Good morning, y’all.
There are quite a few new readers here since I first started in August 2022. So in the spirit of introducing new features, I want to reintroduce myself. I’m AD, 30 something, wife, mother to three beautiful children, and homeschool mama. When I was 15 years old, my entire life was flipped on its head. My mom and sister had died in a car accident. Here one minute, gone the next. It led me down an angry path and anger has been a leading emotion in my life for far too long. Recently, I’ve been able to acknowledge, work through and practice leading with love and light instead of anger. For the last year and a half, I’ve been working on slowing down and living intentionally. It started out as a means to manage my anxiety and has slowly become a daily conscious effort. I am a work in progress and trying to find my own path to a mindful life.
We have just recently moved into a house built in 1972 and was sold by its original owners. It is nestled on one acre of moderately wooded land. The neighborhood borders a National Forest. It is ridiculously quiet out here, despite neighbors living fairly close. The wildlife comes right up to our house. We have big picture windows on both floors, allowing us to feel like we are outside when we’re inside soaking up all the heat. The sun shines through the windows and heats up the top floor, sometimes a little too much (83 degrees) but it’s welcome after the cold CO temps we’ve already experienced (-30). It has been a dream living here (almost a month in). I knew leaving the city and moving into/near a forest would help my anxiety. Before we moved to Colorado, I felt there was no room for growth in Florida. Not the kind of growth we were looking for. Don’t get me wrong, Florida is a beautiful place to live full of an abundance of sunshine and. humidity. But as it turns out, where we live now gets the same, if not more days of sunshine than the Tampa Bay Area.
All in all, I want to say welcome to my new readers, and thank you. Thank you for joining me on this journey. And to my OG readers, thank you for over a year of support! I never in a million years thought I’d be doing something like this but it has been such a remarkable experience so far, I can’t imagine stopping here.
In the chaos of the holidays and moving, I feel like I’ve completely abandoned the intentional and mindful portion of my daily routine. There have been mindful decisions sprinkled in here and there but for the most part, chaos has ruled my life for the last two months. I can very easily tell this is the case. I’ve been scatter brained and unable to fully focus on one task at a time. This is not unusual for me, but it is certainly amplified when I am not putting effort into slowing down. To get back to living more mindfully and intentionally, I’ve made a few changes to my routine.
Each morning, whether on paper or mentally, I make a gratitude list. I’ve discussed this before and the benefits grow each and every day. Reminding ourselves that something as simple as waking up can be taken for granted and we should be grateful for that everyday.
“It’s a beautiful thing to have lungs that allow you to breathe air and legs that allow you to climb mountains, and it’s a shame that sometimes we don’t realize that that’s enough.”- Unknown
Gratitude:
Another day!
Health/Family
Children’s giggles
Sunshine
Snow
Coffee
A good book
The curiosity of the deer
The grumpy little faces of the Mountain Chickadees
We have almost survived the dark month of January. The winter woes are becoming less and less frequent as the days get longer and brighter. Where we’re at in Colorado, we’ll have snow until April or May but I cannot wait for the longer days ahead.
Starting in February, I’m going to try something a little different than my sporadic, inconsistent posting. Each month, I’ll be choosing a philosopher and posting a daily quote. The hope is that these quotes act as a reminder to live a slower, mindful and more intentional life.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve felt an internal shift pulling me in the direction of writing. I’m not sure how or why because honestly, I’m not confident in my writing. But I received some encouraging words from one of my past English teachers no less that propelled me forward in this creative journey. Sometimes, we just need to take the leap and see what happens.
When I started this, I always knew I wanted to offer everything for free. I never imagined anyone would be willing to pay for what I have to say. To my absolute surprise and excitement, there are people willing to do so. Without restricting content to free subscribers, I’ll be working on something special for my paid subscribers in the next couple of months. More on this to come!
-AD