Toast And Fruit To Start

I expect I ought to bring you something grand today, a big statement of my intentions for the new year or a sparkly review of a long holiday that had an exciting beginning, relaxing, playing games by the fire middle and an active, fireworks-inclusive end.

Another version could be a cookie baking and sampling frenzied beginning, an eating at least two a day middle, and an I can't eat any more cookies end.

Instead, I bring you a diptych of my breakfast this morning: homemade, seeded sourdough, yogurt and a clementine.  Perfectly reflective of a healthier trend, yet just what I like. 

I struggle a bit with January 1st as the beginning.  A more natural starting place to me is September, the start of the school year, the change of season, or even late December on the Winter Solstice, marking the voyage out as the days begin to lengthen.

This year, however, I'm going with the flow of the calendar year.  I seemed to hit a solid place for reflection in December, and humbly found a need to change calendar systems, reverting to old fashioned paper.

According to the saleswoman who helped me pick out my Filofax, even the twentysomethings buy paper agendas.   I felt better knowing that the need to write important events down and plan with a pen does not have anything to do with age.

I devoted considerable time to setting up my areas of focus for the year and a method for assessing progress.  My word, SHAPING, makes me smile because it fits just right.

And it's not just the physical that needs shaping.  I have ideas for our home, my friendships, plans and goals for this blog, our family, and countless new bread recipes to try. 

If my breakfast diptychs turn to bowls of oatmeal, you will know I am way serious.  But that's not the state I am in today, as that would be too harsh a beginning.

Finding gardening metaphors useful, I will tell you that my new rose-patterned pruning shears I received for Christmas are still sitting neatly in their box under the tree.

It's January, there is no pruning going on yet.  I don't even have the year's seed catalogs.