Taking Time

I have been retired (officially!) for almost half a year.  My retirement date was June 10^th, the last day of the 2010-2011 school year; therefore, in one week it will be six months since I walked out of my classroom.  Really hard to believe.

For six months, I allowed my world to shrink a bit, concentrating primarily on reflection, adjustment, and maintenance of the status quo: it's time to begin living larger.  In 2012, I hope to:

Continue to learn new things.

Laugh and smile more freely and more often.
Streamline.

Stretch more boundaries and step beyond my comfort zone.

Find quiet space each day to be grateful and listen.

Spend more green time, outside in nature and in my home living in   

       responsible stewardship.

Write.

Pursue progress, not perfection.

"Make new friends but keep the old" (ah, that old Brownie song!).

Create.

Appreciate beauty.
Pick up the telephone and make a call.

Read closely, savoring the words on the page.

Move my body and challenge my mind.

Notice horizons, both old and new.

Show love.

Pray.

And always...strive to seek "the wisdom from above, that which is pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy." (James 3:17)