Jamie Janosz

I’ve been reading a lot about selecting a “word of the year.” For some, it is seen as a divinely-given word that will help focus their heart and mind on where God is leading. For others, the word is carefully selected as a symbol of their focused dreams, desires, or wishes. And even while I admired the word choices of others, I honestly didn’t feel a desire to pen one of my own. After all, how could I put my current, mostly muddled feelings into one single word? But one afternoon, while driving back from Lowe's, I tried to express my current state of mind to my husband.  Earlier that morning, in one of those pop-up Facebook memories (which are quite helpful for a woman of my age), it said that four years ago, I had published my first (and only) book. I was shocked to realize how time had sped by.  In these four years, I’ve often been asked – what is next?  My answer continues to be: I have no idea. There’s plenty of reasons why. Life has been busy. I uprooted

New Year's Day always feels a bit disconcerting to me. My Christmas decorations are looking a bit "tired" . . . to put it nicely. One of the sheep in my nativity set has fallen over , and three chocolate bars are laying on the hay, right next to the wise men. It looks a bit like a cryptic crime scene. Our once festively decorated dining room is now cluttered with a 50s fiberglass lampshade sitting askew on top of magazine ads, a pile of receipts, unpaid bills, and a Fannie May mint meltaway bar (missing two of the three sections of chocolate). Yep. This is me - not the Instagram version - but the real one. Rumpled and a bit cluttered. Forgetful and uncertain. This is the New Year.  For all of our celebrating, the grand countdown, the auld lang synes, the kisses, New Year's Day always seems a bit ordinary, even a bit disappointing, doesn't it? So here I sit - still wearing my flannel pajama pants, no makeup, Alfred Hitchcock on the tel