closing thoughts on shine.

...I hope I'm not the only one who was surprised to find that the last time I posted about my 2012 one little word - shine - was june 17. oh my. really?! oh my yes.

the good news (for me at least) is that I kept up with ali's videos in my journal and made notes about each prompt. love that the thoughts I've recorded are "current" even though the pages weren't created until months after [note to self - don't let this set a precedent!]

I picked up photos from costco last night...the last piece to pull together these last SIX (yikes, six?? really, yes!!) prompts...and today I trimmed and inked and stapled. and now it's done. well, my album pages anyway. more than any word I've chosen, this is a word that's going to stay with me. for all the good things it's taught me...and brought me.

SHINE.

the soundtrack. july's prompt. it took me almost the whole month to find six lyrics to supplement the three bible verses. regular readers know I love amazing grace, and billy joel and lady antebellum so really, it was only three "new"...thanks to zumba and XM highway for those last three!

august. note to self. thank you iPhone (I think - whoa it's grainy...maybe that's good!)

september. celebrate. the notes in my journal about everything surrounding these two things....it's overwhelming. I hadn't imagined, let alone planned, anything so big...so shine...and yet...they happened.

...the prayer shawl ministry is on my goals for 2013. I really (really) want to make that happen this year!

I included this photo to get the pages to work out right. and I'll admit here that it took me a few hours to find that photo and the accompanying blog post because I thought they were september...but with my sporadic blogging this past fall I wasn't quite sure...so worth the time - those words about home are some of the best I've written. SHINE. 

and now to october - another nine photo spread. the first one - can you make out the cross between the leaves? - is the only one I took on purpose for this project. the others...I think my october was a great canvas.

november and getting ready to wind down the year. six prompts and three of those "free" spots. I filled those spots in this morning. (and then I packed away the SHINE papers :-) 

and finally december. closing thoughts. I wrote these words last weekend. and experienced that same surprised delight gratitude wonder all over again.

my word for 2013 is grace. I look forward to seeing where that it takes me. I hope it's as meaningful as this one.