Hello there.

It’s been quite the year, hasn’t it? The last few months of my life have been both completely different and entirely the same: I still watch an unhealthy amount of Netflix, but the difference now is that I do it with a small human in my lap most of the time. Of course, at three months old, Finn is even now becoming more independent with each day, spending a little more time by himself playing on the floor while I read or knit. It’s a new routine that we seem to be settling into after months of near-constant contact with one another, and I think it’s going to do us both some good.

I have so much in mind for the coming year, so much that I want to work on and accomplish and focus on. I’m taking Ali Edwards’s One Little Word course for the first time in 2020–with my word already selected–and I’m looking forward to this new way to explore my creativity, create some intention in my life, and to reflect upon as the year progresses. I’m planning on writing a separate blog post about the word I’ve selected in a week or two.

One of my first goals for 2020 is to blog once a week. That’s it, only once a week. I seem to constantly be thinking, “I miss blogging,” and every few months I try to pick it back up, but then it tapers off again, getting lost in the folds of every other thing going on in my life. If I’m being honest, I just haven’t made it a priority like I wish I would, and lately–as in, for the past couple of years–I’ve been observing other people doing things that I want to do and that I know I can do if I just, um, do them. And overall, those things tend to be summed up in “writing.” I just want to write. I want the time and I want the freedom and I want the energy. I have the ideas. It’s getting them on a page, digital or otherwise, that’s always been the challenge for me. I don’t want to be one of those people who has a “great idea for a book” but never writes it. Granted, I wrote one for NaNoWriMo last year, but it’s just sitting in a binder in my office, and I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with it. Maybe its purpose is only to remind me that I can do it because I already have once, and it’s time for me to move on to my next book project, whatever that may be.

At the start of 2019, I created a Pinterest board to inspire me and remind myself of what my hopes and goals were for the year. I maybe didn’t look at it as often as I should have or would have liked, but it was a good activity for me, and I’m planning on doing another for 2020. I expect many photos related to writing to show up, along with a few other plans I have for the year. And if nothing else, it’s aesthetically pleasing to look back on every once in a while, whether or not accomplish all the goals it represents. (This year, for example, there were a lot of health and fitness photos on my board, but getting pregnant changed those plans up a little bit; it was still nice to look at the different pairs of pretty Adidas shoes, though.) The other thing I’m doing to prepare for the new year is going through the new edition of the Artist of Life workbook. I used it throughout 2019, and pretty consistently up until Finn was born, and it was an indispensible resource for keeping myself aware of my larger goals, the steps to take them each month, and the habits that I wanted to create and maintain. I have so much fun working through the book, thinking over the previous year and taking a look at the one ahead, doing a self audit of my life and my dreams. It feels good to go through it, and it feels even better to do the monthly reviews and see what I accomplished, so I’m enjoying putting the work in to get my new copy ready for 2020.

I know the beginning of the year is a somewhat arbitrary time for a fresh start; I mean, it’s the dead of winter, not an entirely inspirational time. Of course you can start over anytime, any day of the week or year, and you and I should if we find it necessary. But I can’t deny the draw of the “new year” and its promise of possibilities, so I’m going all in with my 2020 preparation, and I can’t wait to see what the next year brings.