My theme for 2026: Dare

I haven't blogged in forever, but I've been thinking about what my theme for 2026 would be. I already know it's going to be a year like no other because of my health condition, so I was trying out the word "audacity" but I couldn't shake off the negative connotation, especially for the TikTok generation.

So. I'm choosing "dare" instead. Like, yes, I will dare disturb the Universe.

My theme for 2024: Yes, and ...

It's been a while since I posted. Hello, I'm still around. It's late to be posting about the start of 2024, but, as always, it's better late than never. 

First, I do have a theme for 2024, and I thought of it way before Ariana Grande released it as a single: Yes, and ... I picked it up from improv. It refers to the kind of thinking where you accept what another improviser has said and build up on it. 

I figure this year is the year I tame my overthinking and automatic mental rejection of the unfamiliar. This year will also be the year I teach myself to be more accepting of opportunities that come my way. 

Yes, Universe, and ...

It's been slow, but I have been moving

I finally opened my personal laptop today and was reminded of this blog. So: hello.

I'm in the market for a new laptop because the one I have is already excruciatingly slow. But the process of buying a new gadget if you have little technical knowledge and limited funds can also be a pain that I find myself avoiding.

Anyway. A lot has happened since my last post. A lot of heartbreak and disappointment, but also a lot of things I am grateful for. It's been slow, but I have been moving.

Since the end of January, I've been focused on doing well in my new job. But in July I decided that I was slipping back to my old habit of making work the center of my life so I decided to do a little decoupling and recoupling. 

As each day passes, I am increasingly aware of how short life is and how limited my time is. I want to spend my time on beautiful things and I can do that at work, thank God, but I can do that even more in my life outside of it.

So that is what I will dedicate August to, rearranging my life into one that I find beautiful. 

My theme for 2022: Move

The past two years have been lived in semi-paralysis. I couldn't move because I didn't know what was safe to do and what wasn't, and I wasn't just thinking of myself but the people in my bubble, especially my mother.

This year is both the same and different. We're vaccinated, we know more about how to protect ourselves, but the case numbers have never been higher. Members of my family have also been affected.

But I can't live in suspension anymore. And I also don't want to. Thus, my theme for 2022 is Move.

I'd been mulling it over since the end of December, and it felt like the right them to push me into action. It can also mean many things, like change places and transform spaces and even touch hearts. 

So, 2022, let's move. 

My theme for 2021: Beauty

I think I missed writing a blog entry on my theme for 2020, but I did manage to post it on Facebook and I was reminded of it when the new year rolled in. I wasn't thinking of coming up with a theme for this year—to be honest, I wasn't very hopeful; I wasn't really negative about it either, just ambivalent—but then the reminder also reminded me that I did want a life with more intentionality. 

So I thought back to what helped me through the 2020 and what I carry with me from it that I believe will help me even more in 2021, and then I came up with this: Beauty.

I actually want to say "lovely," but I feel like "lovely" only works in a sentence. But that is also what I mean. Lovely.

I refer to one of my favorite verses from the bible, which I discovered years ago in an essay I have since forgotten: 

"... Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

Whenever something bad happened in 2020, I was always comforted by something lovely. Sometimes I created it, sometimes I sought it out, sometimes it was given to me. Often, I simply focused on it, and it put me in a grateful, grounded space.

This year, I want more of it. Give me more of it. 

2021

To those of you who are still with me this new year, let us continue all our joys together and see them grow.

To those of you who are staying behind in 2020 (and even earlier), please look for me at that point in time when I wanted to take you with me, and know that I would have if you had let me.

To all of you, thank you, please forgive me, I'm sorry, I love you. 

Here I go, again

The nice thing about digging up my early writings is that I am reminded of how I used to write just because it felt fun. I have several diskettes I can no longer open that I'm sure contains stuff I'd be happy to read, but I don't have the technology to do so anymore. I'm hopeful I still have dot matrix printouts somewhere, but I also did go through a phase of self-hatred where I destroyed a lot of the things I wrote, including early diaries.

I used to write for fun, imagine that. It really feels like so long ago, a different life ago. I'd just open a notebook or switch on the computer and start to write. I didn't write a lot of fiction, so I'm now wondering why I tried to focus on the short story in grad school. Maybe it's because "creative non-fiction" wasn't a thing then, and essay writing was something that felt academic. 

Sometimes, I still feel like writing for fun. I think that's why I still busy myself with this blog, even if it doesn't have a lot of readers and I promote it only minimally. Sometimes, it still feels fun. I'm doing it because I enjoy it; I do it for myself. 

I think what ruined me, at least partially, was that I started writing for profit, which I still want to do, but not in the way I was doing it. I had to think of how the piece would make money for someone (I did a lot of marketing writing), and then eventually, my brain started focusing on what I felt I needed to say for others and not what I had to say for myself.

I think I've said it here before, or at least I've said it to someone else: I am blocked because I feel like I have nothing to say. A few days ago I came upon this quote:

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.” - Barbara Kingsolver

So now I'm using this time to figure out what I have to say. I've started a little writing project (also for myself) to see exactly what I have to offer. It's one of the things I'm doing for Advent.

I know Advent resolutions are not a thing, but I did well with my Lenten resolution to stay away from Facebook, so now I've pledged to do some things in preparation for Christmas, and when I say Christmas, I mean the gift that I have humbly and faithfully asked for myself. 

My other Advent resolutions cover my overall well-being. I'll probably give updates from time to time, but I've looked at my blog archives and the posts I hate are those about my unfocused efforts to change my life, so maybe not so much. 

But I have to tell myself that it's okay to stop and start. Because here I go, again.

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror--with so much becoming more beautiful precisely because of terror. This is 2020. 

I'm surprised with myself that I haven't written anything about the pandemic. I suppose it's because it has literally invaded every aspect of my life and I've become its prisoner, like most everyone else in the world. I guess I didn't want to think about because I always have to think about it. If I could never think about it again, I would.

But that's not the only reason. In March, I simply walked away from a life that I realized was completely wrong for me. I left my job because I wasn't liking the person I was becoming and, at the same time, I ended what I felt was a special friendship for exactly the same reason. 

Walking away was a clear and easy decision, especially from my job, but the execution was nevertheless extremely painful. Then suddenly the whole world was on lockdown and I was surviving a broken heart and a bruised ego and a pandemic. 

It's kind of amusing how my personal drama was eclipsed by a very tangible threat in COVID-19. This brush with death--this pandemic may very well be a brush with death for those of us surviving it--has made me take a closer look at what I value in life. And while I can't go any further than that in terms of shareable insight, this closer look has reminded me that I still, like always, want to create beautiful things.

And when I'm gone, I want to leave beautiful things behind. 

***

This year is a terrible year, but it's also a mixed bag. There were many children born in our family, and the older ones are thriving in spite of current events. My mother had a health scare, but is on the mend. 

And there is someone that I love, to add to the small number of people I have grown to love more deeply this year because while the pandemic took their physical presence away for the time being, we are even more present in each other's lives.

***

When Typhoon Ulysses battered Luzon, I felt a prolonged terror like I'd never felt before. The typhoon was strong and slow, and I barely slept because I could hear the makeshift roof of our laundry area being thrashed by the wind from midnight onwards.

I wasn't just afraid to lose the roof--I was afraid for it to cause major damage or hurt someone. I couldn't go out to secure the roof--there was nothing much I could do, really, so I prayed. And then I wrote on my phone. I kept writing even when the electricity went out. 

It was only after writing that I felt calm enough to sleep. 

And so I am here, again, in this space where I still write whatever I want, about everything I want, all the things I find beautiful and even the things I find terrible.

First Sunday

I made it to the last Sunday mass at the church in our village, and like Ash Wednesday, my attending the service was equal parts pain and comfort. I couldn't wait to get away, but I was among the last to leave because I stayed to pray.

I met a woman over the weekend who once shared the story of her being broken so she could be someone new, and I wondered if that is what is happening to me, although in a smaller scale. 

There is nothing huge happening in my life; there is just this dark cloud hovering that on some days become too heavy. I ought to let it just rain. Maybe that will make it go away. Maybe that is what I am preparing for--or praying about--this necessary rain.

Today, the priest said we should Stop, Look, and Listen. I thought it corny, until I remembered that a friend I talked to about my Lenten journey suggested as much. More than the abstinence, more than the fasting and sacrifice, he said, it may help to just be still and observe God's presence in my life.

Today, too, a line from a song that was sung during the mass stayed with me: give me a new heart. 

I want a new heart, God. I'm willing to wait until Easter.

Lent

"If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Psalms 95:8

This verse appeared in today's readings, and how appropriate because it's the psalm that I would say has always haunted me ever since I became a lukewarm Catholic. 

The few times I'd hear mass over the years, I'd either hear this verse or see it written somewhere in the church. Is this a sign, I would always wonder. 

I don't know if I have hardened my heart against my Catholic faith; I feel that even when I wasn't practicing as much, I've always been praying and cultivating a relationship with God. 

Or maybe that's just what I think. And maybe this is why I am where I am now, almost inexplicably drawn to celebrate Lent in a way that is in keeping with Catholic tradition, hopeful to gain something at the end of 40 days. 

To be honest, my heart isn't entirely in it, but I feel like I just have to show up. What else could I lose?

Now listening

I discovered a love for audiobooks today. On a whim, I decided to play one (The Sadness of Beautiful Things, by Simon Van Booy, an author I hadn't read before) while making dinner, and two hours later, I was still hooked.

It probably helped that I was listening to a collection of short stories, with each story being read by a different voice, and with each voice reading the lines of each character a little differently.

It was surprisingly relaxing, so long as I could hear the story clearly. (I write this because I tried to listen to one story while taking a bath--told you I was hooked--and that wasn't a good idea.)

The stories were beautiful too, closer to the kind I want to write. Van Booy collected true stories told to him during his travels, used them as starting points, and turned them into this collection. That background was what got me interested in the first place.

I'm a story collector as well, but I never thought of using them in my fiction--at least not deliberately. But now maybe I will try.

Interestingly, I'd always assumed that I wasn't an auditory person. I love visual aids and pretty fonts, and I like to watch mouths moving as people speak. But I think I like listening to nice voices and beautiful sounds just as much.

The last time before this that I listened to a story being told was during the first season of Serial. It was my initiation into podcasts. I loved Serial, particularly its game-changing format. I think that podcast had inactive parts of my brain working again.

The first time I listened to a story being told, it was by my mother. When we were children, she would read to us in the afternoon, before our naps, and the longest book I remember her reading was Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

It didn't have as many pictures as the other Disney books we had, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, and I remember very well looking at blocks of text and being frustrated at not being able to decipher them. I couldn't read yet, so the task was my mother's. Except that she would fall asleep before us, and because we wanted the story finished, we'd pry open her sleeping eyes.

Soon after that, I was reading on my own, happy to be free from needing interpretation. Thinking about it now, reading was my first taste of independence.

I used to think I'd hate being read to, now that I can read on my own. But now I think it's just a matter of finding the right material, the right voice. A new door has been opened!

Sunday rest for the restless

I love Sundays, especially if I've spent Saturday out. It's still a day of rest for me, though rest now takes on different appearances, such as doing the dishes or folding my clothes or trying out a new recipe.

I learned recently that the rest I need after a busy week doesn't necessarily mean resting the body. It's more of resting my mind, and that can happen when I labor on other things I don't think about on the other days of the week.

I also learned recently that I actually enjoy making things, no matter how little talent--and patience--I have for crafting.

My mother and I (but mostly my mother) made a princess skirt for Kiara to play with last December. I took some scraps and made a matching skirt for her Minnie Mouse toy. The stitches were messy, the fabric was crooked, but you can bet I was proud of that little thing!

Emboldened by the relative success of my little project, I decided to finally make the prototype of that infinity scarf with a secret pocket I'd always wanted to make. It took me perhaps a total of twelve hours, including not just one instance of taking my creation apart because I'd made a mistake, but I was satisfied with my latest endeavour.

Take a look! I'm not so crazy about the print, but I'm happy with the outcome.

That strip in the middle is the secret pocket.

Basically, a few years ago, I bought a few meters of the cheapest stretch fabric I could find so I could learn to work with it on a sewing machine. It was a pretty advanced plan, as I had never used a sewing machine in my entire life.

I still haven't learned to use a sewing machine. I made this scarf by hand, using the only two stitches I remember from Home Economics class: the running stitch and the back stitch. Then I sewed on the secret pocket with a zipper using, well, my common sense. Somehow it worked.

I think I'm going to make more scarves on more Sundays of this year. I'll probably want to get my own sewing machine, if I learn how to use the tiny portable one that we have. At the very least, I'm definitely going to improve my running stitch and back stitch.

My theme for 2019: good intentions

To be clear, it's living intentionally, but I wanted to use a noun, or noun phrase, as has been the tradition.

This theme snuck up on me when we got home after Christmas Eve dinner with my brother-in-law's family, as I was tidying up in the living room before going to bed.

I'd noticed that the Christmas lights were still on the table, and the branch my mother and our helper had painstakingly cut off from our podocarpus tree--which had, incidentally, borne fruit for the first time ever in 2018--was looking forlorn in its dark corner in our tiny patio.

That was our Christmas tree, still unfinished. It had to wait until Christmas morning to be completed, and it would have only one Christmas night to sparkle in its full glory.

We'd had a good night with family, and in the spirit of the season, I switched on the lights. I watched them twinkle on the table, many of them still coiled, and thought to myself: here lies our good intentions.

But what we had really intended was to have a light, happy evening. We had intended to not be so tired from unnecessary preparations that we'd be cranky or exhausted before midnight. And that's what we got.

So, here's to living out all my good intentions this 2019!

***

It took a while to come up with this theme. I'd been thinking of making lifestyle changes, like simplifying my life further, speeding up my pursuit of minimalism, and going for zero waste as much as possible.

I was on a jeepney a few days before Christmas, and I noticed this boy in front of me. He was dressed in casual clothes--t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, no socks--and he was probably a university student. He had an arm up and on his wrist was a phrase tattoo: "mise en place" in cursive.

Mise en place is a French term associated with the culinary arts. It means "set up" or "putting everything in its proper place" to make cooking easier, especially for professional chefs.

But it's also a philosophy that extends beyond the kitchen. Here's a nice short article on it.

It almost became my theme for the new year--my life, after all, is a complete mess--until I felt the need to go bigger. I mean, did I really just want to put the elements of my life in order? Or did I also want to start creating new things as well, even as worked on having mise en place?

***

Speaking of mise en place, I was reminded of the term yet again when I met up with my old friends Eric and Donna for our annual Christmas meet-up.

Eric, me, and Donna

We were talking about our shared lack of desire to have our own children, and the conversation zoomed in on the whys: some sort of fear, some form of laziness, and perhaps what others would misconstrue as selfishness, but what, I think, is really a question of readiness.

"Do you make your own bed when you wake up in the morning?" Eric asked. If even that takes too much effort, what more the work of parenthood?

Maybe I'll still be a mother. Or maybe not; time is no longer on my side. Or maybe I'll be a step mom. Or perhaps an adoptive mom.

I don't know.

But what I do know is that that's another level of mise en place. I wouldn't mind putting on the work, really.

Good intentions, 2019!

How we learned Tagalog

When we moved to Manila, my brothers and I still spoke Cebuano. Ivan was six, I was five, Dot was three. We would speak this language in the household for at least four more years as school and the neighborhood gradually whittled us down into Manileños.

In my mind, I credit Batibot for teaching us Filipino, but that's not the entire truth. This, I remembered at dinner last night.

While eating at Provenciano with Ivan and his fiancee Ana, I noticed the blue and white enamel plate a dish was served in and remembered I had coveted the same plate as a child because of the 1980s TV series "Yagit."

"Ang mga batang yagit" would eat fluffy, loose rice and dried fish on their blue and white enamel plates. They ate with their hands and with so much gusto--especially the fat boy named Tom-tom who was credited as Tom-tom, so I wondered if he was a real batang yagit--that I associated their enamelware with a good and happy meal despite the direst of circumstances.

Ivan told me I could find old enamelware being sold online. I replied that I probably wanted those plates only because of my yagit fantasies and those aren't exactly nice fantasies to have.

Ivan explained to Ana that when we were growing up, our helpers would watch Yagit and other afternoon TV dramas. Our mother didn't like it--we weren't allowed to watch local TV--but they still did when my parents weren't home and, by default, we did too.

That's how we learned Tagalog.

One day, Ivan was angry at one of the helpers and he called her one of the first insults we had picked up: patay-gutom. She cried, responding in the same way a TV character would, and I was stunned by this real-life drama happening before me. She may have packed her bags and left.

We got a scolding, I think, for watching local TV, but so did our helpers. That didn't stop them. And, by default, us.

In grade 5, I got laughed at for pronouncing "palda" with the accent on the second A. I had long given up calling my brother Manoy Ivan because some of the neighborhood kids teased me. By then, I was struggling with English too. But I had a growing Tagalog vocabulary! Yagit, dukha, sampid. Mangangalakal. Patay-gutom. Hampaslupa. And my favorite: tulisan.

Grass does not strain to grow

Ginger and turmeric from our garden

I was chatting with a dear old friend yesterday, and he pointed out that he could feel I was "in resistance mode." In life coaching terms, it means that I am going against whatever good that flows.

I do get my moments. Sometimes, it's whole stretches of time. I could beat myself up over the time I've wasted--and I would too--but I need to shift, pronto.

Perhaps it's because I've turned 40. I'd never been one of those women who felt the need to hide their age. I thought I'd never really care about growing older--I know so many women 40 and above who just got even more amazing as they put on the years--and to some extent, I still don't, but I'm suddenly hit by this existential anxiety.

I keep wondering: Am I doing what I was meant to do? What verse do I contribute to this powerful play? Is there a point to all this? And if there isn't, why do I feel like I need to contribute nevertheless?

I still have no answers. But I don't want to overthink it anymore.

The other day, I went out to our small garden, overflowing with plants because of the rains, and I was reminded again that "grass does not strain to grow."

We'd planted some turmeric and ginger rhizomes a couple of months ago, and there they were, full-grown plants, bulging out of their pots. From a store-bought ginger that we planted because it had started to sprout, we now have a several ginger roots, waiting to be harvested.

I planted an additional two dozen or more turmeric rhizomes. They had been our harvest from a few months ago, and they'd just stayed in a basket, almost forgotten. One day, they decided to sprout.

I am not the world's best gardener, but gardening appeals to me because it reminds me all the time of how little effort--and by this, I mean resistance--there should be in what one does.

If the space is right, the plant will grow. That is all there is to it. That is all I need to know.

Goodbye; it was nice to know you

Looking through my old blog posts (the ones I've decided to keep) and scrolling down my Facebook timeline (as I debate whether to delete my account or not), I saw interactions with people I no longer interact with, either by choice or by chance.

I didn't even know then that that would be the last time I'd be interacting with them or posting about being with them.

It makes me feel sad, actually, how people come into your life and make you happy, and then you somehow hurt each other, and then all you have left is evidence that at one point in life, it was good between the two of you.

Still, it is what it is. I have these happy memories that don't make a monster out of me and a monster out of you.

Two (blogs) become one

I suppose it requires some amount of courage to face the failed parts of yourself. And then it takes even more courage to accept those parts.

This is my dramatic way of saying I've decided to merge my old blog with this relatively new one, partly because I am tired of searching for stuff I remember writing but feared I'd deleted and partly because I'm sick of hiding what feels like a dirty past but is really a dreary one.

There's a lot to clean up, like cryptic posts to lost loves, dead links, embedded flash videos, and announcements to my Multiply (+) friends. 

There's a lot that makes me cringe. The earliest posts date from 2007 and I was naive and (more) dramatic and had a (higher) tendency towards self-reflection and self-analysis-paralysis.

I want to kick myself for the many times I swore I'd finally finish my MFA throughout the years!

But I also regret many of the entries I lost, partly because I didn't back up my Multiply properly and partly because every so often I'd feel like erasing my life and the personal blog, started in the late 1990s, was always the first to go. 

Anyway, no promises, but here we are.

Purposeful whimsy

Whenever I try to picture the kind of life I want to create this year, I always end up thinking of teacups, delicate ones made of porcelain or bone china, with pretty flowers and edges gilded with gold.

I see myself drinking tea or coffee in them, gracefully holding the saucer, even. There are no sandwiches, scones or cake in the picture, because while I do drink tea and coffee, I am not really one who actually does tea, you know?

There's a word I discovered when I was working in media many years ago: aspirational. I still can't use it with a straight face, but maybe this dainty teacup I keep envisioning is exactly that, aspirational for me.

What words do I associate with this teacup? Elegance and design. Beauty. And also purposeful whimsy.

I'm also reminded of criticism--the kind you want when you want to improve as a writer--I received at a class writing workshop many years ago: Your words are beautiful, but they say nothing at all.

A teacup is beautiful and elegant in its service.

***

Yesterday, while organizing our bathroom shelf, I realized I don't like decorative soap. I mean soap that is molded in shapes like seashells, animals or, worse, flowers.

Their design defeats their purpose.

They look sad within a couple of uses and they're uncomfortable to scrub your hands with. As décor, they gather dust. As fragrance, most of them quickly lose scent.

What is the use of it, really.

***

I have three miniature teacups, all gifts or souvenirs. Today, I planted sansevieria in the remaining two.

We are off to a slow start, 2018

Last night, I dreamt that I was in the United States with some people, including a boy I liked years ago, someone I was interested in again. We were all staying in a relative's house; the family was out of the country and had invited us to use their home.

All of us were friendly, but we weren't exactly traveling together. I had my own plans, including reunions with other friends I didn't share with them. However, as people who find themselves together tend to do, everyone started planning as a group: tours, night outs, shows. I hesitated; I always start out wanting to do my own thing, not following anyone else's agenda.

But when they invited me to a barbecue night in the backyard, I looked at the boy I liked shyly and thought: This is a good way to get to know him better. I imagined the two of us chatting on the porch, laughing over drinks and maybe liking each other a little bit more.

I ran off to my room and took a shower. Before dressing, I decided to lie down in bed for a few minutes. It was morning when I woke up, still with bathrobe on and a towel wrapped around my hair. Barbecue night was over; I had lost my chance.

That was the end of the dream.

I woke up a little upset at myself. Later, when I shared this dream with friends, I wondered: Do I feel bad because I am so slow at everything?

Years ago, I tried to make a vision board, but I couldn't fill it up. Someone I went to grad school with scoffed at it and said, "Dagdagan mo naman ang mga pangarap mo." Add to your dreams; have more ambition; be more; do more.

Lately, I've been rethinking this idea of "more."

One of the articles I read last year that left an impression asked this question: What if All I Want is a Mediocre Life? Of course, the writer doesn't really want a mediocre life. She wants a small, slow, simple one and she defines it for herself and declares it enough.

That's something that I am committed to this year, but it's also something I'm slow at defining. But I'm getting there. I'm getting there. 

After 30 days of doing my Morning Pages

My actual Morning Pages journal, almost full!

I posted here earlier that I'd started doing Morning Pages. It's been over 30 days now -- 36, to be exact -- and I'm still at it. If I am not able to write my three pages in the morning, I write before I sleep. I've almost filled up my notebook, which I don't think I've done since grade school.

Before I started doing my Morning Pages, I'd seen a lot of blog posts claiming how the habit changed their writers' lives. I don't think it has changed mine in a big way yet, but I'm already noticing small differences.

I believe I've already mentioned here that I've been dealing with some anxiety. It's not debilitating and I don't get panic attacks or anything like that, but the level of anxiety I experience at times takes a lot of my energy and hinders creativity.

I worry about big things, too, like the Great Pacific garbage patch or Taal Volcano's next eruption or where this country is headed with our current leaders, and if I'm not careful, that worry could take over the rest of my day.

I've taken some steps towards reducing this anxiety: I've unsubscribed to all sources of news (that way, when I do decide to update myself on current events, I'm prepared) and I no longer check my Facebook.

There are other things to be done: sleep early, avoid coffee, start a meditation practice, get active, etc., but doing my Morning Pages has already helped me manage my anxiety.

I've noticed that when I am feeling particularly anxious about something I'm not ready to face, I delay writing in my Morning Pages journal because I know that I would be writing about the very thing I'm avoiding. Thankfully, the last month has taught me that writing about my concerns and fears help center me and clear my mind.

Another thing I've learned is that the way I talk to myself is sometimes terrible! Morning Pages are supposed to be your uncensored thoughts and I've noticed that I keep saying "I should be _____" or "My life should be ______." That's the root of a lot of frustration!

In some of my Morning Pages, I write to myself and I've been teaching myself kinder and more appreciative self-talk.

Finally, I've written down a lot of ideas -- for my goals, for my blog, for short stories, for what to do next. Morning Pages are not supposed to be treated like a journal; it's not even suggested that you read past entries, but I'm pretty sure my notebook is already home to a lot of creativity.

That's my latest update. I'll continue this habit and let's see where I am in six months or so.

If you'd like to do Morning Pages as well (I recommend it!) here's how, according to Julia Cameron. It's not high art!