Something amazing happened to me between December 31st and today and it's directly related to the 190+ comments left here listing your '08 goals. I plan to read through them again tonight, one by one, because I want to see if there are any that I can help you with on decor8 this year. That's my New Year's goal, one of the first on my list anyway.

Your responses touched me, your resolve to reach your goals may be important to you, but they're also to me because I want all of us to be a successful bunch. I want decor8 to motivate and impact your life in a positive way. Your happiness matters to me. I love blogging daily, if I didn't care about you and all those whom I feature, I wouldn't be here. I'll never get rich blogging and I'm fine with that because success isn't about money to me, in this lifetime I'm shooting for spreading joy and making a difference, which includes being a good wife and friend to others, my online friends included. That means you.

Through decor8, I will continue to show you that one person (me) can make a difference and impact others in a positive way. Not that decor8 will bring world peace (ha!), but a blogger can make an impact, positive or negative, and I'm pushing towards positive again for '08. The power of blogging, the strength of our community, the value in having work reviewed and posted here from my heart means something to the business owner, to me, and to all of you. Blogging is huge and making a noticeable difference for us all. People are looking to blogs more and more for products and advice, but I'm finding that friendship and partnering up is another rapidly growing need in the blog community. Sure, we love beautiful things, but we want to make connections and take some of these into the real world. We go to our favorite blogs to become motivated, to learn, and to reach out.

I read many blogs each week just like you do, and they've all impacted me. Some I've had to stop reading because they weren't making me a better person, I don't need to elaborate on this point, I'm sure you've run into this yourself. I'll just tactfully say that I could tell by my behavior after reading them that they drained me or gave me this "I Suck" feeling, like I wasn't good enough, or that I wasn't nearly as talented. I wouldn't associate with these people in real life so why was I reading their blogs? I really thought about this question and cut my blog reading by about 10 blogs per week. But those I do read each week make a difference. They inspire me and help me to keep my personal goals in view. They motivate me to action. I'm more creative than I ever thought possible, I see things differently when I travel or just take a walk in the orchards behind my house. I see positive results in my personal life due to the association I'm having with others online through these blogs and I'm happier because of it. You must relate.

With all that being said, my goals for the new year include most of the basics, to love more, eat less, read more, sew more, we always want more, don't we?! But mostly I want to connect with you and help you to embrace your unique beauty, your value in this world, to help you push through fears, to push ahead, and to realize the impact that just one person can make - only that person is YOU and what YOU can do to make a difference. I will continue to write here on decor8 and you can extract what you need and leave the rest for others. I'll work on giving more tips and reminders, and I plan to spend more time working on special posts that will discuss topics I'm pretty keen on, like small business, setting up shop, attracting customers, blogging, saying goodbye to fear, making your home more about "you" and less about "everyone else", and moving forward with your goals, decorating and otherwise. I've had a lot of experience in these areas and I'm always working on ways to become more productive and to live a more creative life, so I think sharing these things with you from time to time may be just what you need to hear.

With that, next week will begin the 3rd year for decor8, two amazing years are behind me now, over 3,800 posts completed, and I can only promise you that many more will follow -- I can't wait to get started. So for today, I'm going for coffee with my girlfriend, who just relocated from NYC to here in Hollis, New Hampshire (yeah, culture shock), but I will resume posting tomorrow, so see you then!

Oh and that "amazing thing" that happened to me today, well it's more like a feeling I had as I read through your comments. It hit me how many of us are striving to reach the same goals and how I can encourage and help through decor8. I realized that together we're going to kick our fears in the butt and make this a year to remember. I know we can accomplish many great things standing together. All I have to say to 2008 is this: Bring it!

(image by holly becker for decor8)