A New Year

The sun setting on my dining room table January 1, 2015

As this new year dawns I finally feel an intense feeling of freedom and gratitude.   It's taken a lot of listening to and following the advice of a trusted mentor to get here.  It's meant cleaning up the past and changing my thinking.  Throughout this process I have put so many other things on hold.  Like writing here on this blog.  Like my dreams of an interior design business.  Like selling on Etsy on a regular basis.  Big life goals I want to get back to.

Little goals must be met along the way and one of those smaller goals is picking up my neglected camera and using it again.  I decided to break it out for our family day up at Mt. Hood.  It felt so good to use it again. To fuss with the settings, having very little idea what I was doing, but doing it nonetheless.  To take imperfect photos from awkward angles and show them to you here.  Because there is a freedom in just trying and being you, no matter how imperfect.

Sam and Henry pose for the camera with the top of Mt. Hood in the background.   The sky was a crisp true blue, not a cloud in sight, fresh fallen snow lay fluffy on the ground and a river broke through the ice and snow in a ravine below us.  

Sledding, snow and smiles were the theme of the day.  Pure joy was found in the simple pleasure of a snowy hill to slide down.  Henry would laugh with excitement and joy as he came down the small slope.  Other people would crash and he would tell them "You're silly!" then laugh at them, like my dad and I don't crash, what's up with you?  But that was there way of having fun, to be messy and crash.  The truth is, we all crash in life, it's whether we get up and climb the hill to try again or get up and go home that matters.  I can already tell that I'm ready to keep getting up no matter how many times I fall and crash.  Bring on the new year, I'm ready for you.