The company Pantone is the authority on color, and every year Pantone chooses a Color of the Year.

For many years now, I've been intrigued by the winning hues. Because I'm not hip or up on color or fashion in any sense of the word, I think it's possibly the words themselves — some of the names given the color of the year — that most make me smile.

In years past there's been Tigerlily (2004), Sand Dollar (2006), Mimosa (2009) and Tangerine Tango (2012), to name a few. For 2014, the queen of color is PANTONE® 18-3224 Radiant Orchid. That's not the most telling or imaginative of names, so this might help (straight from the Pantone press release announcing the annual color):

Watch for Radiant Orchid to show up throughout the year in fashions, furnishings, floral designs, decor of all sorts. And, of course, paint.

I tell you about Radiant Orchid and Pantone's annual rite of color coordinating and honoring because there's a similar rite I've noticed among many bloggers and others online. That's the naming of a word for the upcoming year, one individuals choose for themselves, their world, their goals for the year.

I've always been intrigued by such a tradition yet I've never taken part in it. This year, though, I'm taking part, I'm naming a word. A word for me, a word for 2014, a word I plan to focus on from this day forward — at least until December 31 of this year.

My Word of the Year for 2014?

Well, grease it is not. It's CREATE.

 

Just as Pantone No. 18-3224 Radiant Orchid will be found all about us in ways obvious and obscure, I plan for Create to be the underlying theme of, well, most things I do in 2014. Things like...

Create opportunities.

Create memorable moments with my grandchildren.

Create new recipes.

Create new friendships.

Create new business relationships.

Create stronger relationships with those to whom I'm already connected, whether family, friends or folks who sign my paychecks.

Create a garden (that actually grows... correctly... creatively).

Create free time.

Create family time.

Create photography time.

Create time filled with projects that will create a better bank account to cut down on the creative ways I've been having to stretch dollars.

Create really cool packages to mail my grandkiddos, packages that will create huge smiles on their faces, warm fuzzies in their tummies.

Create. Just plain ol' Create period. Essays, articles, word sorts of stuff as that's what I most like to create.

My Word of the Year for 2014 may not be as, well, colorful as Pantone's Color of the Year for 2014. Just the same, I do hope to get as much use out of create as designers of all sorts will surely get out of the powerfully, purpley Radiant Orchid.

Today's question:

What is — or might/would/could be — your 2014 Word of the Year?