Falling, Falling......

I've fallen in love. A deep profound love that is the sort to make one distracted, all day long. A love that has you thinking about tiny expressions and yawns that make your heart melt. A love that has you biting your lip when they sneeze and stop what you're doing when they murmur. A love that has you itching for them to be awake and not asleep whilst you're there. A love that has you yell "I'LL DO IT" as soon as someone smells poo-poo emanating from a nappy.

They were at our place last night with their mummy and their daddy and when they went  home LBH and I came back into our living room and it felt empty. It still does.

A shift has taken place over here, at our place. It is an undetectable shift but seismic in it's effects. A shift in hearts, minds, attitudes and opinions. A shift that I knew would take place and one which I welcome with my arms wide open. This is also why my word for 2008 is .....Focus.

Sounds a bit lofty, no? A bit cheesy and lathered with effort. Mmmmm, well let me write down what it is that I shall be focusing on this year and I think it will make more sense.

I will be focusing on what is in my life and not what I want to be in it. What is happening right now and not what may or may not happen in the future. I will focus on being brave and doing what I absolutely know to be right and true and not what my emotions tell me. I will focus on harnessing every moment and making it count, even if I'm lying on the sofa with a cat at my feet and a blanket on my belly. I will focus on the man that I am marrying on August 1st and give thanks for every part of his being. I will focus on my home and not on my house. I will focus my focus outwards and not inwards. I will focus on keeping things simple. I will focus on the very best that any given situation has to offer. I will only focus on the good and relinquish the bad after it has been noted and observed. I will focus on perseverance and good things. I will focus on my garden in the Spring and the first sign of the sun. I will focus on the fact that every single one of us was once a babe in arms and was once as pure and as gentle as my nieces are. I'll even try to focus my understanding on you if you continue to eat battery farmed chickens , but don't count on this understanding lasting for longer than the length of a full stop.

So that's my word. Focus. I need it to be honest with you. I need that sense of being able to pull myself back from a thought process that may be getting me into a pickle or a situation that may be best resolved if my focused is placed elsewhere.

We have chatted about our words for the year over in my forum and I have to be honest and say that I nearly wept when I read the words that some of the ladies had chosen and their reasons for doing so. I would so dearly love to hear the word that you have decided to take through your year. If you feel able, leave it here in the comments section and then this time next year we'll look back on this and be able to actually document how, and if, our chosen words made any difference.

I'll do the magazine draw in the next post along with a date for the round up of Pride & Prejudice.

Gosh, having read this post back to myself it is rather soppy and more than a little self indulgent. Hear my tone through it. It's the tone of someone who is head over heels in love with her nieces and has an ache in her tummy. One day.

Cherry xoxox