New Year… New Beginnings… New Post

To new beginnings!

This is the first Monday of the year.  This is my first blog entry for the year. 

… and I don’t really know what to write about!

After the countless Christmas parties — and the unwanted pounds that I know I gained, given all the food– I think my system is still not ready to go back to my everyday reality.  Part of me is half-hoping there’s still a gift waiting to be bought, and yes, wrapped.  Holiday hangover, indeed.

new beginnings... new chances

I have yet to write down my goals for this year.  I haven’t sat down long enough (in a quiet place, where thinking IS possible) to come up with the things that I would want to accomplish this year.  I don’t do resolutions anymore… I never get to keep them anyway.  I think I only get to remember about my New Year’s Resolutions until February of the given year.  Beyond that, I normally come up with all the possible excuses for not keeping them. What’s the point, right? 

Besides, most of my resolutions are the same year in and year out… Lose 5 lbs (Gosh, I seriously don’t remember the last time I actually lost 5lbs!)… Go to the gym/exercise — I never go to the gym.  I loathe sweating, really…. Don’t spend unnecessarily– Do you call the weekly trip to Coffee Bean unnecessary spending?… etc etc etc.  The list goes on.  The list of things that I promise to do (or not to do), which I end up contradicting anyway.

This is what I like about the new year.  It always signifies that one CAN have a fresh start.  That no matter how bad the past year was… or how lousy you were at following the previous year’s resolutions, you have a new set of days to make things better, discard the old ways, old habits… and be the better person than you previously were. 

This year, I’ll do something different.  I will set goals… and maybe dangle a prize for myself should I get to achieve any.  Perhaps this year I will start treating the Mocha Ice Blend as a prize, more than a daily beverage (and then I wonder where those unwanted pounds came from!!)  This year, I will practice delayed gratification.  Somehow it is still nice when you have to work for something.  Achieving your goals is gratifying, but the journey– and the learnings along the way — is prize enough. 

Isn’t it wonderful that we are given a new set of days to live and experience life?

Happy new year everyone!

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

photos via weheartit.com

springtime come alive

i love flowers. 

i love the beauty… the freshness… the warm, fuzzy feeling that I get when i see such lovely flowers.

flowers never fail to inspire me… give me hope… cheer me up.

when you see such splendour, how can you not feel alive?

how can you not love life?

 

*** *** *** *** ***

photo credit: weheartit.com

Sunshiny day

I like waking up early.  

Who am I kidding?  I don’t really like waking up early.  I’m a night person. I can stay up the whole night… reading a book, drinking coffee, watching tv, surfing the net, chatting with people from the other side (of the world, okay?)…  So before I sleep, I hope and pray that i don’t need to wake up at such unholy hour (say, 5:15am, even before the sun rises).

But that’s wishful thinking.  Because I am a mom. I am a hands-on supermom.  I have to be up early, specially on weekdays.  Whether i sleep at 10pm or 3am, I’m still the first one up the following day. Up and about.

After years of following the same schedule, I have come to realize that there is something special about being awake early — and that’s the chance to see and watch the sunrise.  

      

Looking at the sky as the sun rises, watching a new day as it unfolds…  awesome feeling. 

 

Hope abounds.

 

*** *** *** *** ***

photo credit: weheartit.com

Stargazing

Orion’s arms are wide enough, to hold us both together

Although we’re worlds apart, I’d cross the stars for you…

                                                                    — Arms of Orion (Prince and Sheena Easton)

  

I remember loving this song when I was in college.  It wasn’t really that popular — i don’t think my friends  even knew about it — but i really fell in love with it the very first time i heard it.

Maybe it was because i was very young then.  Maybe it was the  hopeless romantic in me… the one that believed (or used to believe) in true love.  Or maybe i was once full of hope… hope in the idea that if two people are meant to be together, they will find their way to each other somehow, somewhere.

Now, two decades later, I can say that I still believe in love.  Maybe i’m not the dreamy, wide-eyed, sentimental girl that i used to be.  I have loved and lost and loved and lost… and learned.  But amidst the loving and the losing, I learned that regardless of what you’ll go through or what you’ve gone through, that feeling of “being in love” is something one would want to experience. 

The ultra-fast heart beat just at the thought of the beloved… the tendency to talk a mile a minute whenever he or she is around… the crazy, Cheshire cat grin that’s plastered on your face the whole day… the feeling of ultimate high every minute of the day… feeling so alive– full of faith, full of hope… and the thought that you can brave anything — even cross the stars– to be with that someone.  Yes, that’s being in love.  Who wouldn’t want to have that?

The feeling passes, eventually, true.  But wouldn’t you rather have that moment, however fleeting it may be?

    

Orion Constellation

 

 ***** *****

photo credit: Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan

(Bessermuseum.org)

One Fine Monday

I used to dread Mondays. 

Well, who wouldn’t?  After two days of being able to sleep in until mid morning (or noon time after having a late previous night), the very thought of having to wake up early again on a Monday morning can be a real a drag.  Same thing goes when the weekend was not exactly a relaxing one.  Somehow, one just cannot be too positive on a Monday morning.

Mondays to me also signify reality.  It is the start of the regular week… I wake up really early… My son goes back to school… I go back to the errands i normally do on weekdays… I meet with people I normally meet with on weekdays… I bring my son to whatever activity he has to go to… I sleep really late — or until everything at home is fixed and settled and I have prepared for the following day.  

Mondays bring me back to the life that I have put on hold beginning Friday night.  

Sometimes I wake up on a Monday morning and  I ask myself if I am ready for the day… for the week.  I think of all the errands lined up and wonder if there will be changes, surprises, in store for me.  I psyche myself for the uncertainties that I may face.  But before I end up stressing and freaking myself out, I stand up and start my day.

I have come to realize that there is no point in trying to go against something that you have no control of.  Why dread Monday when you can see it the other way… on a better light?  Why look at it as a day of doom (beginning of another tiring, stressful week), when you can look at it as a day of hope — a fresh start… chance to do things over (correctly, this time).

Weekends give me rest.  Mondays give me hope. 

It is really just a matter of perspective. 

(photo from: weheartit.com)