I hope you enjoyed “dead week” - this unusual week book ended by Christmas and New Years. I had time with family and friends, lots of doggo snuggles, and read and ate a lot. Today’s newsletter comes out a bit later than my regular Monday morning 8 a.m. deadline but Tuesday is technically the Monday this week for folks with paid leave so I figured most of you wouldn’t mind.
Also, with the New Year, I added a “new look” - my logo I unveiled at the end of 2022 should, assuming I did it all right, now adorn the masthead of the newsletter. Hit reply and let me know what you think.
Photos of the Week
Kona turned 2 on December 26. My friends, the Moreland family, went away and their dog Hugo came to stay for the week. He’s a good boy and as sweet as they come. Kona was mostly tolerant of sharing his space and his things.
Gayle was here the whole week! We hosted our friend Pam and her daughter Madison for dinner - feeding them Indy faves Pots and Pans and Cake Bake Shop.
Our dog trainer Mike rescued a sweet pup he has named Noxie at Thanksgiving. She had 11 puppies (!) just before Christmas. Gayle and I went to see them just before New Years Eve. Oh the cuteness.
I baked cookies and muffins for Gayle and she reorganized both of my pantry cabinets. I got the far better end of this trade as her organizational skills are no joke. She also improved upon the perfect peanut butter cookie recipe by suggesting they needed cinnamon. She was, of course, correct.
Every Word Is Its Own Universe
I always spend some time during dead week dreaming, thinking, and planning. It’s a liminal space between the year that was and the year that will be. It is, in fact, one of the easiest times of my life to actually live in the present moment even as I busy myself with reflecting on the past and dreaming of the future.
Several years ago during dead week, I read The Desire Map by Danielle Laporte. The book is honestly only okay as these types of books go but there was one line that has tattooed itself to my memory - “Every word is its own universe.” I think this sentence would have captured me regardless of when I was reading the book. However, it was particularly poignant at a time when I was, as I have been for over a decade, choosing my word for the year. My past words have been:
Create * Intention * Action * Authentic * Light * Thrive * Joy * Journey * Flourish * Balance * Flow * Breathe * Persist/Simplify
And this year, MANIFEST is added to the list as my 2023 Word of the Year. Past words join it and support it, but MANIFEST will be the focus.
As an adjective, manifest means: clear or obvious to the eye or mind.
As a verb, manifest can have a few meanings:
be evidence of; prove.
(of an ailment) become apparent through the appearance of symptoms.
(of a ghost or spirit) appear.
As a noun, manifest is also a type of list: a document giving comprehensive details of a ship and its cargo and other contents, passengers, and crew for the use of customs officers.
However, over the last few years at least, manifest has also taken on a spiritual verb meaning - to manifest is to create something from your intentions and make it real.
As a chronic goal setter, I made list upon list upon list (perhaps my own form o f manifests for 2023) of things I might want to get done this year. These lists are not always hard and fast goals but more of ideas I want to put into the universe. However, unlike previous years I did put one hard and concrete goal on all of my lists - to focus intentionally on growing my business and improving my health.
Today (January 3) marks the second anniversary of my mom’s death and in just a little under two weeks (January 14) I celebrate what Gayle rightly named Freedom Day - the day I walked out of my previous employer for the last time. These two events are the foundations on which my need to focus on my health and my business are built. The foundations on which I need to manifest opportunities and take those opportunities in the future. I have had many opportunities that my mom never had and also ones she simply didn’t take - most specifically focusing on her health and wellbeing. It’s time I make a change here and make a focus on my health a reality as well as intentionally grow this business of mine for my financial, mental, and physical wellbeing.
What do you want to manifest in this year? What’s your word of the year? Do you have a big goal you’d like help and support with this year?
Where’s Kara?
A quick summary of where I’m going to be hanging out online and IRL over the next few weeks. Join me, and if I’m visiting near you, hit reply and let’s meet up!
In Real Life (IRL)
Nothing on the books at the moment right now except lots of time with friends and family around Indiana.
Around the Virtual World
Quarterly Retreat - It’s still a great time to prepare for an awesome 2023 by signing up for the Quarterly Retreat All Access Pass or the Quarterly Retreat Workshop. Visit https://karamonroe.podia.com and download the workbook for free and check out all of the offerings. We have a coworking session this Friday so you have certainly not missed out on the opportunity to get the most of this experience.
Join My Course and Community - You will often find me hanging out in the course and community for my course “Facts of Life Book” that launched on January 1! Do you need to organize your most important stuff for life’s most important moments? If so, then the Facts of Life Book course is just for you. With loads of templates, tools, and guides I’ll help you get your most important information organized. Newsletter readers - get in now for the low cost of only $25 for life! This price will be going up on February 1 so act fast to get in on the lowest price ever and be a founding member giving you access to every update, every live cohort, and every new feature I ever launch of this course.
Creative Work Hour - Every single day of the week, at 10 a.m. eastern, a group gathers online in Zoom to do a quick check in, a brief meditation, work for about 50 minutes on whatever they want to do, and then check out with one another for 5 minutes. Creative Work Hour is one of my favorite places to hang out online and I’ve been there every single day that I could be there since about March of 2022. Come as often or as little as you need to get projects done. To register for the sessions (they are free but you have to sign up to get the zoom link) and to learn more, visit https://lu.ma/CreativeWork.
AP Productivity - I’m once again joining my friend R.J. Nestor as a mentor in his exceptional course AP Productivity. The next cohort starts January 13.
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
A change is coming…the podcast is moving to Substack
Later this week (Thursday if all goes as planned) you’ll get the next episode of my podcast right here in the newsletter. It will get delivered to you as an email and you can listen in the email or you can still listen wherever you previously subscribed to the I Wanna Be Me When I Grow Up Podcast. Next week, I’ll show you how to unsubcribe from just that email right here (if you’d rather not have two emails a week from me in your inbox).
What I Published This Week
It was dead week - my goal was no publishing and I accomplished it beautifully!!
My Digital “Garden”
As a part of the Obsidian Vault Rebuild Series that I wrote on Medium and YouTube, I began using Obsidian Publish. This add on tool for Obsidian allows you to easily publish your “in progress” notes to the web. If you want to see what I’m thinking about, this is a great place to see inside my head. It’s always available at https://publish.obsidian.md/iwannabeme
This Week’s Featured Book Note
Each week, I’m featuring one book note from a book I’m currently reading. Click the image to view this week’s note as a PDF file.
No book note this week, but a recommendation for sure. I’ve been savoring Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. Wolf is a literature major who took a turn and studied neuroscience so she writes beautifully and also talks about what’s happening in the brain as we read in different mediums. In this book she uses the very old literary style of a book of letters (9 in total) to share her thoughts on the reading brain in a digital world. She is NOT anti-technology but raises important points of awareness about how we need to understand what reading only on screens does in our brains. She was on a recent episode of the Ezra Klein show and was delightful. I love to hear a book in the author’s voice and reading Reader, Come Home after listening to Wolf has made the experience all the more enjoyable.
Diversion
I didn’t watch the Addams Family much as a kid, but Gayle and I tore through the Netflix series Wednesday this past week. I chose the video of her cello playing as the scene montage in it is actually a lovely trailer of the series with the added benefit of a lovely cello solo (I had two cello pieces to choose from for this week’s diversion - we’ll see if the other one makes it in the future).
Jenna Ortega’s performance in the series is absolutely wonderful and the entire cast and writing of the show - as well as the crew and the cinematography were a delight. Definitely binge worthy in 2023 if you haven’t already indulged.
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