I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to 2019. You know how you sometimes keep writing the previous year on dates for a month or two into the new year? I’ve been writing “2019” on my dates since October. Heh. And we had a doozy of a new year’s eve to ring in 2019. My brother-in-law got engaged, my kids were all spending the night with friends or grandparents, and Jason and I got a date night to ourselves to snuggle up and watch a movie. I went to bed a few hours earlier than him (because really, you don’t stay up to midnight when you often wake up at 3am with insomnia!) and had a good night of sleep despite fireworks. I woke up to discover I’d hit a weight that I hadn’t seen since last June, and was only three pounds higher than my lowest weight of 2018. Progress!
Back when 2018 began, I bought a bag of river pebbles. For months, I put a pebble in a Ball jar for each happy moment I experienced. When Morrigan brought home the above frolicking-cats bowl for me from Japan, I transferred the pebbles there. The picture above represents all my happy moments in 2018. It was a tough year, but there were many good things. How many? I don’t know. I didn’t count. But the bowl was heavy, and I think that’s really what matters – the weight of those happy moments, comforting and full.
To bring in the new year, I began a new daily journal (my sixth since I began keeping one August 2013). These are Italian handcrafted journals from Barnes & Noble, with enough pages inside to last a bit more than a year. It just so happened that my last journal ended on December 31st (first time for that!) so I could begin entirely anew on January 1st.
I then started my first book of the year. This is one I’d looked forward to for months now and I was so happy to receive it from the library not long before December ended. I began Tuesday morning, before collecting my children from various sleepovers and taking the family out to see Into the Spider-Verse. It was AWESOME. We all loved it, and we got to come home to dinner and games with a family friend, which capped off the night perfectly. It really was the best way to enter the new year!
PS – I was really sad to watch the poor Seahawks lose to the frickin’ Cowboys of all teams last night. Though I’m really glad I was watching the wrong part of the replay when they showed the gruesome injury so I missed it. That whole bit was heartbreaking and scary.
The Zen Leaf 
The pebble in a jar is a good idea, especially at the end of a difficult year so you can see how many good things actually happened. I was thinking about doing the good things jar where you write the good thing on a colorful piece of paper and put it in the jar and then read through them, but if one keeps a journal is that really necessary? Can’t I just flip back through the journal or the tags in my blog and see all the good stuff? Idk…sometimes it helps to have that added layer of visuals. LOL
Happy New Year! Hope your pebble jar is overflowing on 12/31/19!
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I did that jar thing a few years ago, and found that when I was going through really rough times (and I did this in one of the worst years I’ve ever had), I started putting in slips of paper just to try to convince myself things were better than they were. Things like “I actually smiled today” and “I slept for five hours without waking up.” They weren’t happy moments but instead “not as bad” moments. I overstuffed the jar by August and went to look at them, and was so discouraged that I threw the whole project out. Needless to say it backfired on me!! But I like the pebbles – I can throw in happy moments but don’t feel pressure to name them, or later disappointment in what I chose.
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Sounds like a great week!
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First off congrats on the weight loss I am so very proud of you and all that you do to get better and better. Secondly, I think I wanna steal the pebble idea from you because it is a really great concept! You’re going to have a fabulous year my friend and I’m a huge Cowboy fan but I also love the Seahawks because of being raised there so it was bittersweet to say the least! Have a wonderful day even though I’m a few days late to respond I always catch your blog because you are a very interesting person and no matter what you push on and I think that’s priceless!
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I didn’t know you were raised in Seattle! My youngest wants to go there for college, though I have to say he changes his mind about that sort of thing every six months right now so who knows where he’ll be in a few years when he actually needs to decide!
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Yes ma’am and he should visit because it’s a great place to live and hangout! I moved from Texas to Seatle,Washington when I turned 8 and stayed most of my life there! I’ll be moving back to the west coast in the next 2 yrs it’s just home to me ya know?
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I love, love your happy bowl and how heavy it was. What a great reminder that there is always good.
I hope 2019 is a great year for you!
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The river rocks in a bowl is a delightful idea. Not only is it a great visual reminder of happy things when everything seems bleak, but it also makes for a fantastic decoration piece!
Here is to a much better 2019 for you and your entire family!
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