2014: That New-Year Smell

Ahh... A new year, a new beginning, a new list of things I wish to make permanent, or remove, from my life. I'll keep this one simple, on New Year's Eve I saw a nice little ditty that said, "tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book, write  a good one." And I thought to myself, writing, why, I haven't sat down and done that it a good long while and 365 pages is not too terrible to ask of oneself; why, that is only a page a day! Completely manageable! So I have only one resultion that I will ask of myself this year. To write, just once a day, maybe more if I am feeling particularly verbose, but simply to write each day. 

I have completed school, I have a new job for this new year, and a new goal for my writing, so I think it can be managed. I hope to improve the process of extracting my thoughts and penning them to paper, and perhaps improve my vocabulary at the same time. In fact, I am enacting a mandatory new word-a-day rule. Because I can. Annd, with my swanky graduation present (it's an iPad air) I hope that this will be more managable than when I tried to blog from my smartphone. It seemed great, until the iPad. 

And in case you were wondering, I have decided to write about the awesome things I find going on in the world. I have discovered so many in the past 8 months, I really want to share them with whomever will listen, and honestly even some who don't want to listen, because that is the way I am. Of course, new job, new state, new side of the country, I will most certainly be posting about some things going on in my own life as well. 

Well, I only have 15 minutes until it is day two of the new year, I best publish before I break my resolution on the first day. 

Word of the day: 

Prolix: Excessively long and wordy. 

As in, a great many of my posts may indeed be prolix. 

A Hot Cup of Tea

     Ah! To be writing again! It is almost as invigorating as a hot cup of tea... I'm just giving you a pause there for the "aha" moment of realization that yes, that is this new website...For those of you following from my previous blog, I hope you like the new digs, I will do my utmost best to keep this updated and interesting for both of us, and for the newbies, welcome aboard! 
     Why, you may be wondering, start a new blog? Clearly I had something workable established previously, why mess with a good thing? Honestly it is for many reasons, I can't attribute this change to any singular occurrence, but I suppose what finally pushed me into action, was that I felt I had to. My last blog was focused on my travels in London (it's great, you should check it out here) and while I loved having it, I felt as though trying to write about non-London things was tarnishing the essence I had created there. I love my London memories and I kept having a hard time linking them to the other activities and thoughts I was having in my life at present, so I decided to keep London in a bubble and move on with a new, fresh blog, where I can tailor the subjects to encompass more than just my travels. 
     On that subject, if I am not writing about travels, then what will I be writing about? That is a great question, really it is. Firstly, I will still be writing about my traveling (I am hoping to have a rather large trip over the Summer, it is just in it's baby planning stages, so I won't reveal anything yet, but fingers are firmly crossed!) but I want to approach the blog in a different way. My last trip I was more focused on capturing everything I saw in photographs for the blog, and while I still plan on taking insane amounts of photos, I don't think I will be posting them all on here. Instead, I am trying to focus more on the writing aspect of recording travels, I mean I have this blog for a main reason, and it is writing, so I ought to up my game in that category. 
     My other purpose for creating a new direction on here is rather metaphorical, it is why this is called A Hot Cup of Tea. While I have always loved a nice cup of tea, it has become a ritualistic aspect of my life ever since England. To me, and especially to the English, tea is hot, comforting, invigorating and calming at the same time. It builds you up for the day ahead, warms you up to face the cold, and then comforts you before bed to send you to of to sleep. It energizes you for a new beginning, which is how I see this blog, at least that is the direction I am hoping to take it. You see, I will be graduating at the end of this calendar year, and while I had a plan upon entrance into college about what I was going to do and what direction I wanted to take, that plan has since dramatically changed. It isn't as though I have had any roadblocks, au contraire I am steaming full speed ahead, I'm just not sure in what direction. I have found that my interests and goals and intentions with what I want to do have altered, and I realized I am actually floundering for a direction. What do I want to do? Where do I want to go? How can I achieve that goal? Is this option worth doing over this other option? What do I want more? I don't know! Ack! I just don't know! And while I have nine months until I am graduated and have to jump into the real world, I decided I should start to tease out what I am truly interested in from the crazy mess of all the directions I want to take. At the same time, I want to have a collection of things that inspire me (and hopefully you) to start living the life I've imagined for myself, instead of constantly being in pursuit of it. And with that I open my new blog, lets see how this goes! 
xoxo