New Year New Beginnings

The new year dawned and something just felt different. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I had turned 60 and turning another decade older makes you look back on life. I found there are things that I wanted to accomplish and places I wanted to see that I hadn't yet. Like most people, I never put the effort into making a lot of them happen. Surely, thinking that "someday" I would do them. That WAS the reason for it not feeling like just another New Year's look back AND forward. It WAS different.

I have been an empty nester for almost 6 years and after spending the last 35 years raising my children, I had some thinking to do. How DO I want to spend the next 30+ years of my life, if I am blessed with that many? I don't want to just sit around wishing and dreaming about the life I want. I want to LIVE it! 

What steps did I take?

I'd been really evaluating my life and the things I felt God wanted me to do with it but also, things I'd always dreamed about doing. I made a list of things I wanted to do and places I wanted to go.

I wrote that list and did what any normal person would do. I forgot about it!

I am ALWAYS writing lists. I will sit and make a list of things to do, a list of things I need to clear out, a list for the weekend and lists of things I want to change about my daily routine. You get the idea, right? I love checking off the things on the list. How about you?

I ran across this particular list in early February, a few weeks after I wrote it. 

• Write a book
• Go to Scotland
• Visit every state in the US that I haven't yet
• Buy some land and live in a cozy cottage away from the big city noise and crowds
• .... (I cannot remember any of the other things I had on that list)

Notice the first thing on the list? Write a book. I have dreamed of that since I was a teenager. I have attempted to write a book many times, but I let self-doubt and honestly, just life, put a stop to it every time. This list got me to thinking about that dream of being a writer and about the steps I needed to take to get back into writing. I had attempted to get into the writing world over a decade ago. The first steps I took this time were to mirror what I did that time. 

I rejoined ACFW, the DFW-ACFW local chapter and FHLCW. That is where I connected with so many other writers and found great inspiration and lots of amazing books to READ! 

I began looking for conferences, virtual and in person. I signed up for writing classes with one of my favorite authors. I made a plan to find and sign up for anything I was able to. I found several virtual writing conferences in the month of March. I knew the tentative dates for the major conferences in the fall so I wrote those down, knowing full well that I would have to choose which one to attend when the time came to register.

​I was ready to make the commitment to make my writing a reality. I decided I also wanted to work on doing some proofreading and freelance editing as another income stream. I started looking for books I could purchase to help me with that and for classes I could take. I ordered some business cards to hand out at conferences and other opportunities as they arise. 

I began to work on my writing space, my office. I purchased a backdrop to hang behind my desk and began to create a cozy atmosphere for myself. I got a microphone for recording videos for book reviews, podcasts and YouTube videos. I created a new backdrop for my computer. I set up all of my social media accounts under the name A Simple Texas Girl. I began creating specific picture backgrounds for all of my posts to look similar even when they were different content. Everything was coming together. I now had my own little writing space where I could escape from the busyness of my everyday life as a teacher and I had all the places set up to create. 

That was just the beginning... ​