Since I know I have some new readers from my affiliate work with the Cultivate What Matters shop, I thought it would be good to continue my jump back into blogging regularly with a nice little reintroduction. So first of all WELCOME! Here’s a basic rundown about who I am, where my blog name came from, and what you can expect to read about in these posts…

No makeup, pre-coffee, full on me… well, me from 2015…

My name’s Amanda and I’m a recovering perfectionist, theatre artist, wife to a fellow Shakespeare lover, and mama of two- one preschool boy and one baby girl. I have many other passions like music, reading, teaching, and my newest delight-gardening, but most of all, I have a passion for learning and laughing.

This blog started as a way to have a little creative outlet while at home with my son, who was about 7 months old at the time. I decided on the title “Alphabet Resolutions” because I thought it would be fun to theme some of my new years resolutions around different letters of the alphabet each year. I love words and I love theming so it seemed a good fit. Some of the themes each year have to do with tangible goals or actions (such as baking 42 different things in the 52 weeks of the year…) and others are more of an emotional focus (such as this year’s theme of DELIGHT). Some years I’ve also had monthly themes, but this year I’m keeping it a bit simpler. You can check out past and current themes by looking under my “categories”.

This is actually a picture with my son, but I spend a lot of time doing this same thing with my sweet daughter…

I try to find a mix of things I wanted to work on personally anyway and forcing myself to try something new. I’ve found so much joy in the challenges and explorations I’ve set for myself on this blog. Occasionally, I also blog about something that is weighing on my heart and of course I can’t help but talk about my family in some way or another-this year I lumped that in with the theme of DAUGHTER since she is the newest addition to our little home. I am learning so much through the process of having and raising kids! My marriage isn’t perfect because I’m not perfect and my husband isn’t perfect, but I still think we are perfect partners for each other. (That’s why one of the themes this year is DATING because I knew we’d have a hard time setting aside date nights with a newborn and I want to be sure we are working on staying connected)

My final two themes for this year are:

This picture is from long ago- pre-babies, pre-husband, pre-grad school. You can’t tell, but it’s from one of the hardest years of my life, but I still found little pieces of JOY thanks to my wonderful friends…

* DREAM which relates to long term and short term goals but also letting myself stay creative and envision what could be, not just what is. My affiliate work with Cultivate What Matters has helpedme with both of those things.
* DRINKS: I had this grand idea that I’d be mixing up allllll the delightful alcoholic drinks, but given that alcohol is expensive and I’m still nursing… I have actually ended up writing more about non alcoholic choices. Hopefully I’ll have a good mix of the two in the second half of this year.

I started this blog as an outlet for me, but have found that I keep going because once in a while I’ll write a post that really resonates with someone who tells me they needed to read it. I’m still a little surprise that I have an audience sometimes and I am so thankful for any time someone takes to read, comment, or reach out privately and let me know my writing was a blessing to them. That’s what keeps me going on this crazy blogging adventure and that’s what made me excited to come back to it when I took my month off to think about how much I wanted to stay committed to various things taking up time right now. Feel free to drop an introduction or question in the comments if you are new, share something new or random if you are a long time reader, or to just quietly keep reading. I’m thankful either way!

And before you know it, I’ll be having to brainstorm My “E” resolution for 2018…