And so it goes...

Hello 2013! Let's do this! I've seen this image a lot on Pinterest and in Blog-land, however it does encapsulate how I feel about this new year. Last year at this time we were in a dark place and I recall being entirely out of sync with the impetus to make resolutions. I was hanging on by a thread instead - in survival mode rather than a growth mode.

This year - a whole different thing. And so it goes; life has a habit of handing out good times and bad and the point of it is: you have to go through both. By contrast right now, I have moments where I feel my heart literally swell with contentedness. It's hard to write that without sounding smug and I really don't mean to. It surprises me how I can find happiness in places that I thought had been fully plundered - like a miner who finds something shimmering in a mine shaft that has already delivered. Who would have thought that in the same place, with the same life I could find more shimmer?!

via patterson maker

But I have. And it's great.

A word on this blog while we are here. I started writing it three years ago this month. I can vividly recall a quiet January day, post-Christmas, pottering round the web. I found this blog and specifically this post. Something about the picture completely resonated with me and I was, right there and then, on the spot - inspired. How strange then that, Simone, the writer of those words has become my friend and confidante. How strange that had I not happened across her post, I may never have started to write this blog. And true to form, the post she has written today captures everything that I appreciate about Simone  - positivity, sentimentality, truth, realism, verve and elegance.

via the bottom of the ironing basket

Blogging has brought me so much; things I could never have imagined, from friendship to a burgeoning business and to celebrate three years of it - of chronicling my life and thoughts, is quite honestly, and as my husband would say: pretty cool.

Happy New Year.