It’s been a while since I’ve done a One Little Word, but with lots of balls in the air for 2018, I wanted to go back to that idea of a theme to guide me, rather than a resolution list to fail at.

Like many of my previous words, this year’s came to me at the last minute. I struggled to find a word that would encompass the many parts of me – the homeschooling mama me, the essential oil team leader me, the professional photographer me, the crafty blogger me, the perpetual wanderlusting roadtripper me…trying to fit all the “bits” under one umbrella isn’t an easy task.

Then, just as I thought I’d found the word, I slept on it and decided I didn’t actually like it after all. It was close, sure, and would do in a pinch, but it wasn’t quite right. So I jumped on ye olde google, and pulled up some synonyms. Three jumped out at me, and after a couple of hours consideration, one kept rising to the top…

And it is perfect. I want this year to GLOW. I want to watch my kids light up in their learning. I want my businesses to burn brightly. I want to feel my skin hum with the golden light of the desert in the dry season. I want to make things that light my soul up. I want to feel every moment with an intention that burns away the useless. Does this make my year better? Does it set my heart on fire?

I have created a traveler’s notebook to record my LUMINOUS 2018, with a few different parts to it. I will be sure to share it in the next couple of weeks as I finish setting it up and settle into it. For now, I am draping myself in LUMINOUS, and basking in the magic that is summer holidays with my babies and Mr Barefoot. There have been games and crafts and bike rides and gardening and cattle clinics. There’s been weddings to photograph (me) and craft room floors to refinish (him) and a million swims and runs under the sprinkler and icypoles dripping meltwater along forearms (them). Still a week and so many adventures until we have to send daddy back to work, and mummy settles in to plan the year of homeschooling ahead. If I’m not here so much, please forgive me. There’s a whole lot of luminous magic to chase.