I can’t really say 2008 was a terrible year, but I also can’t say it was one of the best I’ve had. Certainly wasn’t. Thus, I’m welcoming 2009 with open arms and treasuring it for being another year of life — my 25th year, to be exact.

As tradition has it, a new year usually presents a “clean slate” of sorts, a frame of time (365 days, in 2009′s case) in which to achieve goals, break habits, etc, and then, on December 31, turn to your friends and say, “I kept such and such resolution/I sooo didn’t do that this year, maybe next one!, etc.”

Bottom line is “resolutions” as tradition has them don’t quite cut it for me. I like to think of myself as a work in progress, continuously making changes and improvements and seizing opportunities and cleaning out my figurative and literal closet. So, this year, I decided to take Chris Brogan’s approach to a new year.

Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), for those of you hiding under a rock (I only half-kid), is a renowned marketer, blogger and social media genius, who, since 2006, has welcomed the new year with 3 words that tie to his goals for the coming 52 weeks. Chris’s approach to resolutions is so refreshing, it inspired this article in the Boston Globe today.

So, here you have it…my 3 words for ’09:

Create. Not only in the artistic sense – although I certainly want to make more time to get back into my creative writing and scrapbooking and finally crack open the sketch book I bought in ’07 (not that I can sketch, but I enjoy trying) – but create in the sense of building my life, creating little blocks to create the vision I have for myself. I read a quote somewhere that said: “Some people search for happiness. Others create it.” I strive to be one of the latter. Enough said. =)

Appreciate. I definitely do not thank God enough for all with which he has blessed me. I realize that I can take things for granted. And as every natural disaster, accident, war or disease out there has shown me, neither life, nor the simple things by which it’s made up, are granted. Every little bit of good and happiness we receive is a blessing and should be honored as such. I want to appreciate and enjoy the little things (and the big things, of course) and take time to thank God for them. I want to make sure my loved ones know how much they mean to me and never question my affection, devotion or intention. I want to show appreciation for being given a chance, each and every day I wake, to make it count.

Cultivate. My tenth-grade English teacher (certainly one of those teachers who left a footprint in my heart, as they say) would tell us to cultivate our own gardens. While I understood the metaphor, I was a disaster of a gardener at 15. In the past 9 years, I have managed to pull some weeds out of my life and kept myself surrounded by some beautiful flowers (I like to call them friends and other things that make me incredibly happy) and overall have landscaped quite a nice garden for myself, one of which I’m very proud and protective. In 2009, I’d like to continue to cultivate this garden – my relationships (both personal and professional), my career and my plans (the seeds for my future endeavors), my finances (so that I may afford a beach house and a ‘vette before retirement age), and most importantly myself – my mind, body and soul. I want to continue to feed my hunger for good literature and stimulating thoughts. I want to engage in deep conversations, research fascinating topics and form my own opinions. I want to get better at eating healthy, kick my own ass at the gym and take up an outside activity (tennis? swimming?). I want to pray harder and longer, not merely for a few minutes right before I fall asleep. I want to read more Scriptures. I want my life to reflect a colorful, blooming, fragrant and inviting garden. I want to have the greenest thumb around!

3 words. Simple enough, right? Now, hold me to them.

What are your 3 words for ’09?

I spent my first week back recuperating – catching up on sleep and on work (paradoxical indeed), and pampering my feet. I have yet to give myself a real pedicure, as I still have traces of blisters on my feet.

I’m happy to say that every blister and every bit of cold and exhaustion I felt during the 60-mile walk was every bit worth it!

To say participating in this initiative was amazing would be a complete understatement. The fact that I can’t really find words to accurately describe the experience accounts for the fact that I’ve procrastinated writing this post for this long.

I learned so much about myself and others during this 3-day journey…I learned that people are way more generous than I ever gave them credit for, that candy is a huge motivator, that strangers’ smiles and kind words can help you keep going for miles on end, that our body is strong but ultimately our mind and our will are stronger. Most importantly, I learned that blisters are temporary, but the memories of the journey are forever.

What kept me walking? My fellow team members, the cheers along the route, the survivors whose stories I learned along the way, the thought that every step I took truly made a difference…

If I had to pick one favorite memory/moment from that weekend, I’d have to say it was crossing that finish line as a team. I don’t think I will ever forget nor will I ever be able to describe that feeling of camaraderie and accomplishment. The cheers, the song, the pink pompoms…It was amazing.

To those battling breast cancer right now, I want to say: don’t lose hope. For as long as there are men and women uniting themselves in the fight against breast cancer, taking strides to spread the word and doing so loud and proud and in pink, there is hope indeed.

My tent-mate, Leah Jones, an Edelman Chicago colleague and blogger extraordinaire, did a wonderful job in describing our team’s 3-Day experience in her Live like you were living post. Reading it makes me relive the weekend.

Additionally, you can view hundreds of photos of my team members and me (in our hottest pink!) on the official Edelman: 60 Miles or Bust Flickr pool. Enjoy!

Thank you for supporting me, believing in me and providing hope for thousands. I couldn’t have done this with you.

And now, can I please get a “w00t w00t” for the $2,627.25 you helped me raise? That’s $427.25+ my goal! That helped my team raise $76,970.75 for breast cancer research, education and treatment. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

Thank you. Thank you.  Thank you.

I want to leave you with a quote written on many of the posters and t-shirts I saw during the walk…

“Henceforth I whimper no more,
postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.”
- Walt Whitman

This one is for you…

(October 26, 2008: Day 3 – Crossing the finish line)

Here’s to many more days, miles and journeys… together.

Love,
Valeria

You see, today I witnessed first-hand the power of word-of-mouth and the willingness of people to rally around a cause and help make a difference.  Most importantly (and most rewarding), I witnessed the genuine kindness and selflessness that exists within people…people within Twitter.

Today, individuals whom I know through Twitter (as well as a lot of whom I did not know before today), donated their morning latte (as Amanda Mooney put it when she challenged the Twitter community to make a difference) to The Breast Cancer 3-Day. Throughout the day, my inbox welcomed donation receipts from 18 Twitterati who accepted @AmandaMooney’s challenge and supported the fight against breast cancer.

If you search for @ValeriaL, you can find a small snapshot of how the word was spreading.

Through generous $5 (and a few larger) donations, $180 were raised today for The Susan G. Komen Foundation. That, my friends, is wonderful. And I am so extremely thankful!

I’d like to individually thank these men and women who, today, went from being @’s to being people who truly touched my heart. In no particular order, they are as follows:

@barrettcrites, @kylecameron, @laurak, @thegirlriot, @dekrem, @askmanny, @amyyen, @stales, @bernardf, @neilgorman, @mariobox, @meghendricks, @amandamooney, @falconGN, @jswo, @amblass, @sylvainperron, @meaganfish, @kevinmercuri, Ron Whitaker
(please let me know if I’ve forgotten anyone!)

Thank you. Gracias. Grazie. Merci.

Thank you for providing hope to hundreds of thousands of women and men around the world. Thank you for being stewards of the mission to end breast cancer forever.

Thank you for standing up to the challenge and showing that one person really can make a difference, that for the price of one cup of coffee, you can change a life. Your kindness today most certainly changed my outlook on mine.

Stay tuned for next week’s challenge, which @AmandaMooney will post on Twitter and/or on Our American Shelf Life. In the meantime, you can continue to leave your donations for The 3-Day here.

I look forward to your comments.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend,
Valeria …

I have taken several pictures during my long walks – you may see them in the gallery below.

And yes, I admit, sunny clear blue skies and the seaside breeze are definite motivators.

There are also a couple of pictures of the Crepe Soiree en Rose, which was held at Mari’s (coworker) house last Saturday and during which we raised $150 while we chatted, laughed and indulged in delectable homemade crepes.

ENJOY!

THANK YOU. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for being so supportive of me and of this cause. I have been blown away by people’s generosity. Your kindness continues to amaze me. Then again, I should have known from the get-go that you would all be this wonderful. You’re truly the best people I could ever dream of having in my life.

This post is for you…for your motivation, your commitment and your love. For making me feel “warm and fuzzy” inside (hehe) and really making my outlook “rosy.”

Hugs and kisses galore!

Now, meet Lulu. She’s a two-year-old MaltiPoo and one of my biggest 3-Day supporters. Ooo and her momma has informed me that she may be walking the 3-Day in San Antonio this year – way to go, Lulu! Here she is in all of her pink splendor.

Today, my training schedule binds me to a 3-mile walk. Instead, I used my day off to walk from my house to South Beach, all along A1A, then proceeded to walk up and down Lincoln Rd. a couple of times, for a total of 8 miles and change. The walk was long and extremely hot…but completely relaxing. The ocean breeze was music to my ears.

Needless to say, my new pink New Balance sneakers are nicely broken in.

My legs are tired and my feet are sore. My right knee (my “trouble” knee) is throbbing a bit again, so I have vowed to have a doctor take a look at it before I cause it any real harm.  For now, I’m pampering my feet with Burt’s Bees foot lotion and long warm-water soaks.

And so, I prep myself up for another 60+ miles over the course of the next couple of weeks. I’m ready and pumped!

I’m so honored to be doing this…For myself, my mother, my girlfriends, my colleagues, my fellow women – those thousands of women who this year will find out they have breast cancer and will be scared and feel helpless in the midst of that diagnosis. To them I say, “There is hope.” For as long as there are men and women uniting themselves in this fight, taking strides to spread the word and doing so loud and proud, there is hope indeed.

It’s amazing what we can do when we put our minds to it, isn’t it?

THANK YOU for believing in this cause, for believing in me and for motivating me to keep on walkin’.

Love,
Valeria

Pd:  I’m currently at 6% of my financial goal, which has me down a bit since I still have a long way to go before I can reach $2,200, but I know I will reach it. I must. I’m on a mission. And with your help, I know I can do it.

To learn more about The 3-Day or to make a donation, click here.

It’s estimated that in 2008, there will be 182,460 new cases of invasive breast cancer among women in the U.S. An estimated 40,480 women will die (American Cancer Society). Breast cancer, as most forms of cancer, is nondiscriminatory and affects women (and men) of all ages and ethnicities. Awareness and early detection can help decrease risk. Research can help us better understand the disease and find a cure.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation is on a mission. To end breast cancer. Forever. Today, I am honored to be joining the cause in a bigger capacity than ever. This year, on October 24th in Atlanta, to be exact, I’ll be walking 60 miles in 3 days as part of Edelman’s 60 Miles or Bust team (I’ll be the Miami office’s representative) for The 3-Day, benefiting Susan G. Komen For the Cure.

I began training today, walking four miles in 71 minutes. I’m not too sure how good that is, but it’s the first walk of many I’ll be taking for the next two months in preparation for the event. Additionally, I have pledged to raise at least $2,200 by then.

I will be keeping you posted regularly and will share the link to my profile once I receive it. I will undoubtedly need your support in whatever capacity you can give it. This is undoubtedly a challenge for me, and one that I am proud and excited to undertake.

I am looking forward to sharing my experiences with you and to having you alongside me as I take these strides. Together, we can get far. Here’s to the first of many miles of this journey for the cure!

With love,

Valeria

*Click here for more information on what I’ll be doing.

So, I’ve given this a thought, and I think it’s going to be best if I take a different approach to my blogging, since I have been unable to keep up with it. From now on, I’m going to try my best to post every Saturday or Sunday. That way, I can guarantee a new post per week. Meeting that goal would make me feel really good!

Also, you will note that I have added a couple of widgets to this blog. Via my Twitter feed, you’ll be able to keep up with me in my day-to-day. Del.icio.us will show you all of those items (i.e. articles, blog posts) I have bookmarked. Flickr, with which I’m sure you’re already familiar, is a hub for photography and creativity galore.

Well, that’s it for now. As always, I look forward to your comments, and I hope that this post will be the first of many, many more regular ones! Increasingly, I hope this blog will become a forum for story-sharing, discussions, and shoutouts.

And do remember the title and purpose of this blog. I want it to be about the things that move me. I want you to be moved by (some of) those things.

After all, you too move me.

I don’t agree with everything Ms. Gilbert says, that’s for sure. Some of her philosophies appear to me a bit “out there,” but of course this is only my opinion. You’re free to read it for yourself and discuss it accordingly.

What I love about this book is the genuineness with which it is written, the lack of pretense. I appreciate being able to just listen to the author’s words in my mind as if she were a close friend sharing her story. Okay, so none of my friends have traveled to Italy, India and Indonesia, but you get the point. I appreciate Ms. Gilbert’s sincerity, to say the least.

And her thoughts resonate with me…
Of late I’ve also found myself longing for something deeper…in essence, I’ve found myself searching more a closer, more spiritual relationship with God. I know He’s with me. I have definitely felt him work in my life in some wonderful ways, and no matter how difficult I think Life gets, He always pulls me through it beautifully. Despite of this, I know that I have not devoted myself to Him as I should – I don’t always take the time to give thanks, nor do I take the time to truly talk to him…my prayers are too often interrupted by other thoughts – my to-do list, a disagreement with someone, a relative’s disease…negative thoughts mostly. Routine thoughts that undoubtedly get in the way of my search for something deep and meaningful. Essentially, I want to be a better person. I want to be a purer person. I don’t want the mundane to define me, to startle me, to keep me from focusing on the big picture, to keep me from my ultimate goals in life. I don’t want the bad to let me forget about all that is good.

I’m really terrified of not being wholly happy in life. I’m afraid of wasting time and of not realizing my potential, of not being the absolute best that I can be…of not really living a life that is good and honest and free from rancor and bad thoughts and unnecessary harmful energy.

I’m a firm believer that negative thoughts, harbored in our bodies are harmful to us in more ways than we think possible. I don’t think God is proud of me for harboring so much bad energy in the body He gave me. Moreover, I think he’s quite disappointed that I’ve allowed these thoughts to get in the way of my conversations with Him.

In Book II of Eat Pray Love, Ms. Gilbert says…

“…it’s a sacrifice to let [negative thoughts] go, of course. It’s a loss of old habits, comforting old grudges and familiar vignettes. Of course this all takes practice and effort. It’s not a teaching that you can hear once and then expect to master immediately. It’s constant vigilance and I want to do it. I need to do it, for my strength. Devo farmi le ossa is how they say it in Italian. I need to make my bones.

So I’ve started being vigilant about watching my thoughts ll day, and monitoring them. I repeat this vow about 700 times a day: ‘I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore.’ Every time a diminishing thought arises, I repeat the vow, I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore. The first time I heard myself say this, my inner ear perked up at the word ‘harbor,’ which is a noun as well as a verb. A harbor, of course, is a place of refuge, a port of entry. I pictured the harbor of my mind – a little beat-up, perhaps, a little storm-worn, but well situated and with a nice depth. The harbor of my mind is an open bay, the only access to the island of my Self (which is a young and volcanic island, yes, but fertile and promising). This island has been through some wars, it is true, but it is now committed to peace, under a new leader (me) who has instituted new policies to protect the place. And now – let the word go out across the seven seas – there are much, much stricter laws on the books about who may enter this harbor.

You may not come here anymore with your hard and abusive thoughts, with your plague ships of thoughts, with your slave ships of thoughts, with your warships of thoughts – all these will be turned away. Likewise, any thoughts that are filled with angry or starving exiles, with malcontents and pamphleteers, mutineers and violent assassins, desperate prostitutes, pimps and seditious stowaways – you may not come here anymore, either. Cannibalistic thoughts, for obvious reasons, will no longer be received. Even missionaries will be screened carefully, for sincerity. This is a peaceful harbor, the entryway to a fine and proud island that is only now beginning to cultivate tranquility; If you can abide by these new laws, my dear thoughts, then you are welcome in my mind – otherwise, I shall turn you all back toward the sea from whence you came.

That is my mission, and it will never end.” – Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, pp. 178- 179

There you have it…this is my new goal…I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts anymore.

Some people search for happiness.
Others make it
I want to be one of the latter.

Regardless, I really should try to devote more time to this blog.  It’s really one of the things I truly wanted to commit myself to this year, as I really think writing is such a wonderful outlet for me.  And, I admit, it’s quite nice to know so many of my friends take the time to read my thoughts on here.  Thank you all. And a sincere apology for keeping you hanging for this long.