new year's eve 5

today Singing Owl hosts new years 5. She tells us,

I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, but it does seem a good time for some reflection and planning. For the last few days I keep thinking of Psalm 90:12

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Among other things, that seems to say that reflection is in order if we want to learn and grow. For some of us, this has been an incredibly difficult year; for others it has been a year of many joys. For all of us, there have been challenges and questions and there have been blessings and—maybe even an answer or two! As we say our goodbyes to 2010 and look towards 2011, share with us five blessings from 2010 along with five hopes or dreams for 2011.

5 blessings:

1. (almost) weekly participation in Word and Sacrament truly have helped sustain me.

2. continued realization that my insight and perception have cost me some, yet as always they've helped me survive, too. I've also been thankful for ways my knowledge of scripture and theology has helped me get through.

3. the easy availability of a multicultural banquet of culinary delights here in southern California! long ago someone advised me to appreciate the little things like freshly falling snow; since I consider myself a Food Groupie, taste and smell are majorly in that category of "little things" I truly appreciate. As an aside, I keep telling myself as long as I don't gain any weight, but losing a few would be a good all-around idea for the coming year.

4. would you believe internet friendships? And I've truly delighted in keeping my Facebook design page active and up to date and loved the guests artist and their art as well as the wonderfully positive reactions to my own art.

5. Roxy, my new kitteh who arrived at SAN on 16 October via DFW and PHX!

I love the light that shines through and reflects from this Carnival Necklace! It's from TamaraLyn Young's Etsy shop, bi-eyed beading named after one of her Husky Dogs. How well it represents the many-coloured facets of life's often chimeric shifts, transitions and surprises—I'm expecting quite a few more of those during 2011!

5 hopeful dreams:

1. to find a place of belonging and embrace where I can participate reasonably to the extent of my gifts, abilities and desires. It may be unreal to expect people immediately to know who I am, but I so want to find a few people who are interested in finding out who I am, rather than feeling threatened or being indifferent. West Side Story is coming to town soon, and I keep recalling "Somewhere": There's a place for us / Somewhere a place for us / There's a time for us / Some day a time for us / We'll find a new way of living / We'll find a way of forgiving / Somewhere...

2. same as #1—yet again I've been wise enough to realize that grief and loss are messy events and in general we humans need something that sort of replaces whatever we've lost in order fully to acknowledge the loss. Part of my longing hope for that elusive community is that God will allow me to be a wounded healer for others in addition to finding a few for myself.

3. this is a replay, repeat or rerun from at least one previous year, but how about learning the rest of the Beethoven piano Sonata cycle? Only 5 more to go.... yet what's the point if I have nowhere to play. For me it's so much about The Performance, but that can't be all that bad!

4. to be more grateful for everything, which means going far beyond the usual acknowledgment of how much worse it could have been, realizing other people are in far worse circumstance, being grateful for what has gone right and not awry—moving closer to a fully Eucharistic lifestyle.

5. a super concrete one for last: more design, more exposure for my design, entering more shows and competitions—possibly the State Fair next summer?!

Thanks, SingingOwl!