Happy New Year!

Here is where I've spent most of the day. Sick on the couch, while my generous husband wrangles the energetic kids. I've read a lot of Tartine Number 3, knitted a few rounds on some finger-less mittens. Mainly I've just felt sick as a dog. It doesn't help that I feel sad being so far from my family. Lying here unable to do much, I've worked myself into a lather imagining all the writing, bread-baking, knitting, organizing, teaching, spiritual growing, house-overhauling, creative mothering, traveling, exercising, better picture-taking, healthy cooking, learning, etc. I want to tackle this year.

Thinking about all that got me so tired and irritable I went back to lolling on the couch.

So maybe my biggest hope for today, much less 2015, is to be in the moment. To truly experience and allow myself to feel and absorb the goodness, connection, and beauty in my life right this second. Without any adjustments or striving or if-onlys, can I find gratitude and joy right now, right here?

Wishing you and yours a beautiful 2015, full of adventure, contentment, and true love.

Some words from Tennyson's In Memoriam (1849) to usher in a new year:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

   The flying cloud, the frosty light:

   The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

   The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

   For those that here we see no more;

   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

   And ancient forms of party strife;

   Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

   The faithless coldness of the times;

   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

   The civic slander and the spite;

   Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

   Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

   Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.