Make Your Dreams Come True

For my final post of the year, I’m cheating a little bit and “borrowing” a blog I wrote for In With Skin magazine’s online website.  To find out how to make your dreams come true in 2012, simply click on the graphic below.

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy and abundantly prosperous new year from Always the Write Time.  See you next month! ~ cs

 

Always the write time to: take what you’ve learned and make a plan to get from here to Someday.

Traditions Worth Preserving

I’m a girl who appreciates tradition.  When my husband and I married more than half a lifetime ago, I cross-stitched an ornament for our tree every Christmas.  When our daughter was born four years later, I did the same for her.  Now our artificial evergreen is nearly filled with these unique keepsakes.

Additionally, each year my little family watches It’s a Wonderful Life, views a new (or old favorite) movie while enjoying our customary Christmas Eve fare of nachos, bakes and delivers chocolate chip pumpkin bread to our friends and neighbors and designs a 12-month photo calendar for my daddy.  Sometimes early, other times late, we mail our holiday greetings and most years I whip up a few batches of bars and cookies.

With Christmas less than a week away, I find myself a bit frustrated with unfinished shopping and wrapping, the lack of time to bake and cross-stitch, and I have yet to play putt-putt on the local lighted mini golf course — one of my new favorite traditions.  However, if I’m completely honest with myself, I realize if nothing else gets done in the next few days, time with loved ones is the most important tradition worth preserving.  Everything else is just icing on the gingerbread house. ~ cs

 

Always the write time to: remember the reason for the season.  Merry Christmas from Always the Write Time to you and yours.

Thoughts on Birthdays and Back-up Plans

Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. ~ Sammy Hagar

I love that my birthday (today) is so close to the New Year.  Every chapter I’m allowed to write for another chronological year of my life parallels a brand new calendar year of possibilities.  And I’m dreaming up some big ones, too.

Many of the hopes I’m banking on in 2012 are out of my control, however.  It’s like when you’re little and you long for a pony … or a puppy … or a baby brother.  In these instances, your dream will only come true with someone else’s involvement.  This is where a back-up plan may come in handy.  For example, if you can’t bring a puppy home, maybe you can volunteer at a local shelter.

By ensuring I have a back-up plan or two in place, I’m confident many of my wishes will come true by this time next year.  Maybe not in the manner in which I expected as the imaginary candles flickered behind my closed lids.  But in equally rich – and sundry – flavors … kind of like the chocolate chip cheesecake I baked for my birthday. ~ cs

 

Always the write time to: employ one or more back-up plans.  Instead of depending on others to fulfill my dreams, I’ll map out a couple of different paths I can travel toward Someday … and happily-ever-after.

Holding on to Happily Ever After

Have you ever felt as if your future is all planned out, carefully plotted, each “i” dotted?  The crossed “t’s” perfectly aligned?  You relate it often in your mind (and to anyone who will listen), adding and subtracting to the whole but never straying from the course of happily ever after.  You envision the sights awaiting you, as well as a mélange of heady scents — passion and fruity wine coalescing in a pool of salty bubbles.  A platter of sweet and sour, nestled in the center of steamed rice piled high, stands ready for the assault of chopsticks while you’re suddenly too busy soaking in the newness of your fantasy made flesh.

But somewhere along the way between now and then, someone enters the act and attempts to change your fairytale.  Or maybe they were there all along.  With a heavy hand, they begin to erase whole paragraphs, tearing at the paper with a rubber-tipped pencil.  Rewriting scenes until Someday is no longer recognizable in your eyes.  Cloudy around the edges, it lacks a certain substance and shade, a script not your own but still, a character you play on its pages.  Clawing at the ruled margins, you’re desperate to find your way back to the passion-filled future at the end of the final scene.  Because now the lines feel more like a prison, trapping you into a story that looks all too familiar.  A parody of the real thing.

Although play the part you must, going through the motions like the good little thespian you are, because you’re called to finish performing the original manuscript penned before time.  Resigned, you pack up your aspirations for tomorrow and tuck them away for safekeeping.  So when you can’t bear another minute of pretense, you can remind yourself of the ending you almost got to write.  A sigh on your lips, knowing the real tale may never be told.

But wait!  Before you gather up your last dream, you suddenly realize it’s still your story to tell.  A detour between reality and whimsy — your very own Someday over the rainbow.  Out each one comes again, starched and pressed and dressed in their finery.  And all because of pinky promises made … once upon a time. ~ cs

Always the write time to: believe in fairytales; this is one of the secrets to the fountain of youth.  Tip: Some things defy logic, so don’t listen to the naysayers. 

Change Can Be a Good Thing … It’s All in How You Look at It

Change has been my life’s overriding theme this year.  Some of it has been good, like the change in my daily scenery when I started a new job outside the home, or when my writing went from unpublished to print in a couple of online venues.  Another change – moving across town – has come with its challenges, but also in less wear and tear on the vehicles and the formation of new relationships.

For 2012, I’m contemplating another change.  Although I’m a firm believer in the old adage if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I also don’t want to get stuck in a rut.  So I’m looking at turning Always the Write Time into a daily blog post.  Something along the lines of journaling.  More rambling, if you will.  And less refining.  I’m hoping it will help me be better disciplined if I have a self-imposed deadline each day.  So humor me if you will.

Sneak Preview

New Year’s Resolutions (to date):

1. Continue sprint triathlon training (goal: 2015)
2. Write a book from start to finish
3. Find a home church
4. Travel (more!)
5. Get published in a second literary journal
6. Learn how to dance
7. Add to my list of dreams
8. Decorate my home
9. Plant a cactus
10. Take chances
11. Learn something new (see #6)
12. Break a bad habit
13. Taste a food I’ve never eaten before
14. Step outside my comfort zone (see #10)
15. Perform a good deed (or two or 12) ~ cs

Always the write time to: try something new.  If it doesn’t work, move on.  If it does, then pat yourself on the back.  As for me, I’m testing out a new blog format.  What is one goal you’re contemplating for 2012?