SJFT: Try, My OLW for 2019

It's the first Thursday (acutally it's Friday 

and I'm a day late) of the month and time to show up 

with my friends for Spiritual Journey Thursday. 
Irene Latham at Live Your Poem is hosting this month

and asked us to reflect on our OLW for 2019. 

I usually write several OLW posts during the year, but I failed to do so this year. There's something that made me feel like I hadn't been trying hard enough each time I contemplated a post. So for this year-end reflection I've pulled a few quotes with try in them from some of my posts this past year.

"And when I make time to be still and listen, I feel fortified and more balanced. I feel more capable of stilling the distractions and of feeling the love of my Savior.  And it doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but I keep trying (and try is my OLW for 2019)."
SJFT post about balance

"I write about my One Little Word that I've chosen each year since 2013 - listen, savor, stretch, abide, nourish, and delight. And I write about it multiple times during the year as I try (my OLW for 2019) to remember it as a focus for my year."

"I write about celebrations. Our Celebrate This Week group doesn't gather weekly any more, but I still try to round up monthly celebrations in a post at the end of each month. Sometimes I fall behind and celebrate two months at once."

Answers written in response Lindy's question, "What do you write about on your blog?"

"And no, I won't get them all read, but it's fun to try. " On my post "Checked Out" in reference to the 39 books I had checked out of the library

"When you read about habit change, one of the truths that emerges is that it's easiest to change bit by bit, not leap by leap. Another one is that you change what you monitor. So I'm trying (ohhh, there's my OLW for this year) again to keep track of how often I hit my 10,000 steps goal for the day. And how am I keeping track? With stars on the monthly calendar in my planner. And how am I doing? Well, a quick look at July shows 13 stars. I only reached my weekly goal (4 days out of 7) one time. But I'll continue to monitor and I'm hopeful that next month will be better. " SJFT post about change

 'I write to try to figure out our world in all its complicated messiness." Slice of Life, Why I Write for National Day on Writing

And so, here I am, one day late, trying to write about my experiences with try. I've experienced a few successes. I've kept track of the days I reached 10,000 steps since July with stickers on the calendar in my planner - 13 times in July & I've done better every month since then with October's 16 times as my best month. I've managed to lose ten pounds this year by taking small steps toward behavior change which works so much better for my personality. And the best try has to be this past week when I finally managed to make a blog book. I've tried several times before and always gotten frustrated, but something about the 45% off Black Friday offer led to a dogged determination this time. As my dad used to say: "That makes twice I've done that, the first and the last." Let me know if you've had success in making blog books and what platform you used. Because mine took hours and hours and I still wasn't completely satisfied, but I decided it was good enough.

I'm already looking forward to a new word for 2020.  I think I know what it will be. But I have a few days of 2019 left to try to find the best word for this upcoming new year!