Awaken :: My One Little Word 2016

The word that I have chosen for 2016 is Awaken. I thought my word for 2016 was going to be 'Thrive' or 'Bloom', as both came to me with great gusto mid-way through last year and for a while they seemed to sit well. However the closer to the end of the year I got the more I felt that there was something missing. Deep down I felt that I needed to awaken before being able to move towards, welcoming a focus of bloom or thrive into my life.

Awaken feels like a word that is powered by positive action and for me signals the activation of something new or waking something inside that is new or that was once there. Simplify, my word for 2015, allowed me to create some space for new things, and created positive changes and approaches in my life. It's now time to see what Awaken may bring to the year ahead.

Initially I thought the word Awaken would be a great anchor to enable me to be motivated to wake up early and fit more things into my day, like writing and yoga before work. But the more I think about bringing the word into my life the more I want to awaken in a variety of different ways. I want to awaken a deeper awareness of my skill set and awaken things that were once close to my heart but have been in a light sleep. I want to awaken things that have interested me, take them to a new level and bring them more into my day. I want to awaken and revive passions that may have been in a slumber and rouse new things in me too. I want to awaken a sense of resourcefulness this year as I make steps forward in many areas of my life.

Each year I hold great hope that in some way my chosen word will help guide my approach and become part of the journey of the year in whatever way it manifests itself. I will welcome Awaken with open arms and see what appears this year.

I know that you are wondering how you could have a word for the year. You might want to take a look at Ali Edwards One Little Word class and watch the inspiring video. If you join in and select a word for this year I'd love to hear about your choice of word.

Review of Simplify :: My One Little Word 2015

For the past three years I've selected a word to bring into my daily life. I've not done this alone, I've taken an online class and been part of the One Little Word community set up by Ali Edwards. Ali is someone I hugely admire and who inspires me with her creative practice and her approach.

For 2015 my word was 'Simplify'. In 2014 my word was 'Embrace' and in 2013 my word was 'Grow'. Reflecting on my word from the previous year, and selecting a new word for the year ahead, are some of my favourite rituals I have embedded into January and have become part of my new year routine.

Every year I'm amazed to see what my word has brought with it, what it has helped me focus on and achieve. For me 'Simplify' was a word I really needed for my own personal development, it changed me. It became a guiding focus when deciding particular approaches to take, solving problems and facing challenges. I felt my thinking processes were influenced by having a focus on Simplify during the year, whether it be about my future plans, relationships, expectations I put on myself, projects I worked on and day to day life. It enabled more positive outcomes to unravel in front of me.

Simplify enabled me to gain closure in many situations, allowing valuable space to be made and energy conserved for other things. Simplify enabled me to gain a refreshed perspective and open up, allowing new things to flow. Simplify brought me peace in decisions taken and enabled me to get to know myself even better. I've started to understand in more depth the importance of my personal values and what I want out of my life. I've become more aware of how important it can be to observe the way my body is feeling and go with my gut feelings and intuition to help me select the most effective and simple approach for me. Simplify has given me a focus to live more in the present moment.

It felt that 2015 went by so quickly and at times I could feel that I wasn't quite making the most of my word. I know that there are more things that could benefit greatly by having Simplify as a focus, and in time I will action them. I'm not ready to say goodbye to Simplify, and like previous years, I know that it has now become part of my personal toolkit.

I am forever grateful to have a word that creates an anchor for me during the year. I will be continuing my journey with a new word for 2016 and I look forward to sharing this with you soon.

Simplify - My One Little Word for 2015

I have decided to continue for another year to select a word that I want to make more visible in my life. I've chosen SIMPLIFY as my One Little Word and I'm excited about what my new word will help me achieve this year. The words I've selected for the past few years have played a key role in shaping me as a person and my year ahead. GROW helped me find the things I love and to grow a new seed in my life. EMBRACE enabled me to deal emotionally during a challenging year, embrace the things going on, hold on tight and welcome in change. I'm hoping SIMPLIFY will help me to take a step forward with plans and get to the heart of what lights me up and makes me feel really happy.

It's my third year of taking Ali Edward's One Little Word online class. I'm truly inspired by Ali's approach to this topic, her personal reflections, her style of memory keeping, how she goes about documenting life in photos and words, and how she tells her story. Take a look at this video where she explains so beautifully what her One Little Word class is all about. I'm so proud to be part of this tribe of women selecting a word and making it more visible in our lives.

My word for this year arrived with a jolt last October. I sat down one Friday evening after a particularly challenging and overwhelming week at work and for the first time that week I stopped and relaxed, tried to clear my mind of work things, switch off from the week and just breathe. I don't know about you but when I'm busy or feeling a bit of pressure I forget to breathe deeply and properly. I had worked late and was sitting on the train home, I switched on some music and I took a deep breath and started to feel relaxed. As my brain ticked over the week I had the first chance to get some clarity, put work behind me and think about the weekend ahead. I realised that I hadn't planned what I was doing that weekend. I work Monday to Friday so my weekends are my time to shape and a time that I can be more me. The fact that I hadn't planned my weekend really upset me and I realised that something needed to change. For me weekends are a time when I get to spend quality time with Mr C, see friends, a time to dive into my hobbies, and get things done in our home. I sat on the train and I felt engulfed with things I wanted to do, felt that I should be doing, and realised that I should have sorted a few things during in the week to progress with things over the weekend. Something inside me kicked in and I thought...you just need to simplify your life. It was at that moment, I typed it into Evernote, and decided that SIMPLIFY would be my word for 2015.

I realised that life seems to be filling up with lots of things, with work tasks, things to do at home, my hobbies and interests, things I want to read, relationships to nurture, and day to day stuff of life. Many of these aspects of my life have been feeling a little too complicated. I've had moments of feeling overwhelmed with things, so much so that I haven't been able to make a decision about what I wanted to do. I had lots of things I wanted to fit in but couldn't. I needed to simplify my thinking and have enough head space and time to do the things I enjoy most of all in life.

I look back and perhaps my word started making an appearance even earlier in September last year when we moved house. At the time I was feeling quite engulfed with various things going on, a challenging time at work, and then moving house added to it. Moving house can be exciting but also quite emotional as you work through memorabilia and touch everything you own, through packing and unpacking. Seeing the stuff in my life made me see what I truly loved in my belongings and other things that I looked at and thought 'why do I still own this?'. As we moved and unpacked into our new space I started clearing things and mentally adding to a checklist all the things that I thought I should look at in more detail and pair down. I think this was also the start of the signal to me to simplify.

I like the idea of keeping simplify at the heart of everything I do. I feel that it will hopefully be a transformative word and will give me space in my life to feel lighter and allow me space to move forwards. I'm looking to simplify my possessions, personal habits and routines, relationships and career. I'm looking to make some changes and to do and own things that I really love and want as part of my life. It will be a time when I will need to decide what to welcome in and what I will let go of. Behind it all I want to simplify, reduce the complexity, make things easier and have the space and time to do what I enjoy the most. For me it doesn't mean becoming a minimalist and having an empty home, just finding ways to simplify the way I do things. I'm looking forward to finding out how this word will help shape me and my life in the next year.

I've been letting my word in gradually since October and it has been sitting well with me. During January I've been discovering what simplify means to me and thinking about my intentions for the year. I've already looked to my word over the past few weeks when I needed guidance of what to do with a few complex situations going on. Simplify has helped me reach decisions and conclusions, allowing me to move forward and simplify.  Simplify has already signalled to me to take a step back, only welcome in what I truly want, let go gracefully of things not meant for me, and to allow space for other things to come into my life that will make me even happier.

I hope you'll join me here this year and see how simplify will be making an impact on my life.

Review of Embrace - My One Little Word 2014

For the past two years I've been selecting a word at the beginning of the year and trying to bring my word into my everyday. In 2013 my word One Little Word was 'grow' and last January I chose 'embrace' as my word for 2014. The words I've had for the past two years have played a key role in helping me shape each year. 'Grow' brought with it great change and personal growth, and 'embrace' has brought with it something different than I had expected. I will admit that it has taken me a while to write about how embrace impacted on my year. It's near the end of January and it has taken until now to process and work out how to express the past year and the impact of my word. Processing the year and tying up loose ends this month has been a challenge in itself, and then putting it into words another.

When I started to explore the meaning of the word 'embrace' I saw that it had a range of meanings, including to hold close, to surround, accept willingly, encircle, adopt, accept and welcome. At the start of the project, for me the word embrace meant embracing who I am, what I have grown to be, what I believe in and what I love to do. Embrace meant surrounding myself with, and welcoming things around me, that made me feel good, embracing my ideas, thoughts and plans to push forward, forming my key intentions for the year. But embrace ended up meaning so much more...

I look back at my twelve intentions I set for the year -

embrace space

embrace change

embrace me

embrace the moments

embrace simplicity

embrace the now

embrace challenge

embrace positivity

embrace my plans

embrace creativity

embrace curiosity

embrace reflection

With these intentions I set my own hopes and thoughts of what may happen in the year. When I selected the word it jumped out of a list of words, I had a huge gut reaction at the time that made me feel that 'this is what I'll need for the year ahead', little did I know the role that the word embrace would play. Perhaps it was intuition or a gut feeling, or perhaps just through pure coincidence, the word embrace became possibly the most powerful thing I had in my emotional toolkit for the year. It became a mantra that gave me focus and something to anchor to and hold close during such a mixed year. 

The year was filled with many memorable moments, from the huge high that came from Mr C and I buying our first home together, however a number of key moments of real lows and sadness came with it too. Hands down, last year was possibly the toughest year I've ever navigated through, and I really mean navigated through. I felt that the year was guided by being faced with multiple paths, trying to read the signs in front of me to help pick a path, dealing with huge obstacles and challenges to overcome on the journey, making key decisions, dealing with a range of emotions and moments, and choosing the best possible path to navigate to the end of the year with. The year was full of key decisions including work, career, relationships, finances and wellbeing. I wrote in June about my blogging break and things that had happened at the start of the year and it was a mixed start to the year. From then onwards it continued to be mixed with a number of challenges playing their own part.

I look back at the year and the best way to describe it was as if a few huge hurricanes landed in our life ripping through at various parts of the year. It felt much of the time that I was holding on during the storm, managing to keep safe but effected by the impacts. At times it seemed that the storm had passed but in actual fact we were in the eye of the storm. At that stage I was taking the time to pick myself up, rebuild, and enjoy the moment of calm…only to be hit by the next phase of the storm. The year felt engulfed by challenge, change and moments that will stay with me forever, with many things happening that impacted on myself and those people very close to Mr C and I.

There were huge changes to my career and work. A process of restructure and redundancy selection happened to me twice during the year, once at the end of March and the other in August. The whole experience rocked me to my core and made me question what I really wanted. I look back and it was tough going through two rounds of restructure and change to the team I was in, saying goodbye to my entire team and other people in the business I've worked with for most of my working life. I felt the anxiety, stress and paranoia of feeling I'm next and unsure what was ahead of me. The work changes shaped most of my year but I embraced it. It was tough but my word embrace became the core focus I needed to get through that period of time. I embraced the moments I had left with my old team and embraced the change to the business and the department I'm part of. I embraced the challenges that arose from the changes to my day job and ultimately the career path I have had planned. I've found myself being the only remaining original team member, which at times was, and still is, incredibly hard, as it has meant huge change in my role and my daily work life. I've embraced it but will look back ever so fondly on the time I had before the huge change. A unique wider team of incredibly talented and creative people filled my weeks making my job the best I think I'll ever have. The close team of people I worked with everyday, their great personalities, and the brilliant achievements we had over the years, are things I will never forget. But I have kept saying to myself embrace the change and move forwards onto the next chapter which gradually I am trying to do.

The year progressed with an overwhelmingly high volume of work, and in time I ended up with the same amount of work that used to be managed by a team of four, needless to say there were many moments that pushed me to near breaking point. But I embraced it which I'm incredibly proud of, I know that I was as strong as I could ever hope to be at such a challenging and emotive time. I tried hard to embrace the change but at times I felt I lost a bit of me as time became dedicated to getting through the overwhelm of work, the lengthy working the hours that were required to deliver, and the pressure of the business on the need for the work to be completed. Losing a little bit of me during that time was tough, I worked late and couldn't really switch off as much as I wanted, I lost any drive to be creative. At times it felt that I was almost fighting for survival, feeling drowned and overcome with workload and demands on me. But I embraced it and ploughed on. I'm proud that I worked so hard, I gave it everything I could, I embraced me and all that I could do.

During the year I kept saying to myself 'just hold on tight', 'embrace this challenge' and 'embrace the new'. It wasn't until I had a fortnight off at Christmas that I realised just how mentally exhausted and physically drained I had become, our last holiday was July where I just sat and relaxed and I did the same again for a fortnight over Christmas. I'm surprised now how I managed to battle through the lack of sleep, deal with the volume of work, the lengthy working hours and pressure I was under to keep things going for the role I found myself in at work, plus deal with the other things going on outside of work. Embrace provided me with a level of strength and taught me to just accept the changes willingly. Somewhere in its meaning it also just meant that I had to hold tight, embrace it and get through it. Without embracing it I think I would have found myself in a different situation than I'm in now.

In addition to the overwhelm of work, we had to deal with the incredibly emotional loss of our beautiful niece. I mentioned in my blog post in June that our niece was diagnosed with a rare terminal illness. In amongst challenges with work, we had a heart breaking number of months of seeing our gorgeous niece fade and slowly slip away. Her brave fight ended in September leaving us utterly heart broken, shell shocked and stunned that life can be so short. I haven’t mentioned it here before as writing it brings it all back and I pour with tears, but it was a key moment for me telling me even more to embrace life and embrace the moments. We've seen so much loss of little ones around us with very close friends' new arrivals not making it through various stages of pregnancy and life over the past few years, it showed me just how so precious and delicate life is.

The year taught me to embrace the moments. I will never forget the moments I spent with our niece, holding her close, cuddling her, comforting her at times when she was in excruciating pain, trying to make the moments we had with her calm, warm and brimming with so much love. The times I spent with her were so incredibly precious, the moments when she squeezed my hand, registered that I was there, telling her stories and comforting her when she was visibly in so much pain. Those moments will never leave me, her presence will never leave our family. What it taught me even more than I was already doing was to embrace the moments we have with the people that mean so much to us, it taught me life can be so short and life can dramatically change over night. I look back and during the year across most things that I experienced I embraced the moments, tried to live life to the full, and remembered to document the moments and memories.

Documenting the moments in my Project Life album took on a new routine and new meaning. Memory keeping during tough times was delayed until I could deal with writing about it and printing out the photos associated with it. What I'm so pleased with is that I embraced the moments and documented them in the best way I could and when I could. The project from 2014 still isn't complete but I'm ok with it and adding the missing weeks when I can. I embraced me, I embraced how I felt and embraced the creative moments however few and far between they were.

The week after our niece passed away Mr C and I collected the keys to our new home. A whirlwind of emotions engulfed us during that time, dealing with a very sad time versus an incredibly positive and exciting event was quite overwhelming. We packed up our home and our courtyard garden and moved into our new home. I embraced our new space, embraced the positivity of our new home and embraced the exciting change to our routines and what we could do in our amazing new space. It felt like a dream come true and I still have to pinch myself everyday that it happened and we were so lucky to find our home and be able to move. Our new home became a space of pure happiness that I came back to everyday after a busy day and enjoyed throughout the comforting autumnal months and during Christmas when we hosted for our friends.

The year we had has taught me is to embrace life and what it throws at you. The goodbyes, the change, the life decisions, and the new things that became part of life shaping things moving forwards. I embraced the fact that many decisions were out of my hands and were meant to be. I embraced the tough times and discovered during the year new levels of mental strength and composure that I have never had to tap into before. I spent much of the year embracing reflection and trying to embrace the challenges around me personally, professionally and emotionally. I embraced the journey of my thoughts and feelings during the year, it enabled me to see what was important in life, it helped me refocus things and discover what I most wanted in life.

Embrace added a new level of strength to my personal and emotional toolkit. As with the word 'grow' the year before last, the word 'embrace' isn’t going to leave me, that feeling and belief is embedded in who I am now. In some areas of my life the situations faced during the year would have prompted me to crumble and not deal with things but embrace gave me a real focus and strength. I embraced space to think and to reflect, I embraced change and saw it as the next stage, I embraced and discovered the positives and I held on tight, I embraced the life I was leading.

This January leaving my word behind and moving to the next word is exciting and all part of the next phase for me. I didn't manage to meet some of the intentions I set last year like embracing simplicity, embracing my plans and embracing curiosity, in the way I thought I may have had the opportunity to. As with all changes in the calendar, I can see this year as a new dawn and a new phase. It's time for the next path to be created, a fresh chapter to be started on a crisp page of a book waiting to be written. It is the opportunity to move forwards to something new. I know there will be more challenges this year and I have already experienced a few in January that I've embraced and just finished working through. Luckily my in built 'embrace' mechanism kicked in as did the feelings behind 'grow' and also the impact of my new word of the year.

What I know is that by having a word selected for the year can lead to remarkable things. It can help guide during key decisions and for me it enabled a new level of personal development to be experienced and reached. Thank you 'embrace' for being there in 2014, you certainly provided a guiding light and an anchor for year.

I'm looking forward to what my One Little Word for 2015 will bring...I'll update you on this soon.

My One Little Word for 2014 :: Embrace

My One Little Word for 2014 is Embrace...

The process of deciding on a word for the year started by writing a long list of words that spoke to me. I used lists of words people have used over the years and a list of my thoughts about how I want things to progress for me this year. Ali Edwards, the inspirational memory keeper behind the One Little Word course, says that 'your word may find you or you may go searching for it'...

Something about writing the word EMBRACE on the list of words I had made me put a little star next to it. I felt an odd sense of warmth towards the word and felt drawn to it each time I read through my shortlist. I know that in my life so far I have relied upon and gone with my gut reaction for many things, and this type of decision making process has proved to always give me the right solution when I've needed to use it...so I went with EMBRACE for this year.

EMBRACE feels like a natural step forward from GROW for me. Maybe for me last year I needed to GROW, grow from a new seed, grow to find me again, and to grow new things in my life...and now it is time to EMBRACE that growth, embrace me and push forward.

The photo above was taken be me in 2006 when I started to embrace my love and passion for digital photography and looking at the macro details...there's no manipulation with the photo, it's just what came happened when I pressed the button. I love this image, it's a raw expression of me and what I wanted to capture. This photo prompted me to push forward with a love of photography. Using this photo as my image for EMBRACE symbolises a few things for me and by adding my word has helped me focus on the word even more. The image for me symbolises that my favourite flower has opened, it has grown...and now it's time to embrace to moment of being open and blooming. There may be some blurry edges but in the centre there is focus...

I’ve started this month's prompt on the One Little Word course run by Ali Edwards. Our first set of tasks is really allowing me to discover more about my word for 2014. One of those is finding my image or symbol of EMBRACE, and I've been brave and embraced putting it out there today. I'm spending time exploring my word, I'm not rushing the process. I'm taking time to feel really connected to my plans for the year.

I may share more posts about my word this year, like I have done here, and let you know how I’m getting on. At the moment I’m just going to be with my word, let it into my life and see what the year brings. I'm really looking forward to it.

...Onwards with 2014, onwards with EMBRACE...

Have you chosen a word to make more visible this year? I’d love to find out if you are doing One Little Word and what word you have chosen. 

A Review of my One Little Word 2013 :: Grow

Over the past year I've been on a journey to include GROW, my One Little Word, as a core part of my life. I wrote about using this process at the start of 2013 and mid way through the year. I will be using it once again in 2014 to help me bring certain things into my life this year because the process last year has changed me...

One Little Word, it is an online class delivered by the fabulous and inspiring Ali Edwards. Ali is a super talented memory keeper and was the first blogger to inspire me to do Project Life. Each year Ali delivers her One Little Word course about choosing a word and bringing that word into your life. Inspired by her passion and her long running course I decided in January 2013 to start a new tradition each year to follow this class. It didn't disappoint, it brought huge change into my life.

On the first of each month Ali delivered an inspiring video chat about our focus for the month ahead with our word, and provided resources related to the journalling prompts so we could explore the word in more detail through writing, planning and getting creative.

At the start of the class we created twelve intentions for the year that I used to help shape the year ahead. The intentions I decided on for me proved a pathway for my journey through the year. I wanted to GROW. I was able to focus my thoughts on how I wanted to progress with my word during the year...instead of new year's resolutions I used these monthly intentions for 2013…

Grow closer

Grow my savings

Grow creativity

Grow up
Grow stronger

Grow and bloom

Courage to grow

Grow wiser

Grow a new seed

Make time to grow

Grow a cosy home

Grow an idea

It’s hard to know where to begin to tell you how influential the year was with the course and my progress with my word. What happened was a truly inspiring year for me. It has been a private journey...I've written in my journal about how I got on with my word during the year, talked to some of my closest friends and family about my word, and each month taken time a look back at the intentions to keep myself on track.

Surprisingly each of these twelve areas found themselves into parts of my life last year, many meaning different things to me personally than what may be obvious when you look at the list. What happened for me was a transformation and big change. I wont go into detail here, it really is just for me and my diary, but what I will say is that this process is an inspired way to bring into your life new things and make your word truly part of you.

When December arrived last year I was truly saddened that it was my last month of my word. I know that GROW will be there in the background, never forgotten and always impacting. I can’t say goodbye to GROW. The changes and everything the word brought into my life, and the influence it had on me, will always be there. Grow enabled me to explore new things, it got me to where I am in life right now.

Thank you Ali for a truly inspiring year! Onwards for 2014 with my new word for the year and another year of being inspired...

Grow :: My One Little Word - A mid-year update

I started One Little Word this year, it's an online class run by Ali Edwards for Big Picture Classes. One Little Word is about picking a word that you want to be part of your life for the year ahead and beyond. I chose the word 'grow' in January to be part of my life and my focus for 2013. There were so many areas of my life I wanted to grow in. I wanted to plant fresh seeds to help me grow, move forward and grow in new directions. 

June has arrived and this month's prompt from the class is to spend time thinking about how far I've come with my word in a mid-year review. My word is really personal to me and the intentions I set for the year resonate with all areas of my life that I'm keen to grow in. I feel I've made progress with my word in so many areas. I've grown stronger in terms of my fitness and mentally, I've grown closer to life going on round me, I've grown my creativity by dedicating more time I spend being creative everyday. This month I'm hoping to grow and bloom, whether that be in making things, cooking things or growing things in the garden. I'm looking forward to my intention this month and those ahead of me this year.

What I love about doing One Little Word is having the chance to be reflective and spend time thinking about life. I believe it's so important to look out for yourself and have things to aim for. Over the past six months I've been taking a closer look at my day to day to help with keeping my word at the forefront of my life. 

Using photography, taking notes and journalling to record my week for my Project Life album has enabled me to be more reflective. It has been so satisfying to look at everything I've been doing and seeing how I am growing.

I'm loving printing out photos from every week of the year for my Project Life album and keeping notes on what I've been doing. It shows me how much I can pack into a month, the small things everyday that make a difference and the great people that surround me everyday and in my life. I'm going to spend the next few months with my camera in my hands even more trying to capture the small things in life that make me so happy.

By starting One Little Word and Project Life I've found a love of journalling life again. When I was younger I used to write letters to friends and write in a diary about what I had been doing but it became something I did less and less frequently. I'm now journalling more so that I can capture all the details for my Project Life album and where I am with my word for the year. I now hope to grow my writing and journalling skills moving forward.

I'm looking forward to the next six months ahead of this year and the areas of my life I'm hoping to grow in. I've got a few courses earmarked for the year ahead that I'm hoping to take to help me grow and a big list of things I'd love to make and do. I'll keep you updated on my progress here.

I'm off to sit out in our courtyard in the sunshine with a cup of tea, a magazine, my camera so I can give you an update on how the garden is growing. At last it feels that a little bit of summer brightness has arrived, with the sun shining, plants blooming and things growing in my life.

A New Year :: My One Little Word for 2013

The start of a new year is so refreshing, it's the dawn of a new period in time. New Year signals the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and bring a fresh approach to the time ahead. Of course you can do this at any time during the year, but New Year for me is a sign that I should take time to reflect on the years that have passed and think about how I want to shape the time ahead.

For me, it's about hanging a blank calendar on the wall ready to be filled with new opportunities, creating the year I want. Whether it's a change I want to make, new experiences I hope to have or new things I would like to achieve, it feels that there really are endless possibilities to come in time ahead...This is what I love about a new year. 

I love making lists. Taking time to write a new year resolutions list is something I always do, as it's one of the most important lists of my year! This list isn't rushed, isn't ticked off in a few weeks and is never thrown away. The changes or goals set will help shape me and my life ahead. I love to keep my new year resolution lists from years gone by to see what hopes and dreams I had each year. It makes me smile when I see how the list changes over time.

During the past few weeks I've spent time thinking about my list for 2013. With the rush of Christmas, New Year and the first week back at work over, I've had time to think. We have had endless cloudy days and lots of rain, so a welcome return of clear skies has brought with it a little more clarity in my thinking. I have taken a little longer than normal to think about what I truly want for the year. Last year I managed to kick start my creative goals with a list of what I wanted to do in 2012. I achieved so much more than I thought I would, you can see a little summary here.

...This year the list will be a little different...

In September I discovered scrapbooking. I have been making a few cards on and off for a while and I started looked at a few blogs for papercrafting inspiration and supplies when I came across scrapbooking. I was drawn to the beautiful way that people track their memories using journalling, patterned paper and photos. Over the past few months scrapbooking has manifested itself for me as a way I can reflect on my day to day, a great way to journal about my memories and is a fun way to use the photos I take. I signed up for a few online classes, shopped around for tools and paper supplies, read inspiring scrapbooking blogs, and listened to papercrafting podcasts. I feel that scrapbooking is such a great way to track your everyday memories, so I decided to start Project Life as a way to scrapbook and I'm really enjoying it.

The discovery of scrapbooking has brought with it a new way to think about how I write my resolutions list. This year I hope to use the notion of choosing one word to help me shape my year ahead. If you haven't heard of it take a look at this post by Ali Edwards. Ali Edwards is a super talented scrapbooker and a big name within the scrapbooking community. Ali runs a year long online class called One Little Word run by Big Picture Classes. One Little Word is about picking a word that you want to be part of your life for the year ahead and beyond.

I've spent time exploring the words I could use, my favourites were focus, balance, grow and create. I took time to really think about my one little word for 2013...I chose the word 'Grow'. It really resonates with me... 

Starting this blog came from the word grow. I wanted to grow the time I spent being creative, developing my creativity and my practical skills. Grow was a key word behind the name of my blog too, The Pink Button Tree means something to me, it's not just a name. For me the word pink symbolises being vibrant, happy and full of love. The button symbolises my creativity and desire to become well rounded, practical and crafty. It's a button with four holes; one for making, one for baking, one for gardening and one for home ideas. The tree symbolises my desire to continually grow my creative skills and knowledge every day...I want to grow into a wise old oak tree passing my knowledge on through the many acorns I pass on over the years. It's the chance to plant a seed and enable others grow, so they can do something they are inspired by each day.

...I know that I have a long way to go on my journey. To grow is what I really want from this year.

Following the structure of One Little Word, I have set myself 12 intentions for the year. They are like resolutions but are statements using the word grow that I want to focus on every month. Having a monthly intention is a great way to keep the momentum and clarity of my aims and resolutions in a more permanent but relaxed way during the year.

Grow will mean that I'll be doing more of the same, developing new projects, growing my abilities, planting a few new seeds to try something new. I'm keen to bake and cook more, growing my experience of cooking so I have a wider set of things I can make. I'm planning to make more projects for our home to grow our home into an even cosier space. I constantly see things I want to try and make so I want to grow my crafty skills going forwards. I'm not setting myself specific projects I want to create this year as I think this may add too much structure, I want to see where things take me so I can grow in whatever direction things take me.

I wanted to wish you all a very happy new year. Thank you so much for reading my blog. I've been overwhelmed by how many of you have visited it over the past year, your comments and page views really spur me on. Please do leave comments as I'd love to hear your thoughts.

...So onwards with the word grow...What will be your word for 2013?