2014 Year in Review

Greetings from Prescott, Arizona, where snow is falling as 2014 comes to a close...

2014 included one of my biggest and most anticipated travel goals: I went on a double home exchange to Denmark and then Sweden. There were a few things I lost during the year, but what I gained was way more valuable: a state of deeper happiness, a more savvy adaptability, new friends that instilled and returned to me the interconnectedness of our humanity (imperfect or messy as they were), some killer dinner parties, playtime and celebration with ranch horses out in pasture, practical experience at an equine facility/horse ranch, time with canine pal, Otis, soaking at Eden Hot Springs, and lots of Real Love encounters = being a better steward of this lifestyle.

I am going into the new year living life a little slower than I have for the past several years. I'm shifting my extra time towards homesteading in my backyard and classes at the local college, while I continue to sell beautiful things online. I'm finding myself more content with what I have, learning to sit with loneliness and not run from all of the feelings that come and then go. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that I do the best when I let my heart be broken for the world around me to see and focus on all the good I have. Gratitude and hope are the "drugs" that get me through.

I have also learned that the value other people communicate to me does not have to speak louder than the value I find in myself. This has been work, but it's so worth it. It'll keep being worth it. If you've been following my blog, then you've seen my recent posts of the events mentioned above. Just me, saying thanks for being a part of it and I hope to thank you in person over the next couple weeks. With much Love, Sharon

Celebrate

On a snowy Saturday afternoon, I ventured out a bit to the Chino Valley vineyards (just south of Prescott, Az) to attend my friends Ben and Juliette's wedding. From 3 until 3:30pm, I sat there among approximately 20 other friends and family happily shivering inside a rustic, Christmasy-decorated barn as they were married. I always cry at weddings, and this one was no exception: the goodness of happy tears ran down my face. I was honored to be there at this celebrating moment, but not quite expecting the amount of hope, love and joy that I carried home from that afternoon. I'm holding on to that feeling —and still holding— just as long as I can. All we need is to be loaded up with love, to be feeling it, to be chasing/falling into it, and in all manners be giving and receiving. It's so true when they say love is all you need. Enjoy ~Sharon Marzonie