About One Year of Beauty

What happens when you choose
to look for beauty in your midst
each and every day?

In October 2006, I decided
to find out. I was sitting at a stoplight,
looked up and noticed a brilliant
rainbow in the sky.
Hoping others had seen the rainbow,
too, I looked at the cars around me.
Sadly, all the other drivers were too
preoccupied to notice the rainbow
right in front of us.
I wondered how many rainbows
or other beauty sightings I had missed
by being too distracted and disconnected.
So, I decided to force myself
into the habit of noticing beauty daily,
taking a picture and writing some
reflections about it every day for a year.

I started this blog anticipating
a bit of personal growth or, at the least,
some nice pictures.
Turns out the project was truly
transformational for me;
it's incredible what happens
when you remember to look up.
The icing The icing on the cake
was hearing from people around the world
who were inspired to look for beauty
in their own lives. How amazing!

I kept my promise of daily posts for a year
(and then some).
In 2008, I continued to periodically
post some of my favorite beauty sightings
to honor and share the sweet stuff of life.
Many of you asked for more and,
to my surprise, I started to miss
that daily habit of celebrating and sharing
the beauty in my midst.
So, on January 1, 2009, I committed
to posting here daily for another full year.
I hope you'll come along for the ride.

Some days we all wake up and feel the world
seems pretty ugly, the future seems pretty bleak.
But when you start to pay attention
to the good stuff in life,
I swear the good stuff multiplies.
So I thank you for finding the time
to visit my blog and, most importantly,
for choosing beauty.

(Go beyond the blog! Check out the Choosing Beauty site today)