New Year's Resolution 2013 - Grateful Jar

Happy New Year's everyone!

As I am thinking about the year coming to an end I reflected back on all I have learned, experiences and my heart is full of gratefulness. So, I came up with an alternative to the New Year resolution list and I am doing a New Year's grateful jar. The reason behind this is a bit long, but I am going to give you the short version. Three years ago my husband lost his job, but in those three years we have done so much growing then we can ever imagine. It was tough, scary and we (I, mostly) worried a lot, but I remember what my former pastor always told me over and over "What the devil meant for bad God will turned it around for good" and "You are NEVER too old to learn". With this great advise I slowly (through prayers) started to unlearned what I have learned, meaning I needed to stop worrying and trust God's word. I needed to learn to venture out of my comfort zone and learn new things, for example how to shoot photos and edited them (still learning). I needed to change my bad/negative thinking into what I have learned and heard for years, I can do anything with God, who is for me. I know I don't ever talk about my faith on my blog, because my blog is about what I have created, but along this journey of blogging I am recreating a new me. I am opening up and being real with you all today, which by the way is hard for me to do on my blog, because this is the Internet of course. But in doing this I hope to encourage you and inspire you to not look to just what you want to accomplish in 2013, but also appreciate all you have accomplished and having a grateful heart.  So when you experience hard times you can go into your New Year grateful jar and remember and gain strength to see you through the difficult times. You see I am a believer you can do all things, because God had put it in you to create and inspire many, not with your DIY's but with your words. You will never ever see me saying or leaving negative comments on anyone's blog or if I am talking to you I will always encourage you and uplift you. I genuinely care for my families, friends and strangers. I care for peoples well being and I know we have a will to choose what road we want to take, but I pray it will be a road of growth, building up, creating, sharing and loving. Dare to change and improve on you and change those unlovable bad habits and see how much your world will change. You will see things so differently. Yes, changing can be a difficult thing, but I keep it real with myself and point to myself when I make a mistake and missed the mark. I also have a very loving and amazing husband who will point out to me (in a loving manner, of course) my shortcomings. Now, remember don't ever point out people's shortcomings and how they should improvement, but look at yourself. I have found people who are doing the finger pointing are the ones that need the most improvement. I don't care if you are 20 or 87 you are never, I mean NEVER EVER to young or old to unlearn, relearn and learn. This another great piece of advise my pastor told me and he is 83 years old.

Clean jar and chalkboard paint.

Tape it off and just painted the center of the jar. Let dry and spray paint the lid.

Here is my grateful jar and every week I will put in my jar what I am grateful for and I can go back into my jar any time and read what I wrote so I can remind myself how far I have come. I love to think of this project as a project that is changing my heart into one of gratefulness. By the end of 2013 I will go through each one and remember and thank God for all is goodness and benefits and also come up with a plan to take those notes and add them to a DIY project.

Me! Plan on taking professional pics soon. 

Happy New Year's to you and yours and be safe. Praying for a prosperous year for you! See you next year! : - )

Hugs,

Vanessa