Hey Friends!

It’s November (well its been November for a few days now) and I’m back! I haven’t been gone for that long, but longer than I would have liked. Life did that thing it does sometimes where it gets a little crazy, stress levels increase and irritation gets high. Quite honestly, it interrupted my desire to be the slightest bit creative. So, I took a breath, focused in one direction and now I am back and all yours.

November is one of my favorite months. Mainly because it’s smack dab in the middle of Autumn. I LOVE autumn. First of all, it’s one of my favorite names for a girl. Second of all, the leaves change, the air gets a little colder. I can wear jeans without dying and can finally retire my shorts and not have to worry about my thighs sweating and sticking together for another 6 months. I love layering sweaters over dresses and scarves and high boots and ankle boots and leather jackets and all of the fall fashion trends. I love apple cider everything (apple cider over pumpkin spice ANY DAY) and Thanksgiving is almost here, and with Thanksgiving comes Christmas.

I really enjoy the holiday season. It has a tendency to be incredibly stressful, but there are simple ways to stay above that and I’ll hit that later on this week. I really enjoy this holiday season because it’s that super special time of year when society becomes suddenly aware of how horrible it is and people “try their best” to be the best they can be. It fails each time but the effort is definitely nice.

Thanksgiving is a holiday of thankfulness. It’s supposed to be the time of year where you get together with those you love and let them know you appreciate them and all that they do. While having a special day dedicated to that is nice, why don’t we do that all of the time? I’m not talking about simply saying thank you, but showing gratitude as a whole.

This past month I’ve been given a few things by others. Thank you notes from them, to me, letting me know how much I am appreciated by them. They weren’t anything too big, just a little hand written card with a gift card inside. When I opened them and thought about the fact that someone took the time to think about me, think about what I do for them (when in reality, I don’t feel like I do very much for them at all), took a moment out of their day to find a card, fill it out and give it to me, it touched me. It touched me because it was a personal little act of gratitude that wasn’t required. Because it took a little time and said, hey, I thought about you. Those small gestures meant something big to me. My life gets busy and it’s easy to get lost in the noise of it all and forget that you too are a human. When I received those little cards it reminded me that yes, I’m human, and yes, people care about me. I thought about it a little further tho and I wondered what this gesture would do for others around me. My friends who I’ve simply gotten used to the idea of them being around and forget to acknowledge, my mother, my brother, my valued co workers.

From that train of thought birthed a challenge in me. This holiday season I want to get more personal in my “You matter to me” actions. It is easy to go online and add things to my Amazon cart and cash out. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but for me this year I want to try something different. I want to take time (especially because time is something I tend to have trouble organizing for myself) to tell those that matter to me, that they matter. What this will look like yet I’m not sure, and I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I was already sweating at the thought of having to organize my calendar to include scheduled social time with people (introvert problems) and stick to those commitments. But, I am looking forward to being able to show the people I care about most that they matter to me this season.

Thanks for stopping by!