It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.  --Alan Cohen

Communication is so much more than just words. I like to communicate most with written words, but they are not always necessary. I like to write because it allows me to think through what I want to say and I can go back and edit once I’ve thought about it for a while.  I need to learn to do that more when I speak – think, edit and then let the final draft come out of my mouth.  However, we can communicate our wants and needs and feelings without a single word. We do it with a touch, a smile, or a look.  When we need to let someone know how we feel sometimes words just won’t come, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t spoken.

Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can” John Wesley

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." -- William Shakespeare

I have been fortunate to meet some pretty powerful and influential people in my life. Some I admire because of their character. Others because of their accomplishments.  Some are inspiring and others leave me wondering how they got to be where they are.  No matter who it is, though I have found that I can learn something from them.  This does not apply to those who are great by worldly standards.  I have been as inspired by the reasoning of 5 year old who discovered how something worked as I have a person awarded many patents new inventions.  Every human being has the ability to be an inspiration to someone else.

“One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.”  Victor Hugo

I had a much needed day at home today – well, after grocery shopping at 8 a.m.  The rest of the day was quiet, peaceful and restful.  We all need days like this to let thoughts be entertained in our minds and to sort through those thoughts to figure things out.  Just puttering around the house and getting little task-y things done does wonders for recharging our batteries.

I noticed today that when you are always open to inspiration and motivation, it comes to you in surprising, unexpected ways without even having to look for it.  I was watching a TV show and something they said was processed by my mind, with little actual thought, and stood out as a great quote.  I consider a great quote something that makes me think about life a little differently or is especially witty.  I don’t get to watch much TV, although I really like it, so it was amazing to me that the quote would jump out at me.  It’s all because I am always looking for sources of inspiration.

We did it! We blogged for an entire year without interruption.  We blogged through snowstorms and power outages. We blogged through tempermental cable companies and even trips to the emergency room!  It has been quite a year -- one never to be forgotten, but to have learned so many lessons and realized so many blessings I can't even begin to count them all.  It was in fact possible as we easily discovered to find something to be grateful for each and every day, no matter what trial we were experiencing or crisis going on.  There was still time to see gratitude and experience hope.  I am grateful to those who have followed on this journey and hope you will follow us into 2011 where we will look for and find something to inspire us in each day.  Happy end of 2010!