Month: December 2015

Resolutions for 2016

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There’s a cold front sailing into Montgomery encapsulated in three-six inches of rain, and unfortunately the storm seems to be raging in my head. I’ve had a headache for two days now, and no amount of nasal spray, Allegra D, Sudafed, Tylenol, or Advil seems to be helping it.

It seems fitting to wake up on New Year’s Eve with a headache. Starting a new year is like a fresh start. Oh the possibilities. But sometimes the only way to get to where you want in life is to suffer pain and heartache (or in this case, a terrible headache). This headache is a little reminder to me this morning of how far I came this year in my own life.

I’m a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions. I know they say only 30% of people achieve those resolutions, but for the last few years I’ve been in that 30%. The hint to achieving your resolutions is to set small, measurable, attainable goals.

For instance, instead of saying: I’m going to lose weight. Say: I’m going to lose 15 lbs. Or instead of saying: I’m giving up all sugar forever and ever, say: I’m going to give up drinking soda. Instead of saying: I’m going to become the next great author this year, say: my goal is to publish one book. Seriously, measurable and realistic.

So what’s my resolution? I have one main resolution, and I’m sure I’ll add goals as the year goes on.

  • Finish revising Little Birdhouses and start querying.

That’s it. I’ve been sitting on it and not doing what I need to do with it, and it’s starting to annoy me. So I know I need to finish. I’ll query it, and if that doesn’t go my way then maybe I’ll submit it to Booktrope. They published my book, The Devil Within, which has been moderately successful.

I have a couple of things I’d like to achieve this year as well, which aren’t really resolutions but just items on my list to check off.

  • Run a Half-Marathon – this is a biggie and scares the crap out of me, but is also really exciting.
  • Finish working on The Cape and start revisions.

That’s it folks. What are your resolutions this year?

 

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Forgiveness

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Maybe I’m just sappy and sentimental, but I’ve been thinking a lot about my life this past week or two and how much I’ve grown this year as a person. My life has not always been easy, and I’m sure those of you who know me personally know how much I’ve struggled in the past few years. I’ve struggled to find myself. I’ve struggled in my marriage. I’ve struggled in my relationships. I’ve struggled with the ugly “D” word: depression.

Today as I drove to work I felt happy and fulfilled as I reflected back on my year. And I realized the reason I felt happy was because I intentionally chose happiness.  As I lay in bed last night, talking to my husband, I said, “I love myself so much. And if you can’t love yourself then you can can’t love anyone else, right?” “Right,” he said. He’s not much of a talker. But I’m sure his mind was thinking something like, here she goes “self-philosophizing Lauren again.” But it’s true. It takes self-love in order to make yourself happy and in order to be able to give back to others.

A couple of days ago I posted on a few boards I’m a member of asking people to state the theme of their year. The answers were insightful, interesting, painful, sad, tragic, funny, happy—all rolled into one. And it made me think about how all of those adjectives describe life and are what make it worth living.

My theme of the year was forgiveness. First I forgave myself.  Then I forgave my husband, my parents, my siblings, my friends, and anyone who I have ever perceived as doing me wrong. But it started with ME. I forgave myself for all my faults. I forgave myself for feelings of love I can’t control. I forgave myself for living in the past too often. I forgave myself for yelling at the kids, having a short fuse, not saying no enough, being too busy, not reaching my goals when I wrote, and for failing to clean my bathroom often enough. I forgave myself all those little strings of self-hate that build up inside of us and make us unhappy with ourselves. And it was hard. Self-doubt crept in. Guilt crept in. Sadness lay sickly sweet right below the surface of my skin.  It was a process—much like grieving and moving on. I back slid. I fell into depression, but I realized where the depression came from, worked through it, and didn’t let it trap me.

I wrote with a vengeance for the first time in years. I soaked up everything I’ve learned in my meager 36 years and put it on paper. I made new friends. I lost a few friends. I missed old friends. I reconnected with old friends. I grieved relationships whose seasons had expired but found happiness in the temporariness of those relationships as well.  And through it all, I realized forgiveness is key. Letting go of the need to control. Losing expectations of others while maintaining expectations of yourself. Making yourself happy and choosing to live in a way that’s giving to other people without feeling the need for reciprocation. Telling myself that I’m doing the best I can and loving myself for it. That was my lesson for 2015.

What is forgiveness you may ask?

Forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which a victim undergoes a change in feelings and attitude regarding an offense, lets go of negative emotions such as vengefulness, with an increased ability to wish the offender well.

I don’t want to be a victim of myself anymore. I don’t want to blame others for the mistakes I’ve made. I don’t want to not pursue my dreams because pursuing them is hard. I want to be able to let go of the negativity and stop living in a permanent state of self-hatred. I want to love myself for who I am and realize that flaws are what make us beautiful as humans. I want to love other people, all of their flaws and scars and human-stuff and realize the only person I can control is myself and be okay with that.

This year, I decided to stop feeling guilty for my own feelings. Instead of embracing guilt, hate, and anger this year I chose to embrace love and it changed my whole perspective on life.

If you can’t forgive yourself then you can’t forgive others. We all have baggage. We have all been hurt by the people we’re closest to. We can use hate, guilt, and ugliness to drive stakes into our own hearts, our marriages, the lives of our children, or we can turn it around and be compassionate, loving, and we can give to others even when it’s so hard to do. This is forgiveness.

Live your life with love and you’ll be rewarded with love. Live your life with hate and all you’ll get back is hate.

 

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A Little Bit About The People I Love

/ legreene515 / 1 Comment

I’m in a writing funk this month. Although, I’m not feeling particularly restless about it like usual. I think this is because my life feels full. And what a wonderful feeling that is.

We had photos done for Christmas cards this year. Don’t worry if you didn’t receive one from me. It doesn’t mean I don’t like you, it just means I’m a cheapskate and only ordered 50. So if you were in that lucky fifty, count your blessings!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the photo shoot by Amanda Kay Photography. You should go over and like her page, and if you’re local then use her! She’s very talented.

I felt like the photos are such a good representation of who my kids are. My oldest is always climbing, and the photo in the tree captures his personality so well. My middle one can be quiet but spunky. And my baby is sweet, but a little sassy too.

I was so impressed with how much their personalities shown through in these photos. I think it gives you a little taste of what my every day life is like. I will say, it took us awhile to get my oldest down from the tree so we could take the rhino photo. There’s always one stubborn one in my family (wonder where he got that from?). And I was a little surprised these came out as well as they did, because I felt like I was going to blow my gasket since they were running around like the little lunatics they are and complaining about having to sit still for photos! Aww, kids. You know what I mean if you have a few of your own!

So Merry Christmas (or Happy Chanukah or Happy Kwanza) from my family to yours!

 

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Excuses

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This is the excuse post. The one that explains what the hell I’ve been doing in the last week and half since you haven’t heard from me. Mostly it’s because it’s Christmas time, and Christmas time is crazy-busy time in my already crazy-busy world.

Also, I chose not to work out on Monday so I could stay home and watch Christmas Vacation, snuggle on the couch with the kids, and eat popcorn. I have my priorities straight!

But seriously, I want you to know this blog isn’t going silent, but the next few months I have a lot going on so I will not be posting as much as usual.

  1. Christmas Time: Of course! How many parties can be fit into one month? Can I get all my Christmas shopping done and wrap and still escape with my sanity?
  2. Gymnastics Season here we come. In case you’re new here and didn’t know, my oldest son is a gymnast and gymnastics season kicked off in November, but it beefs up in January and February. We will be crazy busy, but I hope to post some of his videos here if I get a new camera for Christmas. He’s pretty amazing. I’m not biased!
  3. I may be am a little crazy, because I’m actually entertaining the idea of running a half-marathon with my sisters in April. Here’s the training schedule I’m doing, and as you can see it’s taking up A LOT of my mornings that I used to use for blogging. I’m still not certain I can do it, but heck, I’m going to try!
  4. HalfMarathonTraining
  5. I can’t get rid of that 4 above and bring it down below, so you’ll just have to deal!
  6. I’ve been really into reading this month. I read I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson, and it was flipping fantastic. I highly recommend it.

All of these excuses to say that I’m really sorry! I hope to post at least once a week in the next couple of months, but wanted to stop by to tell you a little bit about what’s going on in my crazy life. Also, if you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, a new one will be coming out on December 31, 2015!

 

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