Tag Archives: #wordoftheyear

Word of the Year 2023

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Greetings and Happy New Year my beloveds! Did you even notice I took a little sabbatical over the holidays? No worries… here I am back in your inbox for another week and another brand new year!

If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that I no longer subscribe to resolutions or goals at the beginning of new calendars, but have adopted the practice of picking a #wordoftheyear. You are welcome to check past posts or my Pinterest board dedicated to such endeavours. Here are some links:

And so the time has rolled around once more for a new word to embody my feelings and actions for 2023. Are you ready for the reveal?! Here it is:

REFRESH

Perhaps many of you are feeling it this year as well. Refresh. Not “freshen” or “fresh” but “Refresh” as in — again. Here’s the definition I found in Oxford’s dictionary:

re·fresh

/rəˈfreSH/

verb

  1. give new strength or energy to; reinvigorate.” the shower had refreshed her”

Sigh. That’s where I am feelin’ this year is going to go. It’s the kind of revamp your computer and “refresh” your screen kinda thing. When you have too many tabs open and everything is slow and sluggish. Covid has done a big number on so many of us and I’m feeling we all need to hit the refresh button!

It’s like you’ve been working hard in the hot sun and you finally sit down for a second or two to cool off with a fresh lemonade… but it’s not always sweet. Sometimes you need a little spike to quench the heat. It’s the same in life. You need a cool-off that clears the palate without adding the fillers or sugar coating. A little shock value to reset and refocus. It’s only then that we can carry on with the hard work. It’s what I am manifesting this year. A refresh.

It’s shaping up to be a full year for the Mitton crew and some big changes are coming down the pipes: two of us have milestone birthdays, I am so going to dye my hair, and the kids are getting older and flexing their wings ready to fly from the nest. Will the hubby and I survive? Are we ready for the next stages? Will he like my hair? Refresh.

The Bible refers to this state of “refreshing” after an extended period of lamenting. The time of sitting in ashes and fasting is followed by a time of “getting up, washing, eating a good meal, dressing in clean garments” and moving on with life! That’s what I wish this year to be. There is a time for lamenting and feeling sad… reflection even. Then, there is a time to scrub yourself clean from the past and go out into the world ready to face the next step! Refreshed.

“REFRESH” photo by: Tadeusz-Lacota (Unsplash)

Are you with me? Will mittonmusings change? Maybe. Will life change? Certainly. It usually does — whether we want it to or not. I’m ready for the Refresh this year! Join me to see how it all pans out!

WONDER

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Photo by Nikola Johnny Mirkovic on Unsplash
Sitting alone in the dark solitude of our empty living room,
  sipping my morning coffee and looking out our front picture window
 into the distant panorama of a residential street that had yet to awaken,
  I listened to the empty silence of a cold winter's morning.
 The frozen landscape crackled with the winter's bitter wind... 
 a fridgid contrast to my warm blanket and hot drink.
 I couldn't help looking at everything and saying as God did, "It is good." 
Only my voice had a touch of wonder in it, 
 while His had only satisfaction. 
So many days are spent chasing obligations and deadlines and paycheques
 and nothing special seems to stand out worth remembering.
 But lockdowns and quarantines and five such minutes in my living room alone
 simply me and God, just being still and truly seeing, truly appreciating,
 are worth a lifetime of chasing.

It was written by me, but inspired by a devotional I recently read by Susan Lenzkes. It was a real experience but captured again as I read her words and tried to apply them to myself. As most of you know, my #wordoftheyear for 2022 is “magic”, so I have begun to actively seek out the moments of wonder and awe. To appreciate the little things. Facebook memories of my kids a hundred years ago. So cute all decked out for a Sunday morning service. Knowing we are safe and financially secure for the start of another year. Hating lockdowns and school online, but thankful that technology allows us education and the ability to connect with others. Full bellies. Warm houses and clean water.

So much we take for granted. So many wishes for this or that. I am reminded that life is really, really fragile. Tiny humans are born completely dependent. Many return to that state of complete dependence as we age. Time is not our friend. This fallen world and all the “bad” that is in it makes me wonder: “Why on earth?”

For some reason, Psalm 8 has been popping up in my world all this week. If you have time, look it up. David wondered “Why on earth?” too. I love learning about the idiosyncracies of this fabulous planet we live on. And all the creatures that share it with us. How inventive is our God who created every living thing? Yes, even one small virus who has the ability to mutate and change and manipulate an entire population of beings. He is in control, my friends! But it makes me wonder, like the psalmist, if God is in control of the big things like the universe and all the small things like corona viruses, then “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Somehow, He thinks we are worth it.

He looked at us, feeble humans, a little lower than the heavenly beings, and decided these made-from-dust creatures were worth loving and dying for. That you were worth dying for. That I was worth loving. Oh, the weight of those things! Wonder – full.

My wish for you and I this week is that we continue to be blessed in that realization. That we continue to seek for and see the wonder that is before us, behind us, and all around us. Will you join me as I look for it? Until next week, my friends!

#WordoftheYear 2022

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Well, we made it to another year… kicking and screaming, maybe, but here we are! It’s been a rollercoaster of ups and downs again in 2021, with the global pandemic hanging over us yet again. Still, time travels on. A constant in this world of upheaval. Time doesn’t seem to stop for anyone… or anything. And so we arrive at 2022.

As many of you will recall, for 2021, I chose a #wordoftheyear. It was my first attempt at such a thing, and I think it went off rather well. (You can read some of those thoughts here) It’s different from a resolution or goal… it can be interpreted differently throughout the year’s circumstances, and may appeal to you in a variety of situations. For 2021, my word was “brave”. I felt it. I failed at it. I focused on it.

This year, * drumroll please * my word is magic. When my eldest son was younger, he loved magic tricks… he learned a few and put on performances where he would “wow” us with his slight of hand. We saw magicians in Vegas and on tv specials and ooohed and ahhhed at the magic and wondered “How’d they do it?” But when I picked this word for 2022… this is not the definition of magic I had in mind. This magic is trickery and illusion. There’s enough of that out there in the world. I certainly don’t need to focus on that kind of magic.

Photo by Almos Bechtold on Unsplash

No, when I chose the word, maybe I was thinking about miracles. Maybe I was thinking about the unexpected. Maybe I was thinking about the astonishing. Perhaps I wanted to focus on the little things in life that are magic… things that used to make me oooh and ahh, but have been pushed aside by my practical side. Things that brought a little joy into people’s lives for no reason other than it was fun… like sparkles and sprinkles. Covid has robbed us of some of that. We have become consumed with sanitizer and sterility. I need some fairy dust in my year. I need some ribbons and confetti and spur-of-the-moment decisions — because I really don’t like those things. I fret at the cost and the environmental impact and the lack of frugality to those things. The people around me do like those things, though, and maybe we both need a little magic to brighten our days up this year.

I’m not so good at making magic. I miss the little ones at school who forced you to see the magic. The wide-eyed attention they gave when they just knew that something cool was about to happen. I want to be the wide-eyed one this year. I want to create those experiences for those around me… through my actions, through my faith in a great big God who still does miracles, and through my attention to the small details that allow me to see the everyday miracles. I want to delight in the smells and sounds and sights of a great big world around me and be astonished at it. I want to say, hey God, “How’d ya do that?” Magic.

I also think about magic in the sense of “ta-da” moments. When the hankies disappear into the hat. When the puff of smoke turns the bird into the beautiful lady. I’m learning how to make things new again — by fixing, painting, fluffing and upcycling. I am learning to love the ta-da moments of my projects when I can say Ha! Look at how that just turned out! Magic. Things transformed from one thing, into another… that’s a magic God loves to see, too. And I hope it will be part of my journey this year, too. I long to share it with you, my friends on this little piece of the internet where we dream big and fail hard. Where we think deeper and muse mightily.

So, my friends, “cheers” to another new year! May our year be filled magic, wonder and a little bit of mystery… and a good dose of musing about it all!