reflect and manifest

Joanna over at the Pale Wisconsinite is participating in Reverb 10, an online event where authors provide bloggers with prompts and we write away!  It's a great way to "reflect on this year and manifest what's next."  Work has got me feeling pretty exhausted, but I will write as much as I can.

Here's author Gwen Bell's prompt for Dec. 1st.  (I just learned about this today, so I'm a few days behind :)

December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell)

2010- Survival  (this just happens to be the SAME word as the lovely Pale Wisconsinite, but it is the first and only word that comes to mind for 2010!)  We worked our butts off to finish our graduate degrees in June and August of 2010.  Dan spent the majority of 2010 looking for work as he was laid off in October of 2009.  We lived off loans, babysitting money and unemployment for the last year of graduate school.  I still don't know how we made it through.  Our families helped us tremendously.  We lived like 'students' and hope to keep that mindset now that we have jobs.  Money certainly isn't everything, but unfortunately we weren't born rich instead of funny and beautiful....we need enough to live and enjoy this one blessed life we've been given. (My mom always jokes, "why wasn't I born rich instead of beautiful?" :)    

2011- Hope  We are going to try our best to just enjoy all the incredible blessings we've been given this coming new year.  If I could choose more than one word, it'd be "Stop, Breathe, and Hope..."  We move so fast through life...one lifetime is not enough to love all the people I want to love, do all I want to do, see all I want to see.  We need to just stop for a minute, breathe in the healing, bright love of our universe and enjoy the life we've been given.  This year we hope our trials in fertility-land will give us the gift of a family.  That's all we hope for.  Every prayer I offer up is to settle into our grateful life, be thankful for what we've been given and thankful in advance for all good things that are to come.