? Because my family needed to money to survive. Now that we’re not in that place anymore. It’s time to decide what it is that I REALLY want to do next professionally.

I have no idea what that will be… what it will look like… or even where. I just know it’s definitely NOT what I have been doing and I have a full year to thinking about it. Huzzah!

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I started homeschooling my daughter when the expensive daycare-that-refuses-to-call-itself-a-daycare no longer made sense for us. My contract ended in October and there was really no point in paying someone else to put my child down for the naps. Besides, I thought I could handle teaching  Pre-K, so I put together a basic lesson plan and have loved every second of it.

When I realized there’s really no mystery to teaching, I started to seriously question some of my son’s public education. A Dallas Morning News article from the perspective of an area teacher shared this week only confirmed my deepest misgivings– teaching to the lowest common denominator, lack of resources/support, other people’s terrible parenting, etc.

I don’t know if homeschooling is the RIGHT decision for all of us. I see the value in public versus private versus home-schooling and have been weighing all of the options. I would rather work to improve things from within the system than run away from it, but it is worth risking my kids’ futures?

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FOOD! I have been incredibly transparent with my children about why some food is… well, poison. We read food labels, avoid fast food, soda, and artificial ingredients, and  have super nerdy conversations about bio-chemistry. I think I shall keep this up in 2014.

What is dead weight?

Another aspect of “cultivate” that I find appealing (and what I hinted at earlier) is letting go of dead weight. 

I don’t know much about plants. In fact, I have poinsettia that pretty much died within seconds of being brought into my house. Aren’t they supposed to be… resilient… like a Christmas version of a cactus or something? In any case…

I don’t know much about plants… OBVIOUSLY. But I have learned that no matter how “dead-looking” a plant may be, as long as the roots are salvageable, it can still be saved. You simply have to trim off the dead stems and leaves because they aren’t going to do anything except  slow the plant down and divert energy and nutrients that could be better spent on growing new stems and leaves.

I’m ready to make space for the new by clearing out the tiring, draining, and unnecessary in 2014. I’m excited to see what wonderful things will be harvested by next winter!

What’s your ONE WORD for 2014? If you have written or decided to write a post about it, leave the link below. I’d love to read it! 

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