Top 10 Tuesday + A Note to Self

I hope that everyone's new year is off to a fantastic start, whether you have been braving the cold with gusto or having soft moments inside where it's warm. Due to illness, I have been staying inside to recover but I'm itching to layer up, boot up, and chin up to the frigid temperatures and take Silas out for some snowy hikes. I'm feeling a little better and the snowy hills are calling. As much as we can spite the whipping gales and biting stillness of winter, I can't help but still find it absolutely fascinating. While driving yesterday, I marveled at the fact that humans can live in an environment where if they go outside, it actually hurts. The air, it hurts. The invisible gas we walk through day-in, day-out, hurts. But some of us do it, some of us enjoy it, and those of us who do enjoy it also throughly enjoy the hot shower afterwards in which we're furiously itching at our red, numb thighs. Well, I am anyway.

This is the first Tuesday of the month, of the year. As always, here is my list of favorites over the past seven days. Enjoy!

1. 2018 Yes, it's a new year. I am not really a conformist of the new year, new me attitude but I do often think of the new year as a second birthday where I re-evalaute. Instead of self-deprecating and wanting to make changes, I simply want to endure and continue. I want to make plans so that this year is yet another awesome one of opportunity, learning, growing, and exploration. So, yes, I do scribble down places and things I want to visit and do. I do thumb through my planner and mark down weekends for this or that plan or adventure. I do attempt to organize more so that I can further the follow-through of those plans.

2. Erasure Poetry I have always wanted to try erasure poetry. There are so many ways in which to do it and I have not yet taken the time to sit down and do it myself. My friend Jeanette recently texted me her own project and it's very gorgeous and inspirational (plus I love birds). I have a few old, odd-books that I feel I can use to do this.

3. Auld Lang Syne For curiosity's sake, I wanted to learn more about the song so often sung drunkenly and mumblesomebly at the end of each year. It's an old Scottish song whose title roughly translates to "For Old Times' Sake". Here are the lyrics:

Should old acquaintance be forgot

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

for auld lang syne!

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

for auld lang syne!

And surely you'll buy your pint cup

and surely I'll buy mine!

And we'll take a cup of kindness yet

for auld lang syne!

We two have run about the slopes

and picked the daisies fine.

But we've wandered many a weary foot

since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream

from morning sun till dine.

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

And there's a hand my trusty friend.

And give me a hand of thine.

And we'll take a right good will draught

for auld lang syne.

4. Hot Showers As I alluded to above, these frigid temperatures have led me to taking very hot, luxurious showers. And I'm lucky because I go to the gym which often leads to two hot showers a day. As much as it dries out my poor skin, it's worth it.

5. Planning Adventures I have written down my list of adventures that I'd like to attempt this year. I believe that most of them are possible and I'm sure some surprise adventures will spring up here and there throughout the year, as well. However, these are some goals that I hope to achieve this year in regards to travel and trying new things. The list is exhausting, I know, but let's see what Sarah can make happen.

6. Brian Making Me Tea I had a long weekend and Brian has been home with me for the most part. It has been wonderful getting out of bed every morning with him and he's already putting my tea on the stove to boil. It's the simple things. We never have mornings or afternoons or evenings together. We're usually two ships passing in the night.

7. Disappointment A few disappointments have happened over the past week. We were hoping to spend New Year's Eve in Baltimore and going to the Raven's game (Brian's a fan) but because of the unbearably cold temperatures and me being sick, we ended up not going. We also had plans to go visit his friends this past weekend, but I didn't go. I'm glad Brian still went, though. Although our plans for Baltimore were foiled, we still managed to enjoy each other's company and have a good time. We're a couple that is usually always on-the-go on-the-fly. It's nice to know that doing nothing together is just as enjoyable.

8. Brian's Birthday Brian had a birthday last week. Even though the surprise Ravens tickets fell through, we still had a good time celebrating his new year--the completion of his 27th. Onwards to 28!

9. Mead Knowing how much I love all-things-honey, some friends of mine got me a bottle of Mead for Christmas. The day I received it, I popped the bottle open and drank almost the whole bottle. It was a wonderful drink for a blustery night. Needless to say, I felt really good even though Brian said I was getting kind of loud and repetitive.

10. Assertion I'm currently reading a book about literary nonfiction and one of the chapters touched upon assertion in essay-writing and I found it very interesting. Assertion (in writing) has nothing to do with being right or validated. It has everything to do with the writer's belief in their perspective and their fair-mindedness in sharing that perspective. I find it very invigorating because sometimes one believes that being a writer is equivalent to knowing. However, knowing has nothing to do with writing. Believing, observing--and reporting from that belief or observation, is what it's all about. "Of this I know is true," most writers will claim. Here's an example from Pablo Neruda's "Nothing But Death":

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,

but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,

because the face of death is green,

and the look death gives is green...

Death is inside the folding cots:

it spends its sleeping on the slow mattresses.

Although this is Top 10 Tuesday, I also wanted to take some time to write something to myself in this new year. We all need to self-meditate once in a while. We all have different ways of doing so--almost to the point where we may believe we don't meditate at all. But I have a few things to say to myself.

Sarah,

• As much as your mind fights for you, you need to fight for your mind.

• Always marvel

• Does it make fear paw at your stomach? Then do it.

• Capture, notice, observe

• Document, document

• Remember that everything calls for exploration, adventure

• Be soft to others

• Be hard when necessary

• Stop with the guilt

• It's okay to hibernate

• Allow some people into the cave

• Gracefully accept what you feel you don't deserve

• Know what you deserve

• Always choose love

• Go slowly

• Love your handful of lovelies

• Recognize and accept when you're not wanted or needed

• Stay curious

• Feed the right wolf

• Be kind, especially to yourself

• Challenge your limitations

• Make and create

• Encourage your narration

• Always learn, Sarah

I hope ya'll have a great week!

#toptentuesday #personal