One Word: Hope

It is not a resolution. It is one word to focus on.

My word for 2012 is HOPE.

I really wanted to have a revelation this year. I wanted to know that my word was something special and perfect and life changing. I didn't want to pick a word with secret hidden plans and thoughts behind it - a word that I would control.

Last week I started thinking and praying about my word. I knew that I wanted to know God was giving it to me. I wanted my word to pursue me, but I wasn't sure what that would look like. This is the story of how hope chased me down...

Hope. I heard it whispered in my mind.

On Monday I thought of lots of words. Hope was one of them, but I dismissed it as not really being something I needed to focus on. It felt too simple.

Tuesday night. It was time for bedtime prayers with Katarina, and as we started praying, Thomas randomly shared some things he had been thinking about that day - all about hope. It was good stuff, but I still didn't think hope was the word for me.

Hope. I heard it echo in my heart.

Thursday night I fell sleep thinking about hope, and Friday morning I woke up thinking, "a hope and a future," and it stayed with me all day. I started to realize how much hopelessness I have felt for the last two years.

On Saturday I read a book. A character spent four paragraphs talking about hope, and while I was reading those paragraphs, Katarina interrupted me to discuss naming a doll Hope.

Hope. I felt it reaching for my soul.

By Sunday morning, I was starting to admit it to myself - hope was pursuing me. I felt a real peace about it being my word. And just in case I wasn't sure, hope showed up one more time that morning when I opened up a random email that contained a picture with this written on it:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, 
"plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a future."
~ Jeremiah 29:11

Hope. It pursued me for a week, and I will spend the next year embracing it, learning its depth, and living it. 

What is my journey with hope going to look like? I have no idea...but that is exactly the way every great journey starts, right?

"Rejoice in HOPE, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." 

~ Romans 12:12

What one word would you pick for 2012?
If you want to join a community of people living out One Word in 2012, check out One Word 365.

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Thoughts On A Year Of Courage

Last year I picked the word courage for my one word focus. I put a lot of thought into that word before I picked it. I had a lot of ideas how I was going to do this whole courage thing. Now that 2011 has come to a close (am I the only one who is happy to see it go?) I am looking back and seeing that courage was not at all what I thought it would be.

The written things: When I look at the list of intentional courageous choices I wrote in my one word blog post last year, I can honestly say there were a lot of times I did choose courage. I looked at that list on so many hard days, and made myself read it.

The unwritten things: My secret list of things I was going to do - not one of them was accomplished. But to balance that out, there were some things I never dreamed or imagined would come my way (working with the amazing people at Band Back Together is a huge one!) that I stepped out in courage and got involved with.

The honest things: Remember when I said I had a lot of ideas how I was going to do this courage thing? What that really means is this - I had visions of the goals on my secret list that I was going to accomplish, and how they would tie in with my courage theme.

I never had that spiritual moment when God revealed a word to me, so I picked one. And I'm not saying that was wrong, or even that my choice was wrong, but there was a part of me that was so prepared to control this journey down the courage path. I was composing victory blog posts in my mind by the end of January 2nd. And I spent a lot of time frustrated that those plans and victory blog posts did not come to fruition.

When I examine that frustration, I realize it is really tied into that secret list of mine - and has very little to do with my courage focus. I realize that I still see courage the way I wrote about it back in the beginning of January 2011. When I compare my year to that list, I feel a lot of the frustration melt away. I certainly didn't live the list perfectly, but I was blessed during the times I intentionally focused on it and let it inform and inspire my choices.

I'm grateful for this year of courage. I'm grateful that my word traveled with me and touched my life, even when it wasn't happening the way I had imagined it would.

I still have more road to travel on the courageous path. I'm pretty sure it is something I will be working on for the rest of my life. I'm okay with that.

Tomorrow I'm going to tell you my word for 2012.
I am going in a new direction this year, and I'm really excited about it.

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Wrapping Up 2011

I've been thinking about how to finish off another year here at the blog, and Shell from Things I Can't Say found all the great end of the year blog ideas that I will now steal borrow.

This is especially great since I did not send out Christmas cards this year (even though I signed and addressed all of them). When I was doing that, I had the overwhelming urge to write, "If you are wondering what we've been up to this year, you should have been reading the blog. Love ~ Tracie, Thomas, and Katarina" but since they are still sitting on my table, you will never know if I really signed them that way, or not.

Think of this as a letter that gives you an overview of my year.
Only more high-tech and (hopefully) exciting.

Pictures!! 
Ashley from My Front Porch Swing, and Jessica from Four Plus An Angel, and Robin from Farewell Stranger are all about the end of the year pictures.

These are my pictures:
January

I started a year-long focus on courage.

February

Thomas work shoes.

(Yes, I do like taking pictures of shoes)

March

I spent some time enjoying nature and focusing on beauty.

April

A fun visit with Thomas' dad. 

May

Thomas took this picture after I had my big haircut.

June

Thomas and Katarina on Father's Day

July

We spent time with special friends at an art show.

August

Katarina turned eight years old.

September

Katarina and I spent a day with good friends, photographing animals. 

October

This one explains itself. 

November

I was laying on the ground for a picture. Katarina and Thomas looked at me like this. 

It probably wasn't the only time this year they gave me quizzical looks.

December

My favorite picture of me and Thomas from 2011.

Blog Posts!
MamaKat from Mama's Losin' It and Natalie from Mommy of a Monster are all about the list of your favorite posts from the year.

These are my posts:
January - Orange Couch Conversation - this was the first piece of fiction I ever shared here on the blog, it was a big step for me.
February - (I know two posts is cheating, but I really couldn't choose between these two) The Art of Journaling - my love of journals and journaling. Just One More Chapter? - a sweet moment with Katarina, growing up and loving books like her mom.
March - Days of Color and Warm Milk - a favorite memory from my kindergarten days.
April - Did That Vampire Just Bite Ashton Kutcher? - Thomas is crazy, and the crazy doesn't stop when he is asleep.
May - Go Short - How To Give From the Heart and the Head  - donating my hair.
June - The Alamo, Fresh Bread and a Spiral Staircase - I still love a good spiral staircase!
July - Where I'm From - I really enjoyed writing this one, and I loved reading the ones other people have written from this prompt. 
August - A Tale of Loo Water - I'm thinking Thomas isn't the only crazy one in this family. 
September - Glimpses of Change - change is hard, y'all, but I'm helped through the hardness by writing it out.
October - Words Find Light - breaking through a time of writer's block is a beautiful thing.
November - Bring A Towel - that time my family dried socks on a fan in the middle of a theme park.
December - If You Teach A Kid How To Write - the day blogging went full circle for me, as I watched Katarina start a blog of her own.


This has been 2011...from Tracie.

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The Magic Room

I would be intrigued by a book about a wedding dress store- seeing as I had three weddings (to the same man!) in one year, I clearly love weddings.

Thomas and I were first married late on a Wednesday night (midnight to be exact), at our pastor's house. That afternoon I rushed into a department store in search of a dress. I found one hanging on the wall in a dark corner. It was simple, with a layer of lace, white, knee length, and probably not exactly meant to be a wedding dress. But when I put it on in the dressing room, even under the flickering fluorescent lights, looking into a chipped mirror - I felt beautiful.

Wedding number two was in Arizona with family. My mom planned it, and put it all together in less than two weeks (she is pretty awesome). A lot of our pictures are in storage right now, but earlier this month my cousin posted some old pictures on her facebook, and I snagged this one from my wedding.

It is one of my favorite pictures - because it is my entire family on my mom's side. One of the few times all of us were together in one place. 

My mom found that dress for me during her planning, and with a few night-before-the-wedding adjustments by my aunt, it fit perfectly. I will never forget the look on Thomas' face when he walked into the church and saw me standing in that dress. It was magical. I loved the dress so much, I wore it a few months later, for our third wedding - in Florida with more family and all our friends.

Jeffrey Zaslow's book, The Magic Room, is not just about a wedding store. He tells the story of the Becker family, and the four generations of women who have been selling wedding dresses at Becker's Bridal in Fowler, Michigan.

Zaslow offers glimpses into the lives of some of the brides who found their perfect dresses at Becker's, their joys and sorrows. A young bride who saved her first kiss for the man she would marry. A bride who is entering her second marriage, after being widowed. A bride involved in a terrible car accident four months before her wedding day, and the fiance who stood by her through surgeries and physical therapy (this one made me cry). A bride who did her wedding planning with her grandmother, because she lost her mother when she was young. A bride married for the first time a few weeks after turning forty. They all have different backgrounds and experiences - but they are joined together by the beginning of this new chapter in their lives.

I enjoyed the personal stories of the brides and following the story of the Becker family through the years. One thing I found interesting was the way the author explored the changes that weddings, and the search for the perfect wedding dress, have gone through since Becker's Bridal opened in the 1930s.

Reading this book brought back all the excitement and wonder I felt in that dressing room almost ten years ago under those awful, flickering fluorescent lights (hardly the same experience the brides in the book get - they try their dresses on in the Magic Room with special lighting and mirrors). I looked at myself in the dress I would wear a few hours later to make vows and share promises with Thomas, and I knew it was perfect.

Did you go on a long search for the perfect wedding dress?

You can join in the conversation, and read an excerpt of The Magic Room at BlogHer.

*This was a paid review for the BlogHer Book Club, and I was provided a copy of The Magic Room to read, by BlogHer and Penguin Books, but the opinions expressed are my own. I was not required to say nice things. 

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Notes From The Bathroom Floor

My surge protector died last night. I don't think it fell in the line of duty. I think it just got tired and gave up. I'm trying not to read too much into that thought, or see it as a metaphor for where my life is right now - tired.

Tired and on the bathroom floor.

I'm sitting on my bathroom floor to write this, because it is the only room with a spare plug I can use for my laptop right now. Katarina keeps bringing me little gifts to cheer up the bathroom - a note, a blanket, a purple bead necklace.

We have been reading the Hobbit together. It started out on Christmas evening as something Thomas and Katarina would do (neither of them having read it before, and both of them being excited about the movie coming out next year), but by the second chapter I was involved. Mostly to do the reading so Thomas wouldn't have to pause and grumble about words that aren't really words and sentences starting with conjunctions.

Last night I came to the first sentence of chapter 9, "The day after the battle with the spiders Bilbo and the dwarves made one last despairing effort to find a way out before they died of hunger and thirst." In a flash I could see Tolkien taking every bout of depression, every moment of fear, and hunger, and despair he had ever experienced - and pouring it into that one sentence. And I laughed. I laughed and laughed, because I could feel it. I could relate to it.

I laughed, because sometimes when life reaches the point of no return, when things are so horrible, and you decide to make one more effort (even though you hardly believe it will work) and there are no tears left - laughter is all there is.

Sitting here on my bathroom floor, I am not about to die of hunger or thirst, and thankfully there has been no battle with spiders (although the floor really should be attacked by a mop). But I do feel the overwhelming tiredness of life pressing in on me. And I'm choosing to laugh - mostly at the absurdity of where I am sitting right now.

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