My AIP Table - The Journal

Earlier I posted a quickie blog just stating what my word for last year was.  I can't believe I didn't write about it last year ... and for the life of me,  I cannot remember why I didn't.  But, here we are.  My word for  2024  was  STRONG. I'm not exactly sure why I chose that, besides the obvious ...  At 51 years old, I am  more aware of my need for building and maintaining strength.  Strong was  a  good word that I feel went beyond just physical strength this past year.   Sure, I started back to Pilates and can see gains in my abilities  which is exciting.  But, I think 2024 was also about building  mental and emotional strength.  This wasn't anything  I set out to do ... but as usually happens with  my word of the year, it was something  that occurred naturally through  life circumstances. In the weeks  leading up to the  end of each year, my  mind starts to ...

Well, tomorrow is the last day of 2024 and I came in here to write my word of the year for 2025 post and see that I never wrote a post for 2024.  I'm kinda bummed about that because I love coming back at the end of the year and reading what I wrote at the beginning of the year - then reflecting on how the year played out. I'm not going to try to write something of what I was thinking at the beginning of this year because I'm about to write a post reflecting on the year and looking forward to the next but I felt I needed to have this 2024 post to at least mark the word I had chosen. That word was STRONG. K.  Bye. See you in the next post ...

  What a year 2022 was, am I right?  It was an interesting one for me as far as my word went. That word was build.  I won't go into all   the details but if you want them,  they are in lasts years post. As usual, the year and my  word looked very different to what I  had envisioned.  I had wanted to build a new habit  each month but I found that feeling tedious  and without a natural flow so I abandoned it in June.   I was totally ok with that.  These words are meant to be  life giving and enriching, not restrictive. As for the rest of it, I feel I did build on  things I had previously learned.  But I feel like  I am always doing that. That's what  life is, right? Learning. As I reflect on the year gone, I feel  a sense of having had to tear some things down as a  foundation for future building that will happen.  One example of that process  is making the decision and resig...

A brand new year ... it's one of my favourite things! This year has gone by so fast, hasn't it? If you follow along on my Instagram or Facebook pages, you'll know that last years word NEW was a great word and brought with it lots of adventures! We completed our goal of walking one new beach, climbing one new mountain and discovering one new waterfall each month. Thanks to this word, 2021 was one of my favourite years ... and I definitely have finished the year feeling very different to how I felt at the start.  I had hoped this word would help me feel a little less stuck in circumstances out of my control.  And it has!  While there are still things  in my life that are out of my control, they no longer  occupy the greatest space in my mind.  ** Moving into 2022, I have chosen the word build. I played around with a few different words, train and habit among them.  But then  last week I was listening to an  audio book or a podcast, I  c...

  I doubt I need to say that 2020 didn't go as planned. For anyone. It's interesting though, as it always is, that the word I chose for the year ended up being exactly the right one.  It took on a completely different meaning than I had imagined it would.  I chose the word DANCE for 2020. I didn't really know how the word would  play out but early into  the whole COVID shut down,  it became  clear that  2020 was going to be about rhythms ... everything  changed, basically overnight, and we were left to figure out what our new rhythms would be. Here in Australia, or at least where we live, life has basically gone back to normal ... just with COVID protocols and increased cleaning, etc.  For us as a family, life went back to  'normal'-ish but then our puppy was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.  We  walked a bittersweet couple of months with him, enjoying every minute that we had left.   Life had already...

Oh how I love the start of a new year!  And even better ... the start of a new decade! At the end of  2014, I jumped on the  "Word of the Year" bandwagon. I use my word as a focusing tool. A way to concentrate my efforts for the year. I've had some great successes ... like 2016 when my word was  "good health." (yeah, that's two words but it still counts!)  And in 2017 when I decided to focus on "fitness".  Those were great words that really drove my decision making.  The craziest word I ever chose ... well, really, I think the word chose me ... was also the first word I ever chose and it was "uncomfortable."  I chose the word initially because I wanted to move out of my comfort zone.  I wanted to become unstuck.  I'll tell you what, chose your word carefully (!!) because 2015 was  a very uncomfortable year! BUT ... and this is why I say it chose me ... all  of the things that happened in 20...