{ word }

hello again! it's been a while. the delay in creating this post is brought to you mostly by my perfectionistic tendencies. if the words aren't perfect in my head, there's no way i can type them out. if the rest of my to-do list isn't done, how can i write a blog post?

however, if i want to create a community with you, i need to do better than that! i think i'm the only one who expects the 'perfect' post. you'll be okay with just hearing from me, won't you?! well, here goes the long-awaited second post...

a few weeks ago, after i made some pendants from a fanastic vintage dictionary, i put this picture on my facebook page ::

the question i asked my readers is, "what's your word"?  i received some great responses, including ::

run, create, unique, dream, love, hope,

freedom, happiness, enrichment, appreciate

 

asking for one word to describe you or your feelings also had me thinking about the words we use in our daily communication. technology has changed the way we "talk" to each other. rather than putting pen to paper and writing a letter, we use our tiny cell phones to text in acronyms. IKR? LOL. TTYL. i have to reference our teenager's texting dictionary just to decipher what she's saying to me!

or, we limit ourselves to tweeting in 140 characters or less. preferably less. or we send one line emails devoid of emotion, where you have to guess the tone the sender is trying to convey. less is more, right?!

for the last two years, i've focused on a single word {as often as i can remember} to remind me to look on the bright side. here's what i picked ::

last year's word was HOPE. at the beginning of 2010, i was staring two major surgeries in the face, with quite a long bit of recovery time in between the two. as scared as i was, i knew my word needed to be something to carry me through the pain, the recovery, the time i knew i would be facing with not much going on. anyone who knows me, knows that i don't have much down time. i hate down time! armed with books, meals, carpools and a cabinet full of drugs, i had to think about what my life would be after i was back to my old self again. that's where hope came in! 

here's how merriam webster defines it::

²hope

Definition of HOPE

1

archaic: trust, reliance

2

a: desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment <came in hopes of seeing you>; also: expectation of fulfillment or success

by having HOPE, i was saying to myself that i could get through this and i would be alright. to me, hope is a faith-based belief as much as it is a self-belief. and, guess what? it worked! i made it.

and i made this to remember ::

and this ::

which leads me to this year's word, GRATITUDE. probably, the reason why i picked it is obvious. i made it through a tough time. i am healthy. unless i get hit by a bus, i will live to see my kids grow up and i will be a grandma {please, not for a very long time, though}, and i can live worry free that i won't get cancer. phew. huge relief.

my friends at merriam-webster say that gratitude is the state of being grateful. duh. but the next word says THANKFULNESS. yep, that one word says it all. this year, i am living in a state {when i can remember} of thankfulness. focusing on what i have rather than what i don't have isn't always easy, but it sure does help to put things in perspective. i haven't made anything to commemorate my word for 2011. any suggestions?!

okay, back to that facebook picture i posted. want to hear what stopped me dead in my tracks?! a message from my friend, allison, telling me what her words were.

BE.

  Be authentic. Be kind. Be honest. Be spontaneous. Be the difference. Be fun. Be fabulous. Be yourself. Be . . . .

and, she said, second place goes to

DO.

i think what floored me about her words were their simultaneous simplicity and complexity. made me really think about how i tend to go on and on without saying much. hmmm...

so, now it's your turn to tell me, friends, what's your word?