Inquiring minds want to know: What were the most amazing, profound, surprising, or even whacky things you’ve learned over the last year?

Here’s an entry from Deanna Misneach, of Soul Like a Spider:

I am Deanna Misneach and I blog over at Soul Like a Spider. Here is most of my 2007 in a crammed nutshell:

March – Even though you were sleeping, a mind was cleared.

March was actually a bit dark for me but right smack in the middle of the month I stumbled upon an idea that would change the way I approached the rest of 2007. It’s the idea that maybe there is no such thing as the “perfect” choice or the “best” decision. You can only make good decisions using common sense and your heart and live life to the fullest. Why? Because, well, do you know just what exactly the future holds? Huh, neither do I. I just know we need to get off our feet, stop waiting for the perfect choice to fall into our laps and go change the world around us.

April – Here I am, hanging?

Who could forget that horrific event that happened on April 16^th of this year. After the Virginia Tech Massacre I found myself hanging onto hope. And at the time I think that’s all most of the country had. I figured out pretty quick that giving into fear isn’t a good way to go. Sometimes Hope is hiding in the corner, but you have to seek it out and keep it close.

May – Notes parading with sleepy songs

I actually learned several things this month and I wrote them down in plain sentences numbered from one to ten. I learned things about everything from an unspoken rule of Euchre, to discovering a new musician, to figuring out that if I sell myself and don’t stay true to myself I might just lose me.

June – All that I Can’t Keep

Sometime in June my father informed me that on that particular night the space station would be visible in the night sky. I don’t think we actually ended up seeing it that night, but trying to chase it through the night was rather wonderful indeed. I learned that as much as I sometimes want to put moments into my pocket or into a bottle to keep forever, I know that I can’t.

July – The Second Life

This has absolutely nothing to do with the virtual social world called Second Life. When considering the options coming my way and when looking at where I could go with my life next, I found myself strung between a few different paths I could take. I learned what the spontaneous side of me wants, what people tell me I should want, what I might end up wanting anyways, and what is actually good for me right now, and the difference between all of them.

August – Happiness is?

What exactly do my coworkers, cheerios, the basement of an old church, and my alarm clock have to do with each other? Well… I could tell you… But that would take all the fun out of it!

September – We’ll break out the indie rock and dance in our seats at red lights like life was brand new.

September was a beautiful month for me. I made a decision that forced me to do a 180 in my life, and the results were better than I could ever ask for. For the first time in months I felt alive! I was dancing in my kitchen while cleaning and going to cider mills and doing all the things that remind me why I wake up every morning.

October – Columbus, Half-Eaten Toast

In September I got the hang of feeling alive every single day. I think my imagination had been asleep for a couple of months because one night in the middle of October while driving home it woke up. I since discovered the value of having my imagination and mind being alive. I hope that never changes.

November – Goodnight Hollow, Goodbye Spineless

Through the latter months of 2007 I spent my time consciously being who I was and learning to myself in every situation unapologetically. My sister was the one who actually told me what I had learned.

December – The hunger to draw on the glass and see through it too

Even though it’s rather childish of me, I still enjoy drawing in the condensation on windows when it gets cold. I learned that hunger for life is one of the best qualities to have. If you can learn to act on it and embrace the hunger for truth, beauty, love, and life, life can be a much richer experience.

I went out of 2007 with a bang. I think 2008 is going just as rich and beautiful.

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So what’s it all about?

Friends, if you’ve written about it at your blog in 2007, then you’re invited to join us for this special edition of What I Learned From… Care to share with us your favorite/ best/ most controversial/ strangest, etc. posts? (You get to pick one from each month you’ve been blogging in 2007.)

Well, don’t just sit there like a bump on a pickle; click the link, check out the simple instructions, and jump right in! Get your entries in by Sunday night, January 13, and I’ll publish them all right here at Middle Zone Musings.