Reverb 10 -- Prompts 4 thru 6

Cultivating wonder through the power of trees!!!

Today I am working on catching up on the Reverb 10 challenge.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can read my December 7^th post below.  I am very grateful for Reverb 10 because the prompts are really making me think!

The prompt for December 4 was:  Wonder.  How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?

I have cultivated a sense of wonder in my life this year by paying closer attention to many of the things that I have taken for granted in years past.   For example, I have been having some problems with my foot for almost a year now, which means that I haven’t been able to run (one of my favorite activities) in quite some time.   I have been angry, upset and frustrated by my inability to heal my foot, but this injury has also allowed me to focus on how wonderfull (misspelling intentional!) it is just to be able to walk at all.  I pay attention to the process of walking much more often now – picking my leg up, placing my foot down, pushing off and moving forward.  It’s really amazing if you take the time to appreciate it!

I have expanded this increased focus to other areas of life as well.  I have been paying a lot of attention to trees lately.  Raleigh is the City of Oaks, and there are a lot of trees in my yard, my neighborhood, and even outside my downtown office.  I love to look at leaves – their size, shape, color.  The way they move in the wind.  I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I actually stop to take the time to acknowledge the incredible beauty in my surroundings.   2010 has definitely been a wonder-filled year for me!

The prompt for December 5 was:  Let Go.  What (or whom) did you let go of this year and why?

This year, I very sadly had to let go of my two precious cats, Max and Sam.  They were brothers, and they both died of renal failure just a few months apart from each other (We put Max to sleep on May 3^rd and Sam on October 12^th).  They were about 16 years old – we weren’t sure of their age because they were pound kitties.   Our home is not the same now.   I wish that we could have them back, but I will have to settle for appreciating all of the love and craziness that they brought into my life!

My precious boys!

I also let go of my attempts at paid freelancing writing this year.  I was writing articles for Associated Content.  I loved doing it, but the money is terrible for someone like me who couldn’t write all day every day.  I still think about writing articles for Associated Content just for kicks because I liked it so much and because I also truly enjoyed the community of Associated Content contributors that I met online, but I have decided that it is a better use of my time to focus on my blog.

The prompt for December 6 was: Make.  What was the last thing you made?  What materials did you use?  Is there something that you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

This year I made a few cards for a project that I found out about through Patti Digh’s blog.   The cards, called Hope Notes, were given to women who staying at the Helpmate shelter in Asheville, NC or attending Helpmate’s support groups.   I bought blank stock cards at Michael’s, glued my own pictures to the front of the cards (usually flowers or some other nature-type scene) and then wrote a message on the inside with markers, crayons, and stickers.    

I used to make very similar cards in the past, and I would randomly place them on car windshields at the grocery store.  I never knew whose life I would touch, or if my attempts at making someone feel good would have any real effect.  I would like to get back to that.  I have been thinking about offering a service through this blog, where readers send me the name and address of someone that they would like to secretly have acknowledged and appreciated, and I would send them an anonymous card like the one described above.   I don’t know if this is a good idea or not, or if anyone would even be interested in something like this, but it is definitely something I have been thinking about for 2011.   Thanks to Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project for this prompt because it pushed me to put my idea out into the world for people to see!