Happy New Year!

Ahh this is the best way to bring in 2015 - sleeping in until almost noon, uploading a bunch of yesterday's photos to Facebook, and drinking coffee, reliving the magic of New Year's Eve. I had a lot of fun yesterday and was so blessed to spend it with my Dutch family members. It's actually the first time I ever spent New Year's eve with other people - usually the holiday isn't a big deal for me. But this year everything just felt so right!

Last night while watching the fire works, I decided not to make any resolutions, but "wishes" instead.

1. I hope to become a more caring and forgiving person this year. 
2. That I don't give in to the temptation of gossiping of others, even in casual conversation. 
3. That I stop remembering every bad thing that someone else did and continue to hold it against them. 
4. That I stop remembering "the pain" of my past mistakes, even though I'll never forget them. 
5. That I DO remember the pain of eating too many bon-bons in one sitting! Stop it!
6. That I care about my body. That I treat it better and remember to put on some makeup <3
7. As always, I continue to treat others as I want to be treated. 
8. Everyone deserves respect and second chances :)
9. And yes, even I need human contact every once and a while!

Wishes like these are closer to my heart and they are more important than reaching any "material" goals. I know that if I can grow as a person, I have more to share with others and in turn, I have better stories to tell. 

I believe that truly loving yourself is an emotion that will spill over into every other thing you do, for work or recreation, and people will be touched. That has always been my goal in life - to touch other people. Through creating games, stories, or just by being a friend. That is the legacy I want to leave behind. 

That being said, January and February are the "Now What?" months of NaNoWriMo!! I'm starting to get my energy back to tackle my novel once again - the holidays are great, but they are definitely distracting if you need to get real work done. I've worked on my novel plot and outline during the entire month of December. It's taken on a lot of new life, with more characters and extra conflicts. Just in it's pure skeleton form, I already have about  10,000 words!  I'm ready to begin my second draft of the book and this time, I know exactly where I'm going AND WHAT THE ENDING IS!!!

That's a huge relief  :P

Writing buddies, unite for a new round of writing and editing! Let's make all our wishes come true this year!