I love my new 2015 day planner. I am definitely trying to be inspired and live my dreams. If that's not what life is about then we're screwed.
Last year I had a list of resolutions (click here to see how I did), this year I have a to-do list:
1.) Lose (an additional) 20 pounds (plus the 4 I gained over the holidays);
2.) Scrapbook at least through 2009. That means scrapbooking about 14 different trips and events that happened between 2007 and 2009. Yes, I'm that behind, but this is the year for getting closer to being caught up;
3.) Build up my emergency fund;
4.) Get a new and professional design for my blog;
5.) Be kinder to everyone. In general I think I'm pretty nice, but if someone is mean or rude to me I tend to react the same way and that's not a good way to be; and
6.) Drink less soda. I am not giving up soda all together, but since I have a can of Diet Dr. Pepper almost every day, I think I need to cut back quite a bit.
What goals have you set up for yourself this year?
Miss Rumphius is definitely my favorite children's book of all of time. Even now as an adult I don't get tired of reading it. What better message to send children than to tell them the story of a woman who despite setting out to make her dreams come true, she never forgets that she must also do something to make the world more beautiful?
I love the audio version of it too.
Please share this book with all the children in your life.
I just got back from a trip to Portugal and I can't believe what a difference just five little days in Lisbon have made. I had not taken a proper vacation since 2011 and I was starting to feel it. Not because I was exhausted and needed a break (though that was part of it), but because my mind and senses had not been evoked in a very long time, at least not in the way that travel evokes them. Lily Tsay's quote, "to travel is to awaken." is very fitting to me right now because I have awoken once again. My travel bug was dormant. It seems that it is back and with full force. That's right, have passport, will travel.
I cannot even begin to explain the importance of travel, particularly international travel. I think it is so important for us, especially as Americans, to learn about the world. We tend to be very ethnocentric and while I think that our country is great, I also think that our way is not the only way. We have so much to learn from the world.
Now I know that traveling is not easy, I know that. Finding the time and money for it can be very challenging because it's not exactly a life necessity. Why do you think I hadn't been able to travel in so long? I also know that I have been incredibly blessed in my life to have had the opportunities to travel from a young age that not everybody has had. All I'm saying is that if you have the opportunity to travel, take it, take it immediately and if not you can still make it happen. In my eyes "travel is worth any cost or sacrifice," like Elizabeth Gilbert says and if that means scrubbing toilets after your day job to have extra money for travel then I will scrub toilets after my day job to have extra money for travel.
I love this TED talk that Rick Steves made a few years back. I am posting it because, a.) Who doesn't love Rick Steve's??? and b.) He eloquently describes what we gain from "thoughtful travel" as he calls it. I promise it is worth your time.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” – Mark Twain
I finally finished reading The Fault In Our Stars this week and then immediately afterwards I watched the movie, of course.
These are my favorite quotes:
1.) "That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt."
2.) "...I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."
3.) "...the world is not a wish-granting factory."
4.) "You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."
5.) "The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox."
6.) "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do have some say in who hurts you."
