My One Word for 2024 #OneWord2024

I can’t believe it’s here… My annual visit from… 

The Posts of New Year’s Past: 👻 🥳 🎊 🎉

Reflecting on The Posts of New Year’s Past, I have to say I admire my tenacity persistence commitment to the One Word challenge even though I haven’t always done a spectacular job:  

One Word for 2023 was: Breathe. Well, I’m still here so I can say, for certainty, I did breathe. That said, I wish I had been a bit more intentional about it. However, I am loving my 2023 quote: “When life gives you lemons, use them for garnish in the mulled wine after you’ve opened a bottle of red and both of you have breathed.” 🍷

One Word for 2022 was: Embrace. I love the idea of playing an active role in accepting. The idea of leaning into the discomfort and even, if possible, welcoming it. And, honestly, I did a decent job of it. For some things. Other things are difficult to damn near impossible to embrace, if we’re truth-telling. (And we are.)

One Word for 2021 was: Allow. This one was awesome. It worked SO well. I allowed ALL OF THE THINGS. I didn’t struggle, fight, flail, or falter. (My sarcasm didn’t translate well here. So, the only thing I allowed was badly-written sarcasm.) 

One Word for 2020 was: Focus. Focus on one thing at a time to avoid overwhelm? Fab plan, lady. Alas…

One Word for 2019 was: Move. Getting unstuck was sort of the idea. I’m still stuck but heartily sorry for it and flailing for a helping hand out of the pit.

One Word for 2018 was: Self. It was a good choice. It worked. A little. Some of the time. Not as often as I’d hoped.

One Word for 2017 was Accept. I did not accept anything. I sort of UN-accepted pretty much everything. I faltered. Failed. Moved on.

I love all of my choices from the past seven years. I do. But last year’s word goes with this year’s word like cheese and wine. So, I’m keeping breathe as well. I know this sort of (totally) defeats the purpose of the One Word challenge being, you know, two words but… *shrug* I’m a bit of a rebel.

Scrooge and I got our visits again. However, this year, Scrooge and I hung out with our dear friend, George Bailey. As we know, Scrooge promised to change so he could live and George begged, regardless of what happened to him, to live. Oh, to be alive! All else is secondary. All else follows. 

Like Scrooge and Mr. Bailey, I want to live. Really live. And, so, gentle readers, that is exactly what I am going to do.

My focus word for 2024:

LIVE

Again, you intelligent, delightful people do not need a definition for this one, but you’re getting one anyway (*nerd alert*):

live

 

[liv]

 

verb 

• remain alive:

Um… Yes, please.

 

• supply oneself with the means of subsistence:

I’m going to go ahead and change “subsistence” to “sustenance”. I shall indulge in the cheeses and chocolates and wines and wonderful foods of the world. Eat, drink, and be merry, I say! 🍷

 

• have an exciting or fulfilling life:

Well, hello there! Greetings, excitement and fulfillment! Let’s live this life, shall we? 

 

• make one’s home in a particular place or with a particular person:

And, in between all the excitement, it’s nice to have a place (and people) to come home to. Which I do. And I am blessed to have them. 

 

My quote of 2024: “Why just exist on this planet when you can truly live in the infinite multiverse?” (Or something like that. You get it.) 

Happy New Year, my friends. 💖 Raising a glass to your goals, aspirations, resolutions, or whatever floats your proverbial boat. Cheers! To life! 🥂 

Have you ever taken part in the One Word Challenge?

If you haven’t, why not try it? Or think on it a moment and leave one in the comments. What could your focus be this year? I’d love to hear what your One Word is for 2024.

UPDATE: 2/1/24
Well. It’s been a hell of a start to 2024. But! We are still here. We are doing the living and the breathing, so I say to you, gentle readers, all is well! 💖 Happy Dark Chocolate Day! (Which is, indeed, a thing.) And Happy February, Happy Imbolc, Happy Brigid’s Day! Hope your year is off to a beautiful start! 

 

 

Happy Holidays

 

 

 

Snow and Sun settle

Upon the slumbering pines

Yuletide gleaming bright

The longest night – hidden hope

Darkness surrenders to light

 

 

 

 

❄️❄️❄️

A Winter Solstice poem for you, my friends. Wishing you much joy and happiness this holiday season! 

❄️❄️❄️

 

 

 

 

 

Holiday Gifts from the Heart #GivingTuesday

Hello, my friends! It’s here! 🎁🎄My annual gift-giving post. 💝 I love this (it brings me such joy) and have been posting it every year since 2016.

I used to post mid to late December for last-minute ideas but have posted a bit earlier the past few years for Giving Tuesday (which takes place on November 28th this year). (If you shop on Giving Tuesday, most organizations will match, double, or even triple your gift.) Enjoy! 

Quick, easy, heartfelt. 🎁🎄💝 Perfect for Giving Tuesday (and last-minute gifts):

Environment / Nature

ARBOR DAY FOUNDATION

Mission: “to help others understand and use trees as a solution to many of the global issues we face today, including air quality, water quality, a changing climate, deforestation, poverty, and hunger.”

These Trees in Celebration certificates are lovely and only two dollars plants a tree. They have other fun gifts here like delicious, rich, rain forest coffee. Every sip helps the world. Because. Trees. Behold the beautiful trees! 🌲

• About Arbor Day Foundation

Animals / Wildlife 

ASPCA

Mission: “animals are entitled to kind and respectful treatment at the hands of humans and must be protected…”

Show your love for our four-legged friends. Give a holiday gift card in honor of a beloved furchild. I can’t stand the cuteness of that puppy. You know you want to help these little munchkins. Available in snail mail cards or ecards.

• About ASPCA

Hunger / Poverty

HEIFER INTERNATIONAL

Mission: “to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way by supporting and investing alongside local farmers and their communities.”

Choose a donation and mail, print it out, or email with a custom message to the gift recipient. Or you can give a gift card (to print out or send via email) so they can choose their own donation.

My personal favorite gift to give is honeybees. They are awesome. Here are 2 reasons why:

“Food for Life: Honey is the only food that includes all the essential elements necessary to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals and even water. Its unique chemical makeup also allows it to be preserved indefinitely.”

“Farmers’ Helpers: In the process of searching for nectar, bees pollinate plants. The placement of a single colony can potentially double local fruit and vegetable yields.”

Isn’t that incredible? It’s the bee’s knees. 🐝

•  About Heifer International

KIVA

Mission: “to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. We celebrate and support people looking to create a better future for themselves, their families and their communities.”

Print these out or email them to the gift recipient and they can start loaning right away. Change someone’s life, get paid back, help someone else… And on it goes. Making spirits bright.

• About Kiva

Childhood Cancer/Childhood Diseases

ST. JUDE CHILDREN’S RESEARCH HOSPITAL

Mission: “Finding cures. Saving children. St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.”

Please do check out the site if you don’t already know about St. Jude Children’s Hospital. And, if you do, well… ‘Nuff said.

Mail a card or send an email

• About St. Jude Children’s Hospital

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

About Giving Tuesday

Use the hashtags #GivingTuesday and #GivingTuesday2023 on your blogs and social media to spread the word and find tons of ways to help this holiday season! 

 ❄️ Have a beautiful holiday season! ❄️

The X-ed Bird, Some Threads, & an Elephant in the Sky

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with social media. I’ve been complaining about it (sometimes right here) for almost ten years. Yet there I still am.

For me, drowning in the sea of social media platforms that we “should” join isn’t new.

However…

Changes have been made and things are happening and it’s all a bit of a dumpster fire at the moment. 🔥🔥🔥

The tweeting blue bird has officially been X-ed.

Threads are weaving through the online world. Messages are floating through the big blue sky. And mammoths are running amok.

Never being one to jump at the shiny, new thing, I’ve not done so with the millions who are Threading. (Yes, I just turned that into a verb. I’m embarrassed.)

Still, I am wondering whether these new (or newer) platforms might be worth it.

Threads *seems* easy. I’ve heard of Mastodon. I recently got an invite to Bluesky. And yet. 

I’m not really active on any platforms at the moment. I honestly don’t know where to share stuff anymore. Because I want to share. Sharing is nice. 

Don’t get me started on all the privacy issues, the owners who are…sketchy or worse, the potential problems (because of said owners and, let’s face it, people on the sites). I try not to think about it too much and just live in a small bubble of followers and followees.

My random thoughts in (slightly over) 200 words.

Are you on any of these platforms? How do you like them? Which do you suggest? (And, may I ask, why?) 

 

#CountYourTitles Book Challenge #BookTag #BookStack

Count Your Titles challenges you to go on a search and stack. Search your bookshelf (or floor, or table, or wherever your books are) and stack a book with a one-word title, then a two-word title, then a three-word, you get it… See how far you get.

Going in, I had no idea how many books I’d find or just how much fun it would be. Here we go!

I made it to… *drumroll*

TWELVE 📚🎉

1 – Atlantia by Ally Condie

2 – Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

3 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

4 – The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

5 – Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

6 – The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

7 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

8 – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

9 – My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

10 – And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman

11 – The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente 

12 – The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Saw this over at Between the Lines and it looked like so much fun. Thanks, Cathy!

Feel like doing a search and stack? How far can you get? Consider yourself tagged. Have fun! 📚

12 books! 📚🎉

The Shadows We Breathe #BookReviews

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

The Shadows We Breathe series has received some love and I wanted to share the wonderful bloggers who have posted about it. I am thrilled readers have enjoyed these anthologies and am excited to share some reviews with you. 📚🎉

Hop on over to Lemon Shark Reef to check out the books, blogs, and reviews of these lovely bloggers!

The Shadows We Breathe #BookReviews

The Shadows We Breathe, Vol. 3 #Reblog #NewRelease

The lovely and talented Diana, at Myths of the Mirror, shared the news (and first review!) of the newest volume of The Shadows We Breathe. The announcement and review are both amazing so please do check it out. Thank you, Diana! 🥰💖

Also, if you haven’t been to her blog (where on earth have you been?), do peek around while you’re there at her posts and incredible selection of books. Aside from contributing her gorgeous prose to this anthology, she has a bit of exciting news to share, so pop on over to Diana’s place!

The Shadows We Breathe, Vol. 3

The Shadows We Breathe ~ Vol. 3 #NewRelease

It’s here! 🥂🖤 🎉 The third book in this series is here! (I’m a bit excited.) 

The Shadows We Breathe (Volume 3) is now available in eBook and paperback!

eBook

Paperback

Thank you, again, to the talented authors who contributed their excellent writing and wonderful stories to this anthology. You are all rockstars. 

To Loni Townsend for that gorgeous, minimalist cover art that I adore just as much now as I did when I first saw it on Volume 1. And to Allie Potts for formatting said cover and creating the 3D image of this book.

Blurb

WE ARE ALL PART SHADOW 

Life promises joy and sorrow. Alongside the light, there will always be traces of darkness. It is the nature of being human.

In this anthology of short fiction, we explore power—who has it, who doesn’t, who uses it, who abuses it.

Eight artists, whose words paint worlds, bring you stories of confidence, restraint, corruption, and revenge. They define the true meaning of power.

Whether literal or symbolic, our status gives us control or leaves us defenseless.

Within these pages, beautiful words are spun into tales threaded with darkness.

Discover the shadows we breathe. 

Contributors 💕

Georgia Bell is the author of Unbound, a young adult paranormal romance about love, fear, and immortality. She was raised on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy and began writing the stories she wanted to read over a decade ago.

Author Page | Twitter

Maria Carvalho is a multi-genre author whose short stories have appeared in a variety of publications, including the Owl Hollow Press anthology series. She also co-edited and contributed to the collection Falling into the Five Senses (Ree-Imagined Worlds) and wrote the children’s book Hamster in Space!. Maria is a regular contributor to Woolgathering, a quarterly nature-themed magazine.

Author Page | Twitter

Ruth Daly’s poetry, humour, fiction, non-fiction, and contemplative pieces have been published in magazines for children, young adults, and families. She has written 59 children’s books for educational publishers covering such varied topics as musical instruments, endangered animals, rocks and minerals, and explorers.

Blog | Twitter

Elizabeth Gauffreau has published fiction and poetry in Woven Tale Press, Sunspot Literary Journal, Foliate Oak, Serving House Journal, Soundings East, Hospital Drive, Blueline, Evening Street Review, and Adelaide Literary Review, as well as several anthologies. Her novel Telling Sonny was published in 2018. Her poetry collection, Grief Songs: Poems of Love & Remembrance, was published by Paul Stream Press in 2021.

Author Page | Blog

R.A. Kerr is a life-long classic film enthusiast and has been blogging about old movies for a decade. She is also a freelance writer and editor and has facilitated creative writing workshops for kids.

Blog | Twitter

D. Wallace Peach, best-selling fantasy author, started writing later in life after the kids were grown and a move left her with hours to fill. Years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books, and when she started writing, she was instantly hooked.

Author Page | Twitter

Allie Potts lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband, two children, and spoiled dog. When not finding ways to squeeze in 72 hours into a 24 day, Allie consumes and creates science fiction, fantasy, post-apocalyptic quests, cozy mysteries, and contemporary fiction.

Author Page | Twitter

Available NOW in both eBook and Paperback! 🖤 🎉 

Why I’ll Never Write a Novel

While compiling the latest anthology, I found this paragraph in the middle of one of my stories.

I wrote this while trying to pen a 500-word piece. Five. Hundred. Words. It’s no War & Peace, my friends. It’s five hundred measly words. And, wow, did I struggle.

It’s sad but kind of hilarious (to me, anyway). Figured I’d share it.

Me, writing:

Okay, think I’m done. Phew. Not bad, Sarah, not bad at…how is that only 136 words? Dammit!

Okay…add some here, one more…no, that sucks. How about here? Okay, not bad. Now it’s…what? 287 words? I can’t add anything without ruining… Well, I guess… Yeah, I could try that. Nope. Oh, how about here? And…again no.

Oh! This would work. Boom! 373 words?! FFS!

Maybe I’ll start a new one. No, I’ve worked on this all week. Argh! Okay…skim, skim…here could work…no. Here…nope.

Okay, I guess I could add to this part but I’m saving a draft because this is totally going to ruin the story. Type, type, type, aaaand…362?! Wait, what?! How?! Oh, right, I deleted that part so this part would work. RAWR!

People have asked me how I cut my pieces down to so few words. Well, that answers it. I don’t. I struggle to get to where you all are at.

We all have our crosses of t’s and dots of i’s to bear, I guess.

As funny as it is (because I really did write this in the middle of a serious story), it made me wonder if I’ll ever be able to string enough words together to write the book(s) I’ve always wanted to write. Maybe novels are not for me.

My random thoughts in 200 words or less.

Watch this space for news about the newest volume in The Shadows We Breathe series!

Do you write flash? Micro? Short stories? How do you cut your word count down (or do you)?

 

Spring Has Sprung: Vernal Equinox

One week ago, 20th of March, was the first official day of spring. The Vernal Equinox–a time of beginnings and balance.

We’re given a fresh start as the earth wakes from its winter slumber. I’m going to take full advantage of this opportunity with the support of the universe and all its energy of newness floating about.

This past week, I tried. I made lists and plans of what I wanted to do. What I needed to do. I got overwhelmed. And I’m happy to report, I used my One Word, and breathed.

I stepped back from the lists and breathed. I went for sunny walks and breathed. I went for muddy walks and breathed.

Then I found an equinox post from years ago and decided to follow this advice from myself:

I’ll sip my coffee a little slower, savoring its flavor, and watch birds gather on the still-bare branches of the tree outside my window. I’ll listen, really listen, to them chirp and sing.

I’ll go for a walk to see tiny, lime green shoots peeking through caked earth. I’ll imagine the seeds of my dreams growing with the world around me. This is the season I will bring my ideas into the open, shake them out, and dust them off.

Day and night are of equal length on the equinox, lending its balance to us mere mortals. I gave up years ago trying to attain the elusive balance. It leads to frustration. Life will always tip, sometimes just a bit, to one side or the other.

Instead, I try to be aware and adjust accordingly. From that same post, I found some advice about this:

I will take some time to look inside myself, find pockets of discontent and fill them with light. I will also acknowledge the darkness. I will refuse to tuck away the uncomfortable pieces. Because, along with the beauty of relaxation and joy, the ugliness of stress and upset is part of me. Hiding them or denying they are there is unhealthy.

In this way, I honor my whole self. This is, in essence, “finding balance”.

My random thoughts in (slightly over) 200 words.

How are you, gentle readers? Do you feel like you could have more balance in your life? Are there any new projects, mindsets, or habits would you like to start?

Happy Spring! 🌿 (And, to my friends in Australia, Happy Autumn!)