KINDNESS MATTERS!

Hello to all my friends!  

I have missed you all so much, and I wanted to take this opportunity on the first day of this beautiful New Year to let you know that I am determined to reestablish this blog…. It will be on a slow pace, and I have set some limitations on how much time spent here….  But this blogging community is something I’ve loved and been a part of for a long, long time – since 2011 – and I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye just yet!

I won’t go into any long explanations for my absence since March – so many bloggers are facing the same issues and time constraints.  I am healthy and happy and that’s all you really wanted to know, isn’t it?  I just allowed myself to get waaaaay too busy!  There were too many days when I found myself feeling guilty because I chose to sew in the spare hour or two rather than craft a blog post, and that didn’t feel right.  So I decided to take a guilt-free break.  In that time, I’ve made some choices that cut down on my responsibilities and outside activities, and give me more time to do what I enjoy most – being with good friends and loved ones, and happily stitching in my own little studio!  I already feel better! 

So today, I wanted to begin this year’s blogging journey by sharing my goal for 2018 – 

KINDNESS MATTERS! 

If 2017 taught me anything, it illuminated the fact that we need more KINDNESS in our world!!!!  Human beings can be very unkind – even ugly – to each other.  We can say and do ugly things in the name of a “cause” and feel fully justified.  We can allow our prejudices and beliefs to totally blind us to how our words and actions impact our world.  How they make others feel.  We can say unbelievably unkind things in the heat of the moment.

My prayer for 2018 is for all people to begin to realize that basic human kindness to one another is essential.  To put aside their politics, their prejudices, their platforms, their desire to be right, and just consciously try to treat others as they would want to be treated.  To think about what they say before they say it!  To care more about how we treat each other than about being right or wrong.  To stop and ask: Is what I am doing going to encourage and build Hope? Love? Kindness?  Are my words building a bridge or tossing out bombs?  How do my words and actions make others feel?  How we make others feel is how they will remember us!

Of course, I can’t stop at just wishing for World Kindness, can I?  I’m not running for Miss America LOL!!!  I have to question myself first and foremost.  I have to examine my own actions, words, and motivations.  Am I being kind to the people I encounter in my daily life?  Sure, it’s easy to be kind to my husband, my mom, my friends, my cat (well, most days it is LOL!).  But what about the slow grocery clerk?  The guy who wants to cut in front of me in traffic?  The person who annoys me for some reason or another.  Am I just another cog in the wheel?  Going through my days thinking only about myself and my needs, plans, dreams, without giving a thought to whether I am helping someone else accomplish theirs? 

This year, my hope is to become more aware of my actions when dealing with others, more conscious of how I treat others and make them feel.  To challenge myself to definitely be more kind in every possible way, to every possible person.  Put that way, it’s a lot harder than it seems on the surface, isn’t it?  I’m sure I’ll fail often.  I’m sure I will look back some days and wish I had been kinder to someone, or even several someones.  But hopefully I’ll succeed more days than I fail.  And hopefully I will actually become a more kind person.  Succeed more often. 

My wish for you all is that you encounter many kind people throughout your 2018, and that you will be kind to them in return!

Hugs & Blessings my friends,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Teresa 

=^..^=