It’s a new year! Today! 2018! HaPpY HaPpY New Year!
Enough already with the !!!!s, Virginia, we get it (you’re muttering.) 🙂
But, how grand is it, out with the old, in with the new!?! A chance to start afresh. No more 2017. Now it’s all about 2018, even if we’re a bit worn out from holiday merrymaking & energizer uncle visits. In his late 70s, our uncle still teaches full time as a professor @ Grinnell College in Iowa. Museums, movies, walks, talks, friend parties, family gatherings, special church services – our holiday sped by powered with lots of love (from Above!)
Out with the old year, in with the new – which includes calendars. You know, those handy things with pictures we hang on walls (or flip over) to help us remember what day it is? (month, year?)
This year I opened (& properly protected) a coveted gift in a Yankee swap at my brother’s (very fun) Christmas work party. Too cool for words (or hot, in this case.)
A Hot Dudes Reading Calendar! Upon careful reflection, this calendar requires appropriate inspection with prioritized placement near my desk.
Between Christmas & New Years we make an annual excursion to select new calendars for the house. (Strategic timing: day after Christmas they go on sale ½ price.) My uncle got in on the fun this year after a long day traipsing around the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. (BTW, the Terracotta Army exhibit is 5*!) Zipping out in the blustery cold (my uncle kept telling us how much colder it is in Iowa) we sought out our favorites.
Like this Teapot calendar that we’ve put up in the kitchen the last 8 or 9 years.
(I found the last one in the store!)
Others offer beauty, like this tall Falling Waters collection of waterfall photos I’ve enjoyed the last few years.
Each month offers incredible views like this one featured for January.
There’s all kinds of daily inspiration to be enjoyed, however, like this stand up Art collection of paintings from museums around the world.
Today features a favorite “Irises” painting from Vincent Van Gogh. (What a great way to start the New Year!!)
There’s excitement when we turn the pages of a new month, a new week, a new year.
New. Crisp. Nothing written on it yet. What amazing opportunities portend these pages?
“Each new hour holds new chances for new beginnings.” Maya Angelou
Virginia! (your turn for !!s.) What you sippin’ in your tea? Bad stuff is happening everywhere. Some of us barely made it through 2017 (& would prefer not revisiting it!) Everywhere we look horrors encroach humanity’s advancements for equality and our equanimity regarding the future.
If we put on lenses of hope, however, we can see God’s redemptive Love at work around us & within us, even in our muddled puddles.
Each day, what opportunities for God’s grace will come our way? New beginnings? New chances? (“Fall down seven times, get up eight?”)
We have a choice in 2018 – to see hope, seek hope, and BE hope (with Heavenly help.) As pages of our calendars fill up with work, activities, business, appointments, family commitments, don’t forget to carve out time for hope in 2018.
Last (but not least) one of my favorite calendars…
“No one is excluded from life’s hope, from God’s love.” Pope Francis
grace, peace & a hope-filled New Year
Virginia : )
Roses in the Rubble 
love the teapots too! beautiful quote by Pope Francis Happy new year-may your calendar be full of good things to do!
Michele, teapots make tea drinking an occasion – for friendship, social interaction(s), affection (for others & TEA!) May your 2018 calendar be brimming with music, laughter, inspirational goings-on – & lots of quality time with Lyla!! 🎉🌟🎻🤗🎻🌟🎉
thank you Virginia-I LOVE teapots!
Liked the looks of all your calendars..hope..eternal hope..thanks for your words..
Here’s hoping we’re coping with all 2018 sends our way (with lots of God’s grace & love!) 🎉✨💜🌟💜✨🎉
I love that inspirational one and that of Pope Francis 🙂
Arlene, I love waterfalls. I see this calendar when I wake up each morning – a great way to be thankful for God’s heavenly paintbrushes busy all around our globe. ✨💦✨
Love hot dudes reading! I may get a copy. For my baby shower, a good friend of mine bought me a book called ‘Mummy Porn.’ It was filled with good looking men cooking and cleaning whilst looking after the baby. I intend to keep it and pass it down through the generations.
Hope you had a good Christmas!
Sarah, hope your December production went well – it sounded like loads of fun (but lots of hard work.) Hot Dudes Reading is an inspirational(!) calendar, but your ‘Mummy Porn’ sounds even more inspiring. Hope this New Year finds you well – & all your loved ones! ✨🌟😎🌟✨
I definitely agree, Hot Dudes Reading needs to be placed where you can admire its beauty every day.
My strategy, exactly, Bernadette. It’s such a fun calendar – inspiring, too!
I am with you. I want to BE hope for others, and I want to SEE hope. Because it is there. It is. We just have to look for it.
Sometimes we have to try hard when everything’s spiraling out-of-control, like your day with faucets freezing, cars breaking down in frigid temps et all. But, then you became hope for us? (my day didn’t seem quite so bad!) ✨🤗🌟🤗✨
HAHAHA! At least I can do that for people. “My day was rough, but it wasn’t HEATHER’s-day rough.” I like that.
Happy New Year! 🎆🎊 May it be filled with blessings and prosperity!
HaPpY New Year to YOU! May 2018 be filled with extra doses of God’s grace, peace, love, joy, wisdom, mercy & Holy Hilarity. 🎉✨🌟✨🎉
Amen! Thank you!
Very inspiring message, Ginny! So thankful for shared time over New Year’s. Even more than your savory cuisine, I cherish the time spent just being together❣️
What a precious New Year’s celebrating with you & Mark – treasured memories!! Missing you lots & lots!! 🎉✨🌟💜🌟✨🎉
Cool! A Pope Francis calendar! Thanks for the nudge toward being part of the solution. [My ‘new’ 2017 Dogma–A Dog’s Guide to Life calendar will put me in the right frame of mind.]
LoL, Tim – A doggy calendar ‘Dogma?’ 🐶 Sounds like a good way to schedule each day. The Pope Francis calendar has a quote for each month (I like quotes?) ✨🌟😜🌟✨