Birthday Aspirations: Goals for my Thirty-Fifth Year

It's my birthday and I've come up with some things I will aspire to in my 35th year.The last few years I was pretty stagnant in the whole goal department. My biggest goal was to simply survive my husband's two year tour overseas. Now that my family is once again together I feel much more at peace, and in a way I feel like I've experienced a rebirth. It's like I've been a shadow of myself these last two years and the Nicole I know and love is finally coming back into the light.These last few months have brought fourth many new changes and challenges and I want to take advantage of all the opportunities and experiences that will come my way, but I've also set fourth a few goals for myself for my 35th year.

• Write every day. I've gotten out of the habit of writing daily. This is a travesty I will eliminate completely this year.
• I want to achieve the goal of self publishing something -my goal right now is a short story -but that could turn into a novella if all goes well.
• I have wanted to try Yoga for years. This year I will begin exploring yoga. I think it will really help me to focus and calm down a bit in certain aspects of my life where I tend to be "high-strung".
• I want to learn a new skill. I'm leaning towards the Piano.
• I am an incredibly shy person. As an adult I had to force myself to be outgoing and I've found that my shyness is rearing its head in a HUGE way. I need to put myself out there and really make some new friends.
• Finally, I plan on volunteering some of my time. I've already made arrangements to be a Sunday school teacher in the Fall and I think that will be a great avenue for me.

love & birthday candles,nicole

Horizon Dream(s) [Typography]

Photo: Taken Using a Nikon D3100 18-55 mm lens. One Sunday morning at Crandon Park, Key Biscayne, FLquote: That was me too.

Goals Unfulfilled -RemembeRED –

I knew what I wanted…I knew when I was six..I want to write. Really write. I want to be able to call myself a bona fide writer, and not feel like a complete fraud because it’s not “official”. Sure, I’ve been paid to write here and there, but it’s nothing that will make up a career. That’s what I want.

I’ve set goals, I’ve read books, I’ve got a “dream board” I stare at every day with positive affirmations and things that will help me reach those goals…reach that place in my life where that empty place in my heart sits to fill it up.

I think there must be a leak some place because over and over goals I’ve made have dripped away, evaporating into lost time.  My art teacher in elementary school, Mrs. Knowles used to say, “Time wasted can not be regained.” I can’t remember any piece of art I did back then, but she left an impression on my child-self I’m truly grateful for.

I wonder what the child me would think about the grown up person I’ve become. I think she’d be proud, but she’d wonder why I feel so scared.

“How can you be scared of doing something that makes you happy?” She’d ask, her freckled nose wrinkling up at me.

I’d shrug my shoulders at her and give her one of my well-worn excuses. Excuses are hollow empty things, yet there they are filling up all that lost time.

She’d smile her goofy-gapped tooth grin and say, “Silly, don’t you know what to do when you feel scared?”

I’d shake my head at her.

She’d roll her eyes because the answer was so simple.  “You just close your eyes and think-up good things.” Her eyes would go all soft and dreamy then. “Things like princesses, that ride on unicorns and get to eat cake and ice cream for breakfast. That’s what I do when I’m scared. I make up imaginary worlds where cool things happen.”

Duh.

When did I become so lame?

It happened when I thought about how super-awesome-amazing it would be to be that kid who’d make up stories, who turned into a grown-up who wrote stories people would read, where they’d be transported to a super-awesome-really-cool place where they’d forget themselves…and their fears, or the crappy grade they’d got on their Algebra test because of words on a page that were written by me.

 .....This post was inspired by this week's writing prompt from  Write On Edge -RemembeRED – Unfulfilled   

NaNoWriMo 2011 - Day 12 Update

We're nearly at the half way point for NaNoWriMo and I'm not as far along as I hoped to be by this point, but I'm still confident I'll get a lot more words written in the next few days. I'm still writing by hand and then transcribing. The transcribing is a bit of a pain, but totally worth it because when I'm writing long hand the words are just flowing. I'm sorta hooked.

Dream Crusher Still Splat

I realize my posts have been low on the content for a little while now. My writing, in general, has been off kilter (literally too-Vertigo'Round anyone?) I've been preoccupied with other things lately and writing, which is usually my escape has been put on the back burner. I'm working at working on getting more me put back into this blog. I'm not saying that I don't see myself in it. I realize that anyone who comes to The Pink Chandelier almost immediately gets a sense of who I am. I'm proud of that. It took me a little while to figure out exactly how to do that.In my personal life, I've always known who I was. Online it was my goal to show that. I think for the most part I've done so. I think however that a lot of me isn't getting showcased and that is what I am working at working on.Understand?I hope so.If this sounds familiar, I did touch on this in my post-Little Miss Sunshine. No-I'm not depressed-I'm just trying to figure out how to get back on my path. Right now I feel like I'm walking in the grass, which isn't exactly a bad thing when I really think about it.I would like to figure out a way to enjoy the grass beneath my feet while still dancing towards my goals. Oddly enough an old post of mine inspired this little reflection.Sometimes I like to go back and read a random post. Today the desire struck me to do this and I came across this post I wrote last August, I KO'd the Dream Crusher. It is one of my favorite posts. If you haven't read it, I hope you do and enjoy it.Here's a tidbit from it:Tap, tap, tap, my fin­gers against the keys…nothing. I sat there a few more min­utes star­ing at the other patrons. Two teen-aged girls whis­per­ing over a book, a lit­tle girl with head­phones in her ears car­ry­ing a stack of books in her arms (she reminded me of myself),  a store employee with a really cool t-shirt as he came out of the back room, an elderly cou­ple dis­cussing their cof­fee order…nothing. Finally I decided to order a drink. I closed my lap­top and headed for the barista, feel­ing com­pletely down­trod­den and very much like a fail­ure. I ordered an almond Ital­ian soda, and made my way back to my lap­top scowl­ing dis­dain­fully at the sight of it; know­ing full well that I did not feel that way. (I do have a flare for the dramatic-so you can see why I would do some­thing like that. Right?)Read I KO'd the Dream Crusher