New Year

I try to bind each year to a word and let that word guide my goals and actions as I move through the months. This year, my focus is on Beauty. 

I'm always at least half focused on Beauty, so this year is more of refocusing, a deepening relationship with the word, and all it represents.

In part, I am talking about physical beauty, I want to take more time to nourish my body and adorn it. I'll be paying more attention to the health of my skin. I've made a rich, moisturizing cream with coffee-butter, shea butter, olive oil, rose-hip seed oil, and essential oils indulge my face each night. I'm wearing honey-clay masks regularly; and I hope to pick up body brushing again. 

I'm also taking more time with my hair and makeup most days and working on building a capsule wardrobe. My current wardrobe is small enough, but it lack cohesion and consistent beauty. Too often I go out looking sloppier than I want to. I'd like to reduce my wardrobe just a bit more, add some 'muck-about-the-yard' boots to save my shoes, and give my wardrobe a sense of wholeness.

But beauty is petty when it doesn't go beyond the body. In this new year, I hope to extend it through the things in my life and into the spirit of it. As I craft beauty in my self and my home, through building a culture of simplicity and hospitality, I hope it will make soul-beauty more and more a natural part of life. 

I'm reducing my belongings, and my family is reducing with me. We're clearing out the cluttering, half-wanted things and letting our little house breathe a bit more. Fewer toys, fewer clothes, fewer distractions. The kids are even getting excited about packing away the toys and clothes they don't love and sending them off to other kids. My daughter could wear three outfits over and over each week and be happy in them, she adores the soft, cozy clogs her grandparents sent her for Christmas and her glittery boots, but is only half-heartedly attached to 2 other pairs of winter shoes in the basket. The warm, red union suit her other grandparents gave her for Christmas is deeply loved, but two other pajamas can be packed off easily.

My husband is filling the house with artwork this winter. Some of it will sell on his Etsy site, Paperwine Industries, but some of it will replace less loved pieces on our own walls.

And as we clear out and simplify, we're building in time for prayer, reading, quiet, and especially play. We're adding in a daily noon Angelus, a personal rosary and divine mercy for me, and a family quiet time at 3pm..which I intend to be a tech-free time. I want to make sure I have order in my day, structure for my children, and time to play with them as well. I think I tend to neglect play.

I have a bullet journal and a dreambook to keep me focused on my goals for the year, hopefully they will help me make 2017 a year of living beauty.

Blessings this new year! What are your goals and how are you pursuing them? Tell me all about it!