Why Family/Community Is So Much More Than Blood

For the purposes of this blog post, family and community are two words that can be interchanged here. For me, they both carry the same weight in my life.

I have had this post wrote up for a couple of months, fine tuning it, tweaking it. With the events of the past two weeks, this blog post could not be more appropriate for me to post so here goes...

My definition of "family" is not just those you are blood related to. It is those people who love you unconditionally and would do anything for you; it is community. In my 57 years on this earth, I have had many people step into my life that did not have to and who have picked up the pieces when I could not even begin to.

Family is, simply put, so much more than blood. It is intrinsically more complex than just those who share the same genetic pool as you. It is those who support you, those who guide you, and those who are with you through thick and thin. While I did not necessarily choose the people that are now my relatives - life just handed me them along the way - family is what you make of it, however mad and messy it may be. Who can say that they have not just one family, but more like 2.5’s worth to love and support them? At the end of the day, despite it all, I am so very lucky.

Community is made up of the relationships you choose to work on. It is those people who never leave your side, and you will never leave theirs. Cherish your relationships and those special people in your lives. Family is not just made of blood—it is love. Family is not just a person that shares blood or a last name. Community are people that come into your life and stay. Community are people that take time out of their day to be there for you when you need them. Community are people that care for you and love you unconditionally. I am so blessed and grateful that “family” walked into my life.

There are not enough thank you's to be said to make up for everything that this community has done for me. After this time of having community in my life, I never want to know what it would be like to not have community. You welcomed me with open arms the first day we met, and now you are my greatest support system. You have picked me up and made me walk when I thought it was impossible to stand. You have seen me at some of my worst times and stuck by my side and you have walked beside me at my best times. You may not have been with me since the beginning, but I know you will be there until the end. What continues to amaze me every day is that you choose to accept me for who I am, to love me unconditionally. You are not obligated but you do anyway, and that means more to me than you will ever know. Thank you for protecting me, for holding me accountable me when needed, and for giving me advice even if I don't ask for it. Thank you for treating me as your own, without obligation. Thank you for being there when you do not necessarily have to be. Thank you for being in my life.

Just as you have proven time and time again the love you have for me, I hope that I equally show you the same amount of love. I am forever thankful for the amount of love and care that you have shown for me. I pray for the day that I can truly show you the eternal gratefulness I have for you. You have made my life so much better and brighter. I cry a little less, laugh a little more, and love a lot more because of you all. You have been God's gift to me. He knew I would need you all to get through the bumps in the road of life. Whether it is family holidays or Bible Studies or girlfriend outtings, etc.,

thank you for the many memories.

I am blessed to have each of you with me on this journey called life, and I am thankful that you let me be a part of yours. Thank you for everything you have done for me since you have entered my life. Thank you for showing me what it is like to feel important, special, loved, and cherished. Thank you for welcoming me into your life and into your families lives without skipping a beat. I have gained more community than I ever imagined possible. Thank you for proving to me that blood is not always thicker than water.

The Beauty of Nature!

There is a sad reality that some people are able to see the wonders of nature and yet fail to see God through it. I cannot comprehend how one can gaze at the magnificence of the entire Universe yet fail to see God’s fingerprints in all of it. Feeling close to God in nature is something that I have never struggled with. As Romans 1:20, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

I have always felt close to God through nature. Some of the most deepest and closest encounters I have with God happened while walking through the woods, viewing snow-capped mountains, witnessing the beauty of a sunset by the shore or gazing at the skies on a clear starry night. I have always been overcome with a deep sense of reverence and connection to God whenever I look at the beauty around me. Feeling close to God in nature is just easy for me, I feel surrounded by His love.

This was never more true than last Saturday when I, after less than 4 hours of sleep, got up at 3:45 and drove 3-1/2 hours to just the other side of Boardman. Just before sunrise as I was cresting a hill, God blessed me with the most A-M-A-Z-I-N-G sunrise. I had to pull over and take some pictures. As I again headed toward my destination and was about 5 minutes out, the fog set in was so thick I literally could not see 5 feet in front of my face. Now for those of you truly know me 1) you know I detest driving in the dark and 2) you know that I don't like driving somewhere where I am not familiar, actually, I don't like driving much at all so what the heck was I doing driving 3-1/2 hours one way – the things I do for a picture. I got off of I-84 and barely could see the stand of trees, and as I was having quite the conversation with God stating, “Great, just great, I got less than 4 hours of sleep, just drove 3-1/2 hours, still have to drive 3-1/2 hours back home, the fog is so thick I can barely see my hand in front of my face, what kind of pictures am I going to get?” I found somewhere to park, grabbed my gear, and headed out. As I looked down the path, I realized that fog actually made for kind of a cool, one-of-a-kind shot, kind of like my life, my relationship with Him. I started shooting and as I stopped and took a few seconds to take in the beauty, I saw the sun breaking through the fog and it all took my breath away. I walked thru trees alone just in awe of the beauty of this place, wishing I had come sooner to see it. At one point, I just sat down because I was on sensory overload with the beauty of this place. I kept hearing noises, like somebody was following me, but every time I looked around I never saw anybody. I finally realized I wasn't hearing a person, but it was the leaves falling off the trees that I was hearing. I spent nearly 3 hours taking pictures and before it was all said and done, the sun came out and I got some great shots, both with and without the fog, but I feel neither my words nor my pictures do it justice. I just stood there, amazed by the the beauty of God's creation. How about you? Does you see God’s greatness through his creations?

Psalm 19:1-6 says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.”

The reason that we often feel closer to God in nature is simple. He is the Creator. He made all that you see. He made it stunning and it is all pointing us back to Him. Nature “declares the glory of God.” Nature “proclaims the work of his hands.” Nature “pours forth speech.”

You feel close to God in nature because He is speaking to you and He is telling you about himself.

Nature reveals the glorious beauty of the one who imagined it all.
Nature reveals the power behind the storm.
Nature reveals the brilliance of the one who designed every system of every living thing.
Nature reveals the endless creativity of the Lord.
Nature reveals the generosity of the creator who even fills the unseen depths of the sea with remarkable diversity.

It all speaks and when you are in the midst of it, you feel close to God because he is helping you to get to know him and love him. Exploring nature may not be a traditional spiritual discipline, but it is essential.

Get out and soak it in. Let the beauty of it fill your heart and bring you to worship.


God is shouting “I am glorious!” Listen for him

 .

Ronnie D. St. Germaine 1-30-62/8-30-17

Some of the people we love die before we do, and we have to watch them go to their grave.  And for all that we can see, they never professed faith in Christ. 
 
I don't know finally and decisively where Ronnie is, I don't know if Ronnie knew the gospel, but I do know he had godly people who prayed for him. Maybe in the eleventh hour, alone in his boathouse before he died, he cried to the Lord, such like the rock that I found on the beach, Romans 10:13-for “Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” Don't grow weary in praying! Keep knocking at the door! Keep going to the judge! Don't give up! Keep on praying and believe that God will work His good will in the lives of the ones you love. 
 

I disagree 100 percent with the statement “time makes it easier.” I believe wholeheartedly that time makes it different. We learn how to live without our loved one. We stumble and find our way to move forward, knowing they are always present, always at the forefront of our mind and heart. We find a way every day to not be upset that they're not here anymore, but instead to look at how blessed we were to share our lives with them. How much joy and love they brought us. How many life lessons we shared. No matter how old we are, no matter how many we have lost, the loss of a loved one never gets easier. It will only continue to change.

It doesn't matter if they were sick, it doesn't matter if it was sudden, it still hurts. Some losses are harder than others and I'm not going to lie, this one has been hard because Ronnie was my younger brother. He had a hard life. Without going into too much detail, we never knew our biological father, we were abandoned by our biological mother when we were young, and Ronnie began drinking as a young adolescent. His demons ran deep and he, for whatever reason, just couldn't seem to beat them. He fought his entire life to be unconditionally accepted. I always knew my brother would die a premature death, but I held onto hope that he would find God, would find hope, would find that peace that seemed to elude him.
 
I am not disillusioned and know my brother's faults all to well, but no one knows what happens in those last moments when we are alone and dying. I hold onto hope that my brother repented his sins and received Christ as his Lord and Savior in that moment.

When our life is over on this earth our family and friends will gather to celebrate our life in some fashion, if we are lucky. At least our family should. Family. Love them or love them not, there’s often a limit to what you can do with the difficult ones. You can’t live with them and you can’t make them join the circus. Today, I learned a hard, sad lesson even at my 57 years...not everybody in my family shares the same family values, and that comes as quite a shock to me. I have always told my boys that even if family isn't there for the day to day stuff, they will be there for the “hard” stuff.  Today, I found out how wrong I was. Today, my rose-colored glasses got a little less rose colored.

Today I learned: 

1.  I can't let anyone else's behavior change who I am. I will be dignified. I will be kind. I won't let anyone reduce the best of me.

2.  l try and accept what is. One of the greatest sources of unhappiness is the chasm between what we want and what we have. The gap left behind by a family member who hurts us can be immense. Who knows why some people have amazing families and some have families that drain them, but not everything makes sense. Acknowledge what it is, let go of what it isn't, and flourish despite it.

3.  Leave with love. This one is important. If I choose to walk away from family, I won't let my final words be angry ones. Obviously, we never know what the future holds. Even if I'm angry and hurt, death has a way of bringing guilt and regret in the cleanest of relationships and forever is a long time not to have resolution. Anger is one emotion that's never pure. It's always protecting another, more vulnerable one. Tap into that and speak from there. That way, if you walk away, you're much more likely to feel as though nothing has been left unsaid. Just because a relationship is ending, it doesn't mean it has to end angry. You don't want to leave room for regret. Leave it with strength, dignity and love because that's who I am.

Great American Eclipse

What is a Total Solar Eclipse? A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth. The moon appears to completely cover the disc of the sun. By blocking the sun's light, the moon casts a shadow that turns day in an eerie twilight here on Earth. Eclipses occur because of the special coincidence of the moon and sun being the same size to our eyes. The sun is 400 times wider than the moon, but it is also 400 times farther away, so they appear to be the same size in the sky.

Why is this called the “Great American Eclipse?” This is the first total solar eclipse that is only visible in the U.S. and no other country. It will be the first total eclipse visible only in the USA since the country was founded in 1776. Everyone in the U.S. will see at least a partial solar eclipse; however, only people in the “path of totality” will see a total solar eclipse. The shadow began its travel in Oregon. At 3,000 miles per hour, it took about 12 minutes for the shadow to speed from the Oregon Coast to the Oregon-Idaho border. The entire trip from Oregon to South Carolina will lasted only 90 minutes. The path will cross parts of 12 states: Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.  The next total solar eclipse here in the U.S. will be on April 8, 2024, which will be from Texas to New England.

It is astonishing how fast the shadow moves, barreling towards you like a freight train. As the shadow engulfs you and you first notice the amazing light, as if sunset is happening on the horizon 360 degrees around you, the temperature drops, the air becomes still, and everything seems unusually quiet. Watching through your “eclipse glasses” you see the moon first kiss the sun and watch in amazement as more and more of the sun’s disc is covered. Just as the moon covers the sun you hope to have a fleeting glimpse of Baily’s Beads, the bright glow of lights on edge of the moon, caused by the sun peeking around mountain peaks on the moon. And then it happens! Totality. The moment you have been waiting for, when the moon obscures the sun and darkness descends. Only now is it safe to remove the eclipse glasses and look at the sun. The corona glows and dances around the black sun, stars are out and you find you are forgetting to breathe much less press the shutter. In that moment, as I stared at the sky and was caught in God's awesome wonder, my brain froze, I got goosebumps...I forgot what camera settings I needed to capture that moment in time...I was totally lost. After a few seconds, I snapped out of it and realized I needed to get the filter off of my camera and quickly as totality does not last long, 1 minute and 16 seconds in Woodburn is all. I took a LOT of pictures trying to capture each and every phrase of the eclipse, I only caught a couple of clicks of totality, and while none of them are that good, that picture is forever etched in my mind and nothing can take it away from me so my snapshots will have to be a reminder of that moment that there are no adequate words to describe.

Grief Has No Expiration Date

I have met so many people in these last 20 years who never knew me as the married woman I once was, as a mother of two teenagers with a husband who was my partner in a life we chose to make together. With the exception of family, most of these people never knew who Joe was.

Losing a spouse, or a child, or a father or mother, or a sibling when you are young, is a loss that shapes your whole world and colors it a shade darker than the life you had before the loss. I want to say something that our death-denying culture makes me feel a little ashamed to say: Even though I can now go for a day, perhaps, without thinking about Joe, I do not know if I will ever make it through a day without thinking about the future I lost when he died. I know I will always feel bad that my sons do not have Joe here with them to be their father.  What they are missing by not having him here cannot be counted or measured; it is a vast emptiness where years and years of his amazing love, wisdom, and patience could have been.

Twenty years of memories, graduations, special people, weddings, grandchildren, birthdays...life's events...have come and gone. Grief does not end; however, you do learn how to cope with it ever so slowly, and you will miss that person in your life that is gone forever. I have had 20 years of milestones come and go that I could not share with Joe. He will always be missing. As amazing as all these events in my life have been, they were bittersweet because I was not able to share them with my best friend.

Certain things need an expiration date; milk, eggs, mayonnaise, meat, fish…there is a time we need to be done with them, and throw them away…I get all that, but does grief have an expiration date? For some reason, there seems to be an acceptable shelf life—6-12 months—and then grief should be off the shelf, out of the home and permanently removed with the weekly trash service. If it was only that simple…

The “grief expiration date” myth must come from people who have never experienced a close death – otherwise, they would know the truth. Everyone fears facing such a loss. They are hopeful that should death touch their world, it will only take 6-12 months to recover. No one wants someone they love to die. So, until faced with the reality, it is easier to think ‘this won’t happen to me, AND if it does it will only be bad for a finite, short amount of time and then…there is an expiration date and it is magically all gone.’ What a wonderful world that would be.

I have heard time and time again there is a societal expectation to “get over” grief in 6 months, and at the longest, a year. Those who are not grieving believe it, and often those who are, also believe it – this sets grieving people up for false, and ultimately disappointing, expectations.

The one year mark looms like some golden carrot over the heads of those who are grieving. It is a symbol of hope that if they make it to the one year mark they will be in a much happier and pain-free place. The reality is they will not be over it, nor should they be. If someone spent years loving another person, the pain of that person’s death simply will not be removed due to a date on the calendar.

The opposite actually might happen – people who are grieving may feel even more pain in year two because the initial numbness, which often serves as a protective barrier at the onset of loss, has worn off and they begin experiencing the full intensity of their feelings and grief. This is accompanied by the realization that life with loss is their “new normal.”

I remember beating myself up and doubting how well I was coping. If you allow yourself to believe there is an expiration date for grief, you will start to think you are not doing well if you still miss your loved one 5, 10, 20, 40 years after the loss. In reality – it is normal, and it is okay.

This is what I know to be true:

Grief IS a life-long journey; an emotional handicap you get up and live with every day. It does not mean you cannot lead a happy life, but it is a choice and it takes work.

The frequency and intensity of those grief pangs/knives should lessen over time, but the reality is every now and then for the rest of your life, you will feel those pangs. Everyone grieves at their own pace and in their own way. There is no one way to grieve, and no certain order, and no timeline. There is definitely not an expiration date.

Grief WILL take on different forms in different people. Not everyone cries; others cry all the time. Some exercise a lot; others talk about it a lot; many seek counseling or join a support group and enjoy the company of a good and understanding listener.

If years after your loss, thinking of your loved one missing a special day or milestone in your life, makes you sad, puts you in a funk, or makes you cry, do not beat yourself up. Allow yourself the ability to grieve the loss of memories not created. As long as the frequency and intensity of grief eases—even if it is ever so slowly over time—you are coping in positive ways. Alternatively, if years after the loss, you cannot bear the mention of your loved one's name, you sleep all day, you are not participating in your normal everyday activities, you do things to “numb” or escape your grief, those are warning signs that you are not coping well, and should seek the assistance you need to begin healing.

Grieving in a healthy manner, taking steps to move forward, and rebuild your life with a new normal, does not mean you will not have those tough days or tough moments.

There is no expiration date. Grief never fully goes away. That does not have to mean you cannot and will not live a happy and productive life. What it does mean is the love you shared with loved ones lost, does not have an expiration date either. Live Your Life. I am not saying you need to move on from grief, but maybe it is time to move forward; there is a difference. Live your life as a tribute to those that are gone. Try to be the best version of yourself. This is very hard when you have lost someone so important. After a while, I found it put my life into better perspective. I was able to distinguish between what was important and what was not. It is still a work in progress that I take day by day.

Everybody’s path in grief is different, so be gentle with yourself. Find what is right for you to get through this tough time. Remember what is important in life and to let go of what is not. Hug your loved ones a little tighter, kiss them one more time. You can never say “I love you” too many times. Life is short. Live your life!

Failure

2016 was the first year in many that I did not complete many of the goals that I had set for myself and I considered that a failure.  However, as I started to ponder my failure in not completing the goals I had set for myself, it gave me time to reflect, and this is what I found...

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

You know the feeling. It is that gut-sinking, I am-an-idiot, I will-never-amount-to-anything feeling and it is awful. There is no getting around it, but failure does not have to crush us. In fact, it can be an asset to us if we will let it.

One of the strongest indicators of how failure impacts us long-term is how we respond right after it takes place. Research shows the key response to know if a person's failure will lead to further tragedy or turn to success is simply this: Do they own the failure? In other words, when we respond by saying, “I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. This was my fault. I see where things went wrong,” that sort of thing, failure acts like one of life’s best teachers. We learn from our mistakes and move on. When we try to pass the buck — when we make excuses for ourselves, blame other people, or try to avoid the natural consequences of our actions, the results are the opposite. Our failure snowballs into more failure. When we respond to failure like — well, like it’s a failure — we are much less likely to recover from it.

Because I can only receive what failure has to teach me if I am willing to fully embrace the failure itself, when I am willing to accept the fact that failure occurred, I also get the positive lessons failure teaches. Some failures are bigger than others, some are more public than others, some are more humiliating, some have a greater stigma around them. But in learning to own my failures, admitting them, even embracing them, I am much more likely to get the results I want. The next time I think I have failed miserably, I will remind myself of the amazing benefits failure can bring. The greater the failure, the greater the potential for reward. I might fail, but failure does not define me.

The ultimate goal is that I can finally make peace with my failures — past, present and future. Not only will I recognize it does not define me, I will also be able to rest in knowing failure does not need to set me back. Failure can be one of life’s great teachers; it is nature’s chisel that chips away at all the excess, stripping down egos as it molds and shapes us through divine intentions. Without failure, I would be less capable of compassion, empathy, kindness, and great achievement. It is through failure that we learn the greatest lessons that life could teach us.

Failure Lesson #1: Experience

The first important lesson gained from failure is experience. What happens when we fail? When we go through something and can walk away with firsthand experience, it helps us to develop a deeper understanding for life. It completely alters our frame-of-mind through the induction of pain. It makes us reflect on the real nature of things and their importance in our lives, transforming and improving our future-selves.

Lesson #2: Knowledge

Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge. That knowledge can be harnessed in the future to overcome that very failure that inflicted so much pain in the first place. Nothing can replace the knowledge gained from failure. When Benjamin Franklin famously failed nearly 10,000 times to create a commercially viable electric lightbulb, with each failure, he gained the knowledge of just one more avenue that did not work. It was the accumulated knowledge developed from nearly 10,000 failed attempts that ultimately led to his success.

Lesson #3: Resilience

Failing in life helps to build resilience. The more we fail, the more resilient we become. In order to achieve great success, we must know resilience. Because, if we think that we are going to succeed on the first try, or even the first few tries, then we are sure to set ourselves up for a far more painful failure.

Lesson #4: Growth

When we fail, we grow and mature as human beings. We reach deeper meanings and understandings about our lives and why we are doing the things that we are doing. This helps us to reflect and take things into perspective, developing meaning from painful situations. Life is designed for us to grow and improve. From the very genetic fibers that make us into who we are as individual persons, into the fabric of society on a global scale, growth is a fundamental part of us. Without growth, we could not improve life on every front.

How to Recover from Failure

There are many ways to recover from failure. Once I understood what failure is, and how it is meant to serve me rather than hinder me, I freed my mind and opened your heart to experience the joy of failure. Joy? Yes – Joy. When I am experiencing failure, it is hard to recognize the importance of it. I cannot see the forest through the trees, so to speak, when there is a fire threatening to burn the whole village down, but that is what I must do.

#1 – Ignore the Naysayers

When you fail, surely there will be the people telling you, “I told you so,” and, “You should have listened to me.” Ignore those people. Ignore the naysayers. Living a life that’s completely safe all the time, is not really living.

#2 – Understand and Realize that it is Okay to Fail

One of the best ways to recover from failure is to understand that it is quite alright to fail. It’s okay to fail, but it is not okay to give up. Success will taste so much sweeter when you reach it. Pushing forward and not giving up is quite possibly one of the best ways to recover from failure. Remember, it’s not true failure unless you throw in that proverbial towel and wholeheartedly give up forever. Failure will take you on a journey that you might not want to go on. But, the reality of the situation is that those journeys will help to mold and shape you into a better person. Recovering from failure becomes far more effortless with the knowledge and experience of that failure under our belts, and there is simply no way forward in life without failure.

#3 – Using Failure as Leverage

If you have failed in life, you can use that as leverage to not only recover from it, but to help propel you forward in the future. Failure can be a great a platform for growth that is simply unmatched. To leverage your failures, you have to illuminate them to your mind. Write out what you failed at and why you failed. How will you learn from the past to help shape a bigger and brighter future? Failure is not the end of the road as long as you do not give up. If you still believe in your goals, you can use the failure as leverage to push past the old limitations of your past.

#4 – Revisit Your Goals

Did you have clear and concrete goals in the past? Did you set your goals the SMART (specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, timely) way? Revisit your goals from the past and look at just how clear you were with your goals. Were they precise and exact? Did you visualize them in your mind? Sometimes, failure results from not setting goals the right way. Not only must we set goals the right way, but we must track and analyze them on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. To recover from failure, revisit your goals and redefine them. Spend the time necessary to analyze and adjust where necessary.

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes, because if you are making mistakes, then you're making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art or love or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, this year, next year and forever.” ~ Neil Gaiman

UFOs (UnFinished Objects)

Starting a new project is like falling in love. It is exciting, emotionally arousing, infused with the natural motivator of novelty. Perhaps we even get obsessive about this new activity. We image it as "all good" and do not pay much attention to potential obstacles, negatives, or challenges we may soon face.

Then, after some time goes by, the activity or book or lessons (or whatever) turns into harder work than we expected. It takes longer to complete than we had hoped, or there is some tedium and drudgery involved. We realize we are not sure about the next step. Stuck, we grind to a halt.

Not that we recognize that we have essentially quit trying. No, we just put off the "getting back to it" until such a time as we imagine it will be effortless again. This sort of procrastination may or may not be fueled be perfectionism and the fear that the next steps may not be excellent enough.

Let's talk about UFOs. (That is craftspeak for unfinished objects; in other words, a craft project you started but never finished.) Most of us have at least a handful of unfinished projects: a half-written novel on our virtual shelf, a blog that never made it past the first three posts, a body that is not quite as healthy or fit as we want it to be, craft projects left undone, etc. Sometimes we made conscious decisions to put aside these projects when we realize they are not worth the time or something else is more important. But most often, unfinishing is not so much a choice as a result as of a lack of discipline.  Without discipline, you will not finish anything that matters.

Discipline is not all that important when you start a project because the excitement and adrenaline and potential are enough to drive you forward, to keep you making progress. This beginning stage is when each endeavor is typically the most fun; it is new, it is challenging, it is enjoyable; however, the longer you work on a project - especially a creative one - the more difficult it becomes to stick with it. Once you pass through the initial stage of excitement, you will enter into a phase that is far more challenging.

Finish The Projects You Have Started Or Call An End to Them

I realized a source of clutter in my house, and a significant drain on my energy is the uncomfortable presence of unfinished projects. Every time I see evidence of an unfinished project, I get a jolt of annoyance or guilt. The thought "I should finish that..why haven't I finished that" makes me flinch.

Unread magazines. Half-read books. Half-completed craft projects. I decided that one of my 16 goals for 2016 was to finish an unfinished project a month or put an end to it. I wanted to get them out of my way, one way or another.

I am lucky, though, because my half-finished projects do not make much of a mess, or at least you cannot see them. I have friends with bedroom corners and dining room tables that permanently house half-built Lego castles, dusty piles of recipes, or scrapbooks with half the pages filled in.

Unfinished projects are irritating in themselves, and they also contribute to clutter, because it is so tempting to leave an unfinished project out in the open, as a reminder to finish it, but then it does not get finished! For days, weeks, months!

For me, one of the most persistent, nagging, draining, unfinished tasks is dealing with photos. I enjoy the process of making scrapbooks, but if I do not keep up with it, I can get overwhelmed really quickly or I will have to deal with a million photos at once. I love looking at photo albums, and I know that in the long run making these photo albums will bring great happiness. Happy memories of the past are an effective way to make me happier in the present. (Thus turkey hat was one of those projects that looked better in theory than finished; ever had one of those?)

I went through my entire house looking for unfinished projects, and I pushed myself to either finish them or call an end to them. They were weighing me down. How about you? Have you ever felt this way about an unfinished project? I would encourage you to either finish it or call an end to it. You will feel accomplished either way. (This bib was a project that I started more years ago than I can remember - it is a counted cross stitch. It was supposed to say "Spit Happens" I would need a magnifying glass to do it now. The only project I threw in the garbage without finishing.)