Rebecca Sower

2013: the year of Time

At the beginning of each year, I think long about a word (a concept?) to focus and give attention to.  For 2013, my word is ‘Time’.

I think what I’d like to make happen is a shift in my attitude toward this gift we call Time…

• Time is an investment, not something to be conquered or even caught up with.
• My time is not more valuable than any other person’s, so my focus on others’ time is important.
• Although becoming more efficient isn’t a bad goal, it’s not my main one.  Checking off more tasks on my to-do list isn’t my goal.  Likely I’ll spend a little time deciding which items can be erased from that list.  Be more effective and less productive might be a good way to say it?
• The rushed-ness of life stresses me out.  I end up a frazzled and ineffective mess when I’m doing nothing more than putting out the fire that’s right in front of me.  In that way I do need to practice more ‘time management’ skills.  Note to self…most things can wait!
• So on the days that I am less stressed, my creativity kicks in and I am more artistically effective (isn’t it fun how that works?)
• Which leads me to another focus for this year…create.  I’m getting too old to keep telling myself that I’ll do everything else first and do my art with the leftover scraps of the day.
• If I allow myself to be the creative soul God meant me to be, I can give a better version of myself to my family and to others.
• I could keep going, but enough already...

And so Time is the key…being aware of it, wrapping it warm around me and savoring it, giving it away (almost always a good idea), and protecting it when I need to.

(and hopefully spending a little more time updating my blog friends, right? :)

May each moment of your 2013 be everything it is meant to be for you and yours.

{inside} {outside} {03}

{ inside:  Michelangelo sketches on my studio wall }

{ outside:  Autumn wreath finally went up out front }

"A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to see and hear it."

{ michelangelo }

 

catch-up post

All there's time for.  Heading back to Haiti and will be away from here, this screen, for a little while.

Until we meet again...a few of my latest instagram shots, been into painting lately in the spare moments.

the quote keeper's summer series (15)

I have found a desire within myself

that no experience in this world can satisfy;

the most probably explanation is that

I was made for another world.

{ c s lewis }

{ photo: fabric flower journal cover }

the quote keeper's summer series (14)

Happiness...

not in another place

but this place,

not for another hour

but this hour.

{ walt whitman }

{ photo: our girl, heading to college this fall, brings joy after joy to her mommy's heart. }

the quote keeper's summer series (13)

Slight not what is near

by aiming at what is far.

{ euripides }

{ photo: henny-hen eyeing my basil, the silly. }

the quote keeper's summer series (12)

A cup brimful of sweetness

cannot spill even one drop of bitter water,

no matter how suddenly jarred.

{ amy carmichael }

{ photo: quilt top, for our haiti project }

the quote keeper's summer series (11)

Forgiveness is an act of the will,

and the will can function

regardless of the temperature of the heart.

{ corrie ten boom }

{ photo: the beginnings of something, not sure what :) }

the quote keeper's summer series (10)

Be glad of life

because it gives you the chance

to love and to work and to play

and to look up at the stars.

{ henry van dyke }

{ photo: stitched piece tacked to old maple }

the quote keeper's summer series (09)

Life is not so short

but that there is always

time enough for courtesy.

{ ralph waldo emerson }

{ photo: images from around the homestead }