Tag Archives: New Year’s

The Last Day of the Year

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New Year’s Eve is a little like Christmas Eve, isn’t it?

In that moment before, there’s such potential, such excitement! For what, who knows? And that’s the point, I think, when one’s standing on the precipice, right before the leap: there is no telling what is coming next.

The last week of the old year, I do a lot of thinking. It may look like napping or cleaning or eating cookies, but I am really engaged in an inordinate amount of ruminating and pondering. You can read how I apply all that thinking to my writing life over at The Muffin with End of the Year Thinking. But I also do a lot of thinking about me and my…well, all the other parts of my life.

And as I do a lot of inbox cleaning this time of year, I happened to come across a two minute video I’d saved by Matthew Kelly, a prolific Catholic Christian author. It’s titled Five Lessons from Roald Dahl so I knew immediately why I’d saved it.

I am a huge Roald Dahl fan, a lover of his children’s books and his macabre short stories, too. You can watch Kelly’s excellent video and hear the lessons we should learn from the following Dahl quotes but honestly, I think we’re all sharp enough to get the points:

1) “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”

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“I will not pretend I wasn’t petrified. I was. But mixed in with the awful fear was a glorious feeling of excitement. Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.’ – Danny the Champion of the World

‘A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.’ – The Twits

From The Witches: REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.

And finally, perhaps Dahl’s most well-known quote:

‘And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.’ – Billy and The Minpins

I have no idea what can be coming next in this old world of mine, but I feel like a little Roald Dahl wit and wisdom might be just what we all need before making the leap into 2022. Happy writing, happy living, and happy New Year!

~♥Cathy (and Libs)

Starting the Year With Joy (And More)

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Happy New Year, y’all! I hope 2019 started with all things wonderful for you and yours! I know lots of people choose a word for the year, but I’m not very good at choosing a word. I felt like I needed a good handful of words to get me through 365 days and so, after some long thinking (that looked suspiciously like a long nap), I chose peace, love, and joy.

Yay! Exactly what I need for 2019! But then I thought there was something very familiar about those words. I mean, besides the fact that I still had Christmas cards hanging about and peace, love, and joy are big themes of the season. So I decided to get a cuppa and think upon it.

There’s a shelf above my sink where I keep my coffee cups (and why do we call mugs “coffee cups” or “coffee mugs” but a more delicate cup, the one that comes with a saucer, a “teacup”? I only drink tea and I drink it out of the coffee mugs. Mister Man only drank coffee but he was just as likely to drink his coffee from a teacup. Is a puzzlement.)

Anyway, when I reached for a cup, here’s what I saw:

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Hahahahhaaaa! My favorite tea mug! I guess as long as I don’t break that cup, I won’t forget my words for 2019.

And honestly, I needed those words, when a few days into the new year, I received an email that…well, you can read for yourself over at the Muffin in “The Value of a Professional.”

I feel like I have LOTS more to say about the value of a professional so I hope you’ll all give it a read and then come back in a day or so (or possibly six) when I expound on that topic. Meanwhile, in spreading a little joy, I have an update about my friend, Sonia, and her book, Finding Joy in Giving Back to God that I shared with you here back in early December.

41Uy077Uf1L._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_Sonia has not only sold her first batch of books, but several more batches (and I’m getting ready to order 50 more books for her)! A pastor from another church contacted her, asking her to speak to a group of parishioners, and so this weekend, she’ll have her very first speaking engagement (which is why I need to order more books!). She asked if she could share my Muffin post “A Christmas (Publishing) Miracle” and of course I said sure and brought her a copy of the post this morning.

Oh, my, that Sonia is a force to be reckoned with! Almost every day, she has news or questions or I-don’t-know-what-all, but mostly, she’s just full of joy. Not because of her accomplishment–though I think she still can’t believe how far the book has come–but because she’s helping so many people in different ways. That would make anyone joyful!

And her joy brings me joy. That’s the way it works with joy and with peace and love, now that I think about it. I can’t imagine a better way to start a new year, can you?

 

New Year, Old Values

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hand-children-child-child-s-hand-159827So I just read my newspaper from New Year’s–don’t judge, I had a lot of football and family going on–and I opened my Parade magazine to find “Let’s Make 2017 the Year of Being Kind.”

That’s a swell idea but I may have laughed out loud, sitting at my kitchen table, reading. Because suddenly, people being kind to one another has become a trend. And we have all sorts of templates and books and specially made cards to help us remember to be kind.

*sigh*

I can remember sitting in the kitchen of my childhood home, after a particularly hurtful day at school, and hearing my mother say (for probably the millionth time): “Be kind, fair maid, let him who will be clever.”

Now, the quote is actually “Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever” from a poem by Charles Kingsley. But I’m sure Mom thought the word kindness worked better in that quote, or at least, in trying to explain to her children the importance of being kind to people instead of retaliating in some hurtful way.

She preached kindness every day, and my teachers did, too. When I think about it, most of the adults I knew growing up–family and friends–not only preached kindness but lived it. And so we grew up understanding the value of kindness, and we taught that value to our children.

I’m very glad that the old-fashioned trait of kindness was instilled in me and those I love. And for those who may have forgotten, or perhaps didn’t grow up with kindness, I hope that the Parade articles and templates and quotes will inspire all to begin the best new habit ever.

So Happy New Year’s, y’all! And may 2017 flow with kindness (and lovely acceptances)!