Happy New Year 2024

Rang out the old year and rang in the new year in Japanese Buddist style. So grateful I had the opportunity to participate in this tradition and hope to do so every year. I reached there around 11pm New Year's Eve to line up in front of this bronze friendship bell gifted to our city from a sister Japanese city. A Buddhist priestess was in attendance who sang an invocation, before allowing us to step up to the bell one-by-one. She anointed our hands with incense to inhale it deep into our bodies and wash our whole bodies in it. Essentially, we acknowledge that we, as humans, are flawed and need to symbolically eliminate all the possible (up to 108) imperfections that we may have. Then we ring the bell to start the new year afresh.

Wishing you, dear readers of my much-neglected blog, a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! May 2024 bring you joy, silliness, fun, and lots of laughter. My wish for you is Health and Happiness, in that order. Everything else is unimportant. Thank you for sticking with me month after month. There is a Japanese saying that I love: "Which is more important, the journey or the destination? The company." You. You, dear readers, are the company I am grateful for.

*This copyrighted image is from the immensely talented British illustrator: Yuval Zommer. (Used with permission.)

As my last update indicated, 2023 was an EXECRABLE year for me and my family. Ill health has dogged every single one of us. But it didn't leave me defeated. I coped with the bad and appreciated the good. Despite everything, I was a happier person in 2023. I focused inside myself and indentified just three things that would improve my life and put them into action. And made progress. I am immensely grateful.

The New Me Project


(I am the one in red.)
This is the energy of The New Me Project that sustained me in 2023 and that I will carry into 2024.

Words That Really Speak To Me

"It is never too late to make new choices, to change your perspective, to take risks." Helen Garner: "I'm not going to spend what's left of my life hanging around waiting for happiness. I am going to settle for small, random stabs of extreme interestingness—moments of intense awareness of things and of gladness that they exist."

Things from 2023 I will carry forward: Deepen Friendships; Go on Adventures, no matter how small; Focus on Health Plan; Walking...oceans & forests

My Word for the Year: "Beginning"

Goal for the Year: "Health"

Reading Goals: Read Everyday; Read One Book a Week

Writing Goals: Write Everyday...notebook & letters; Write Letters for Charity. What I will not be doing, alas!, is reguarly writing this blog. (For now.)

Favorite Books of 2023:



First Pile of Books of the New Year