Happy Thoughts for the New Year

It's New Year's Eve.  2014 is coming to a close tonight.  This time of year always causes me to pause and reflect.  I'm not one to make grand resolutions.  I've read the statistics and most resolutions don't last beyond Valentine's day.

I refuse to be a statistic. 

Instead, I look back over last year and think of the fun times, the difficult times, the things that worked well, the things that didn't work so well.  I take note of these things and then gather up my experiences and invest them into the new year.  What have I learned that will help me achieve some new goals in the next 365 days?

New beginnings can happen at any time of the year.  Any life change is a great time to reflect and start anew.  Marriage, divorce, birth, death, sickness, graduation, mountains, valleys.  It's refreshing to give yourself permission to start over.  To clear the slate.  Put the past where it belongs and look forward to possibilities.

Here's a few events that happened to me in 2014.

• January - Studied minimalism and got rid of tons of stuff.  Went all natural with my diet.
• February - Made all our food from scratch.
• March - Celebrated weddings and babies with our friends.  Suffered large amounts of snow and cold.
• April - The flu overtook us and the first signs of spring emerged.
• May- Closed the school year. Went to family reunion. Planted a garden.
• June - Celebrated 14 yr anniversary. Entertained lots of kids. Another family reunion. My best friend moved away.
• July - Feeling very lonely.  Withdrew to only spend time with my family.  Started our 2 week vacation.
• August- Enjoyed an incredible vacation to Kentucky! Didn't want to come home.
• September - Still in a funk.  Started the school year.
• October - Threw a fancy spa party for my daughter's 10th birthday.  Met the governor of Maine.  Organized a fall party for the children at church.
• November - My sister got divorced and my brother had brain surgery.  Thanksgiving at our house.
• December - Celebrated my son's 13th birthday. Heavily involved in Christmas events at church.  Trying to remain sane.

Some good, some bad.  I eventually came out of my funk.  I'm pretty sure I've traced it to hormones in the birth control I started taking in March.  I gave it 6 months to even out and it didn't.  So I went off again.  Nice try.  My all natural diet didn't go so well either.  Too much change gave me abdominal pain for months.  My sister's divorce has been painful to watch.  I'm hoping the new year has better things for her.  My brother's surgery was a success.  The entire tumor was removed and was not cancerous.  He has a long recovery ahead.

At the beginning of this new year, I'm already focused on how it will end.  I want to remember all the good that I possibly can.  I remember major events from last year, but I know there were lots of little things that made every day special.  So, for this year I have created a Happy Thoughts jar for my family to write down little things that make us happy.

I painted some labels with several coats of chalkboard paint and let them dry.

Then placed two labels on an empty candle jar and wrote Happy Thoughts on it with chalk.

I'm excited to watch the jar fill up.  I hope I'll need to get a bigger jar.