Happy 2016!

Holy cannoli–did this year fly by or WHAT? I feel like the old adage is definitely true. The older you get, the faster time flies. It’s going by at warp speed. But life is so good!

I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas season and New Year with those you love the most and that you took some time to reflect on the past year and consider all of the things that God’s hand did for you. For the Lemmon household, we had quite an adventure. We traveled and met new people and made new friends and saw lots of change. I went from selling mattresses in rainy Washington state at the beginning of the year and living in a 598 square-foot apartment to packing up all our things, moving to Idaho, quitting my job, and taking the leap to do my photography and my writing FULL TIME. Boy was it all so scary and so sudden. But it’s the best decision I ever made for myself.

Once in Idaho, we bought our first home that’s a spacious and cozy (and much bigger than our shoe-box apartment) corner lot with trees in the front and backyard and a fireplace I always dreamed about. We were able to give our bunnies their own room (I know, weird. But totally awesome for me.) And we got a new puppy that is such a rambunctious ball of sweetness.

My husband graduated nursing school before coming here and now works as an RN at the biggest hospital in the area. My head is spinning with how fast everything happened, and I am so grateful that after three years of really struggling to make ends meet, scraping to get clients, and only being able to  squeeze in my passions on my days off, I can officially say that we’ve made it to where we wanted to be all along. Is the journey over? Far from it! There are so many more goals I want to reach and things I want to do. But it’s exciting when you see some answered prayers manifested right in front of you and see hard work paid off.

But I realized the other day, while my family was discussing new year’s resolutions in the car on our drive home from Utah, that although I’ve never struggled in counting my blessings, I think a struggle that has been mine is what comes BEFORE I count my blessings. And that’s thinking about all those things I don’t have yet, and feeling sad or inadequate that I don’t. Those feelings and those thoughts often came first and made the “blessings” feel a little bit less impactful than they should be.

For example, this time last year I remember saying, “With all of our fertility treatments, I KNOW we’ll have a baby in 2015!”. I think I said the same thing the year before that, too. And needless to say, we still don’t have any children. It’s always been something constantly at the back of my mind, eating away at me, reminding me that no, life isn’t fulfilled YET.

But what a poor attitude that is! Just because not every goal is reached and not every desire is granted does not mean that I’m not fulfilled yet. I’m not half of a person–we’re not less of a family. This year I want to pay attention to what I’m thinking about before I count those blessings. Those little voices in my head that have the power to tell me I’m greatly blessed and on the right track, or that I’m lacking and not as lucky as all the rest.

This year will be a year of thankfulness. I hope you’ll join me. No matter where you are in life, no matter what you’ve been praying for or how long you’ve been praying for it–rejoice in where you’re at. It’s a beautiful place to be!

For 2016 I have so many goals. For my personal life, for my spiritual well being, and for my business. But those things do not define me. Only my gratitude does and the joy I recognize along the way.

Happy New Year, everyone! And I hope every day gives you something wonderful to be thankful for.