DEBBIE-DABBLE BLOG: My One Little Word for 2014

I am a Victorian Soul, who lives in a small townhouse that was built in the mid 1970's, not a huge Mega Mansion!! I just recently lost my Hubby Joe, who was a Retired Letter Carrier. I worked night shift as an RN on a Hospital based Rehabilitation( Physical Medicine) Unit for 37 years before I had Knee Replacement Surgery and officially Retired in 2019 after 41 years working in Direct Patient Care ... I am so glad that we retired at 62 years of age and got to spend that time together before he passed....I still do love Retirement!!!!

I DABBLE IN A BIT OF THIS AND THAT!!!!

" IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
George Eliot

George Eliot was actually a pen name for a woman named Mary Anne Evans......

BLOGGING FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

My One Little Word for 2014

Well, here we are again at the beginning of another Year, a New Year!!

With it holds excitement and anticipation and a sense of renewal and positive feelings......

I will be very honest in saying that I need that right now.

My One Little Word for 2013 was JOY! Click HERE to read about it!

I wanted the Year to bring me Joy and that I would do the things and be with the people that brought me the most JOY in this life.

Did that actually happen?????

For the most part......

In the beginning of the Year , it did........

I do not want to bore you by going on and on but I did get to do a lot of projects around our home and that gives me a Lot of Joy because my Home is my Passion....My Sanctuary from the World and my Respite when I come home after a particularly long and hard night at work and need to rest and relax and regenerate from the crazy hours I keep because of my job.

I decorated for the Holidays and Seasons that came after Christmas.......

Winter.....

Valentine's Day.......

St. Patrick's Day.....

Easter.....

And the Patriotic Holidays of the Summer.....

I started my Weight Loss Journey as a means to postpone yet another Surgery. I had 3 surgeries in 3 years several years ago.
When I was told in March that I needed a Right Total Knee Replacement since my joint was " Bone on Bone", I knew it was now or never to try to lose all the extra weight that I had gained over the last 15-17 years.

I bought a Stationary Exercise Bike like my Orthopedic Surgeon suggested for maintaining the mobility in my joint.........

And even though at first, I thought I was going to die on it, I slowly worked up to 8 miles a day in 30 - 35 minutes.

And I started to watch what I ate and stuck to a 1000 - 1200 calorie Meal Plan.

The weight started to come off and I have lost 50 pounds up to this point.

Did I think that I was going to lose 50 pounds this year in the beginning of the Year????

NO WAY!

So that was an unexpected JOY!

I worked in my Garden over the Summer ........

Did some Thrift Store Shopping and went to several Yard Sales which always bring me JOY! I love a good bargain!

I redid our Powder Room .........

Before...

After......

Then we decided that we would have Wood Laminate floors installed in the LR, DR, Hall Way and Kitchen along with new Slate Laminate Flooring in the Powder Room, a new Medicine Cabinet , Light Bar, new Kitchen Counter Tops and Sink.

New Flooring ......

New Countertops.....

Finished....

And this did give me great JOY because it changed the look of our home into the Country Victorian look that I love.

So up until this point, I was finding JOY in my Life.

But things went a bit crazy and out of control after that........

And the person to blame is Myself and it is no one else's fault but my own.

Stupid me went back on my own Self Imposed Idea that I would not get myself involved with participating or running any type of Events for our Church or any other organization like I have in the past until I was no longer working full time because it was just too much for me to handle.

But I had already consented in March to Co Chairing our church's Holiday Craft Fair but I added insult to injury by also deciding that I would again be a Hostess for our church's Harvest Tea which was scheduled for one week after I had just unpacked and put back my entire downstairs after the new flooring was installed.

Harvest Tea....

WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING???????

I did the Harvest Tea and it was great fun but very Stressful.

Only adding more to the Stress that I already felt because of the Remodel , the fact that I was to be a Craft Vendor in 2 Fall Craft Fairs and had nothing new made and would be making up baskets for a Specialty Basket Raffle and Co Chairing the coinciding Craft Fair , plus trying to decorate our home for Christmas in the fashion that I usually do which is from top to bottom.

All this while working Full Time Night Shift!!!!!

I worked on Baskets until I was Blue in the Face because instead of having only 5-6 like I had originally planned, we ended up with 13!!!

Right up to the morning before we were supposed to start selling Chances for them!!

Basket Raffle....

Again,

WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING??????

I then had to drop out of the first Fall Craft Fair that I was supposed to be a Vendor at because I could not find the time to create any new items for this Craft Fair.

ALL the JOY that I usually felt this time of year because of the coming Holiday season was being sucked right out of me and I was miserable!

I was so Stressed out that my Blood Pressure was up, I was getting headaches, I had no time to do my exercise bike and I was plateauing with my Weight Loss and my IBS kicked in.....

Again.....

NO JOY!

I wanted to drop out of the Craft Fair as a vendor and that would not have been a problem as we had a waiting list and as far as any money that I would have made, it meant nothing to me at that point.

What I wanted was my sanity back and not being a vendor at the Craft fair would have been so much easier and less Stressful for me

BUT

Joe and my Co Chair, Rosemary, would not hear of me dropping out.

They thought I was being silly....

I was being truthful and serious.......

So having an S on my Chest for STUPID rather than for SUPERWOMAN, I tried to get some things crafted , struggled through the Craft Fair, running it , taking care of the needs of the Kitchen Stand and being a vendor at the same time.

I was going to say that I almost lost my mind but the fact of the matter is that I DID lose my mind. I was nasty, I was tearful all the time( If you knew me personally, you would know that it takes a lot to make me cry as I am a tough old bird) and I truly was not feeling well.

Again, NO JOY!!

Now what gives me the most JOY at the end of each year is decorating my home from top to bottom and then sharing it with family and friends by hosting 1-2 Open Houses.

To me, this is Christmas.

We do not exchange gifts anymore as my sons want money for Christmas and their Birthdays which are in December and Joe and I stopped buying Christmas gifts for each other several years ago because we buy what we want when we want it and it seemed silly to rack our brains over trying to find something to buy just for the sake of wrapping up something to put under the Tree.

The Boys gift us money or gift cards usually.

So Christmas to me is sharing my home and entertaining the people that mean the most to me.

Because of all that I had gotten myself involved in, I could not get my home decorated the way that I had in the past.
I had to quit decorating and never got to our Den , my Doll House or upstairs and that to me, personally, was a huge disappointment and a huge failure on my part.

AGAIN, NO JOY!

And then when everyone who I usually invite to my Open House expected to be invited and to see the House all decorated and when I explained that it was not going to happen this Year and they responded with " But I know you will get it all done", I realized that I was not going to live up to what everyone expected of me so I cancelled my Christmas Open House Party.

Now I will be brutally honest in saying that this caused me great disappointment in myself and left me with a huge feeling of Failure and Sadness.

NO JOY!

I know, to many of you, you may think I am being silly but when it comes to what makes me personally Happy and gives me the most JOY, it is my family, friends and my home.

I am my own Worst Enemy because I expect a lot out of people which usually leads me to disappointment because people usually do not live up to my expectations but the one that I expect the most out of is myself and I could just not pull it off this Holiday season.

So again, in all honesty, I am glad the Holidays are over because I truly did not get a lot of JOY from them this year.

Don't get me wrong.... having our little family of 5 together for the Holiday Season sharing meals and laughs and stories made my heart sing and brought me lots of JOY this Season.

And spending some time with friends also brought me a lot of Joy but made me realize that I did not have a lot of time in 2013 to spend with friends......

But for the most part, I was the most stressed out and unhappy about the Holidays that I have been in a very long time.

So what is my word for 2014??????

I have thought long and hard about this and initially , my One Little Word for 2014 was going to be "NO"!

I need to learn to say" NO" to people.

But then I changed my mind........

I did not want this New Year , with all it's expectations to be focused on such a negative word.

Then I thought that maybe my Word for 2014 would be "Plan" because that was something that I did not do the last 4 months of 2013.........

But that word sounded so bland to me.....

So the word that I have chosen to focus on this year is "ME"!

Now I know that it may sound like a Selfish Word to chose but after the way I felt the last 4 months of 2013, I need to take a break, to rest , to relax , recharge my batteries and focus on ME and not on what everyone else wants of ME or expects ME to do.

My mental Well Being and physical Well Being has suffered these last few months because of Stress and that is not a good thing for anyone.

Now this is not going to be easy for ME because I have already made comittments. I will be Co Chairing a Spring and Fall Craft Fair for our Church. I have already booked these dates and committed myself and I will not go back on my word .

Again, S on my chest for Stupid and not for Superwoman!

I need to rethink a lot of things in my life to be able to work full time and be involved with events like these. If I can adjust my time and the way I do things and pull this off without causing myself the amount of Stress and Disappointment that I felt during these past 4 months then I will continue to be involved with these Events.

But if the same pattern repeats itself this year, then I will be bowing out of all activities until I am no longer working full time.

In order to do this, I need to make changes. I need to be more organized, I need to plan better and to appropriate my time better.

Being a Nurse, it is my profession to take care of other people. I also feel the need to do so in my personal life and have a hard time saying no to people.

Now I can say NO very easily to working extra hours and doing over time at my job so I need to learn how to do that in my Personal life like I did in my Professional life.

I LOVE blogging but it takes up a tremendous amount of time as you all know.

But it does give ME great JOY and pleasure so I am not giving it up completely. It is a hobby and a stress reliever.........

But if it becomes more like another job then I may feel the need to cut back on posting.......

I feel badly that I did not have the time over the past few months to visit more with all of you and I missed that very much.

I would rather spend my time visiting with you than posting about ME.

But all this remains to be seen and the New Year brings the Hope of Endless Possibilities........

So only Time will tell......

So there it is......

My One Little Word for 2014 is "ME"

Did you pick your One Little Word yet for the New Year?????

If you did , I would love to hear about it.........

THANK YOU ALL OF BEING MY FRIENDS AND I WISH YOU ALL.......

A HEALTHY & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

I will be linking up to these great parties this week:

THURSDAY
Treasure Hunt Thursdays