I began the New Year

listening with my mom to the hollers and cheers and happiest of new year exclamations.

To be honest:  I yelled before listening, my own HAPPY NEW YEAR sort of thing.

To be even more honest:  It was sort of nice to just listen to all those people out there, celebrating in their own ways, instead of making all the noise myself.

If I were to tell you the absolute truth of my heart, it would be this:  I love synchronicity.  Swimming, people turning in a left-hand turn lane in unison, police riding motorcycles in a parade, etc, etc.  It gives me a squirm of delight, and I am not ashamed.

Also, happy new year.  I fear I've become a little blog-shy; I'm not sure why, but maybe I'll go brain-shrink myself and come back with an answer.

In the meantime, I have two puppies and a housband to go bother.  Or a house to clean.  I don't know!!!  But I have all night to decide!!!

One Last Thing:  I don't know if it's the fact that it gets dark so darn early or what, but I'm struggling to find inspiration to pick up my camera.  Please pray for me that some inspiration will hit, or that someone will come along, wanting me to photograph them.  Or that I'll have some daylight hours free for a change.  That'd be good.  Ok see ya.

Resolutions

I don't usually make resolutions. Actually, I sometimes do, but I don't really share them; what if they don't work out? I don't want to be a fool.

But I think I've come up with a good one, and in time, when it's ready, I'll share. But hopefully it'll be one step to helping me come closer to making my dream a reality and moving forward with something positive.

In the meantime, here's what my new year looked like.




I tried to catch some of the fireworks, but I just couldn't catch them--my fingers are too slow. Most of my photos were blurry, but I was lucky to find a pair that weren't.

May this new year be a good one. Maybe this year, I'll start trying to find the good in everything, complain less, think less negative thoughts, find happiness in little things, and be a force for good. I suppose those are resolutions... but those are my year-round resolutions, so I think they're perma-resolutions. And that kind is ok with me.

Belated [Christmas and Such]

So. Sorry I've been absent. I've been busy, you know, taking time off, sleeping in, putting my feet up... the good stuff. BUT, I owe you photos. So here they are.

My family's Christmas party at Grandma's. My housband is in the background!

I love all her ornaments--they're all so unique. I didn't get any great shots of them, however.

Grandma's nutcrackers. I have a lot of photos of people, but I think I shall keep those for myself. Maybe later I'll share?

Our apartment on Christmas morning. We put Christmas tunes on the DVD player and opened presents peacefully at about 9:00ish [nice and late], had breakfast together [which he made] and ventured out. It was a really nice day.

These are some of the things my housband gave to me--this book I wanted, and underneath is a journal from Anthropologie I've wanted for quite some time. I take it everywhere with me now! He gave me some other really great stuff, like a pricey pen (which I really LOVE), and it was fantastic.

I like this shot. Plus, you can see my Elliott Erwitt books.

We were snowed home on Christmas night--had to leave my family's house to get home in the blizzard. It was pretty bad, and we were sliding all over the place; it was nice to be home to watch movies afterward [one of which was Penelope, which housband found for me!].

One of my best friends is getting married this Friday in Salt Lake City--her open house was last night. I took some of her bridal photos, which I don't really do that often [maybe I'll post some some time], but she asked me to take some photos at their open house. It was beautiful, and a pleasure to be there. Here's their dessert: cheesecake, and below, chocolates.

Her snazzy ring and bouquet.

Well, this year has been a good one. I got married, graduated from college, got a "real life" job, had a lot of fun, rode my bike a lot, decorated my apartment, learned how to live with another person [ha]... lots of things. It's been a hard year, too... lots of learning experiences. I can say that this has probably been one of my most favorite years--I've made a lot of memories and had such overwhelming joy at times, it's hard to believe life is this good. On the other hand, I've had a lot of experiences that really hurt and stretched me further than I thought I could stretch... but without those, the good wouldn't be so good.

2008 has been great... here's to 2009.