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Category: 2021 Word Of The Year

Small Fall Bucket List

2021 Word Of The Year Chitchat No Comments

Thought it’d be fun to share my small Fall bucket list with you all today. If you know me, you know that I think bucket lists tend to add an unnecessary amount of pressure to us. However, I also concede it’s good to have a list to give an idea of things you want to accomplish.  small fall bucket list

And I know Fall is a favorite for many. Instead of making a huge overbearing list of all the things, I’m staying true to my word of the year: Less.

Here’s my small fall bucket list though I couldn’t help but divide it into categories.

Fall Food I Want To Eat and Drink

It’s always about the food isn’t it?

  1. Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies (or chocolate chip, probably do half)-not sure if I’ve ever shared this recipe? Definitely need to either update it and share again or share for the first time.
  2. Apple cake. And of course, drink apple cider. All the apple things! Listen up pumpkin spice, September belongs to all things apple. I unofficially decree it.  (That said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the apple crisp macchiato at Starbucks. I had it iced, maybe hot is better.)
  3. Carnival festival foods like funnel cakes and kettle corn (did this over Labor Day weekend)
  4. Fresh pumpkin muffins and/or donuts. And yes, drink a ubiquitous pumpkin spice latte.

Places To Go

While fall is kind of for staying home, lighting candles, and watching it rain, it’s also for getting out and enjoying the gorgeous not too hot days and nights.

  1. All my son’s marching band half-time performances and band competitions (that’s a given)
  2. Spend each Saturday morning (when band/weather doesn’t interfere) exploring all the local farmer’s market. We have a big KC “City Market” just north of the downtown area but so many suburbs around us (including our city, where we went last Saturday) have their own. I’d like to see what we find.
  3. On at least 3 nature hikes. I was good about this last year (not much else to do) but fell out of habit this summer.
  4. Apple orchard to get fresh apple cider (see #2 above) and/or apple picking.

Other Random Things

Just a few things that I want to do but aren’t exactly food or going places related.

  1. Sit on the front porch and read (Fall reading list coming soon!)
  2. Maintain a fall garden (in progress)

Did you make a small fall bucket list or perhaps a large one? What’s on your list?

 

 

Revising My List for 2021

2021 Word Of The Year List of 21 for 2021 4 Comments

Like many others, I chose a single word to focus on for 2021. My word is working well for me so far in the new year.

Teaching me or reminding me of important lessons. Keeping me from going overboard. Mostly, I’ve felt quite a bit less stressed this week.

Enjoyed a slow week (though really, thinking yesterday was Friday all day messed me up a bit). And worked on feeling a bit less guilt about saying no to work on this snowy day.

Spending more time focused on my plans for the day even if they are simple ones. Paying the bills, working on my blog, watching the birds, laundry, reading my book. Finally, making the potato soup for lunch with my son.  A plan that’s been in the works since mid-December.

However, last night I wasn’t feeling quite as relaxed. A fair amount of Little Red Hen syndrome going on with me. So, I stepped back and tried to figure out why I was really so upset and stressed. It hit me, my list of items for the year was too much.

But, Jean, you only put 11 items on the list! You already did less. Perhaps we can just revise the list, then?

Here’s the old list:

  1. Read 72 books
  2. Join in for every single Happy Homemaker Monday post
  3. Keep a kindness journal
  4. Serve a vegetable with every main meal in addition to/instead of potatoes
  5. Buy and savor a “fancy” (read expensive) magazine each quarter (so 4 times)
  6. Spend at least 5 minutes outside every day
  7. Observe one sugar free week each quarter (sensing a theme with the quarterly things here)
  8. Follow a nightly skincare regime
  9. Learn a craft
  10. Participate in Rudolph day on the 25th of each month
  11. Save and preserve my old blog, So Not Organized (maybe in book form or on a flash drive?)

Doesn’t seem so bad really. Yet, a couple of those items were causing me a bit of undue stress. So, time for a revision.

Here’s  Revised list:

 

  1. Read 72 books
  2. Join in for every single Happy Homemaker Monday post
  3. Keep a kindness journal Focus on ways to be kind to my family
  4. Serve a vegetable with every main meal in addition to/instead of potatoes Try one in season new vegetable each week
  5. Eat dinner together at the table as a family Tuesday through Thursday
  6. Buy and savor a “fancy” (read expensive) magazine each quarter (so 4 times)
  7. Spend at least 5 minutes outside every day
  8. Observe one sugar free week each quarter (sensing a theme with the quarterly things here)
  9. Follow a nightly skincare regime
  10. Learn a craft
  11. Participate in Rudolph day on the 25th of each month
  12. Save and preserve my old blog, So Not Organized (maybe in book form or on a flash drive?)

As you can see, I didn’t change much. And actually I’m adding an item. Here are my thoughts on the changes:

Why no kindness journal? I’m already a kind person, mostly. Frankly, it was stressing me out to try and remember writing my deeds down at the end of each day. And while I know it’s vague, it’s an area I need to improve. Always easy to be kind to strangers, not so much to share that kindness with the people who are constantly about in the same house.

The vegetable thing? A bit much, not that it’s not a worthy goal. Again, just the stress of it. Doesn’t mean I won’t expand the vegetables served with our meals, just that I’m not going to make myself crazy trying to do this with every single meal.

Review of the Rest of the Items

Here’s how it’s going with the other items:

  1. Read 72 books: I’m not worried about this at all though Goodreads says I’m a book behind on it.
  2. Join in for every single Happy Homemaker Monday post: So far, so good on this one!
  3. Keep a kindness journal Focus on ways to be kind to my family: It’s been a say less, listen and appreciate more kind of week (mostly).
  4. Serve a vegetable with every main meal in addition to/instead of potatoes Try one in season new vegetable each week: We all (except J who fell asleep early) tried turnips. Mixed results.
  5. Eat dinner together at the table as a family Tuesday through Thursday: We ate together Monday-Thursday! 
  6. Buy and savor a “fancy” (read expensive) magazine each quarter (so 4 times): Still deciding.
  7. Spend at least 5 minutes outside every day: I’ve done this weather permitting, today may not.
  8. Observe one sugar free week each quarter (sensing a theme with the quarterly things here): Not yet, thinking I’ll shoot for the last week of January
  9. Follow a nightly skincare regime: I ordered from skincare products from Philosophy but they’re not here yet
  10. Learn a craft: Still deciding
  11. Participate in Rudolph day on the 25th of each month: I did create notebook for it.
  12. Save and preserve my old blog, So Not Organized (maybe in book form or on a flash drive?): Not started at all. Need to research.

Not a bad start at all, I don’t think.

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Are you off to a good start with your word or goals for this year?

 

 

 

Interesting Observation About Less

2021 Word Of The Year 2 Comments

This pesky word of the year, already trying to teach me stuff. Five days into the year. What’s with that?

In case you missed it, I chose less as my word for 2021. You can read all about my reasons here. So what interesting observation occurred to me today? And perhaps had I realized it earlier, might I have re-thought my word?

Turns out the word less starts off the word: lesson.

SIGH. Great, guess I’m in for a year of lessons.

Learned my first one today. Whether it sticks or I need constant review remains unknown.

Today’s Lesson

Doing less, requires asking for more help.

So in this year of 2021, I get to learn how to ask for help. It’s not something natural to me. In fact, it’s an area where I’ve always struggled.

Not with everything, I mean I have no problem taking the laptop at work to another teacher and asking what I did. (Happens quite often, that particular laptop intensely dislikes me.). However, at home or when I’m struggling emotionally, I tend to keep it to myself and try to figure it out on my own.

Out of respect for the privacy of other members of this household, I won’t share the personal story and experience of today that led to my conclusion. I’ll just say I asked for help with something and it was okay. I wasn’t deemed an immediate failure for needing it. The world didn’t end.

I actually got the requested help. And our day didn’t end up being awful (I will share early this morning it held the  promise of a terrible day).

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year! My 2021 Word

2021 Word Of The Year 2 Comments

Before I share, I’ll just admit I’m a bit hesitant to pick a word this year. Last year I chose “home” and we all know how that turned out. Global pandemic. Stay At Home Orders. Ahem.

Don’t worry, I didn’t pick “travel” for this year. So if the zombie apocalypse happens it’s not going to be on account of my word. Ha!

In all seriousness, I like the word the I picked for this year. It floated into my mind sometime right before Christmas and just stuck. It might sound a bit negative when you first hear it but I’m using it in a positive way.

Drumroll….announcing my word for 2021:

 

LESS

 

And in an epic fail already, I’ve already gone a bit extra and come up with a “fancy” catchphrase to go along with my word. Want to hear it? Of course, you do! Here it is:

Less Stressing and More Blessing

I’m sure I probably heard that somewhere in passing and can’t take full credit for it but it popped into my mind. I think the phrase serves as a good reminder of my word. Hopefully, the catchphrase helps me reign it in when I’m trying too hard and need to do less.

And no, I’m not thinking of my word in terms of the minimalist movement ever so popular (especially in January!). Maybe I’ll clear out a few things or maybe I won’t. Here’s how I mean to apply my word this year:

Less junk food/more vegetables

Less worry/more relaxing

Doing Less for everyone else/More teaching them to do for themselves

Lowering my expectations/achieving more

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Frankly, after last year, I’m tired. Aren’t we all? And I needed an easy word. Really, I have high hopes for focusing on my word this year. Last year, I struggled to find a word. And I’ve found in years I struggle to find that one word, almost forcing it, I do worse.

Years like this one, where the word simply whispers itself to me as the old year draws to a close, I do much better. Here’s to a much better year for all of us!

Did you or will you pick a word for 2021?

 

 

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