On Returning After an Unplanned Hiatus and Thanksgiving

Haynes King - The Letter

So here I am -- back from a somewhat involuntary break from blogging and working on getting back into the swing of things. I didn't plan things that way, but I did wind up busier than I needed to be, so I had to make a few judgment calls on the fly. I'm no longer willing to risk burnout or cut into my personal time with my husband to get ungodly amounts of work done, so I decided to simply put a couple of things on hold instead.

Sadly, blogging didn't make the cut as far as my writing life goes, but in retrospect, the break seems to have been good for me. Not only do I feel less poopy about certain things I'd been feeling poopy about, but I'm genuinely excited to get back into the groove after some time away. I've really missed expressing my thoughts this way and interacting with other writers on Medium and across all my social media channels.

As for what I have been up to, I did indeed wind up participating in this year's NaNoWriMo event. And I won, as these days I try to follow through on the writing commitment I make to myself come hell or high water. So that means I have a whole new collection of short stories under my belt -- one for every day in November. 

In April, I'll probably edit it for Camp NaNoWriMo and then begin releasing the stories one by one after that, as that worked out remarkably well last year. In the meantime, I still have plenty of stories leftover from last year's event that still haven't seen the light of day, so I'll still be floating the occasional fiction piece out there in the meantime. 

I've also been really busy with my copywriting business. I started writing marketing-themed content for a new client toward the end of October, and it's been working out really well so far. Not only does he toss me a good amount of work and pay me really well for it, but he eventually invited me to become a credited contributor to his company's blog. That means that although he's still my client and I'm still a hired freelancer, I'm no longer a ghostwriter as far as this particular client is concerned. And I'm stoked about it.

As anyone who's known me or read my stuff for long knows, I've had kind of a love/hate relationship with freelancing, in general, and ghostwriting, in particular when it comes to my writing. On the one hand, I love earning my living doing something like this instead of killing myself behind a cash register or a reception desk somewhere. But I don't always love letting other people take credit for content I worked hard on, especially when that content contains a lot of myself. 

I do occasionally still take one-off assignments about odd topics I don't really care about, but as I've gained experience, I've also niched down quite a lot. Most of the material I write for my regulars these days is on topics that I'm genuinely interested in and knowledgeable about -- like marketing, food, or relationships -- so it's not always easy to just give it away and let someone else take the credit for it. Being given a byline by this new client has really made me feel seen and valued in an exciting new way, so I'll be pursuing more opportunities like that in the future for sure.

On How Holidays Evolve Over the Years

Declaration of Independence (1818) - John Trumbull

I think I've realized a little something about Independence Day over the past week or so, planning for it and all. It's just not the same holiday to me that it used to be when I was a little girl. The majority of the reasons why are a mixture of personal and general. The rest may just be about having grown up a little bit over the years. It doesn't seem like anything much is exactly the same to me at 45 as it was when I was little or even just still young. 

To begin with, a lot of what made the 4th special is just plain off the table for us at this point for reasons beyond our control. With the way climate change has made wildfires such a massive issue in the summers here, the city doesn't do fireworks displays anymore. It's been decades since I actually went anywhere specifically to watch the fireworks, but sometimes I could still see them in the sky over the back fence. I didn't mind sitting outside with Seth a while when I was in the mood, trying to catch a glimpse of the pretty colors, smelling the cordite, and reminiscing about how magical the 4th of July seemed when I was a kid.

We almost always used to grill, but we don't even do that anymore -- also because of the fires. I used to love the smell of a barbecue grill, a wood-burning fireplace, or things burning in general. Now when I smell something -- anything -- burning, it no longer signals thoughts of coziness, fun, safety, and good times. It means danger. It makes me scared I'm going to have to spend the next week or two checking for evacuation alerts every two seconds and barely being able to see without the lights on because the sky is weird and orange in the middle of the day.

On Turning Forty-Fucking-Five

So, it's my birthday tomorrow. I'm hoping it's a vast improvement on last year's, and so far, so good. As I'm sure everyone remembers all too well, right about this time last year, COVID officially reached pandemic status. Everyone was panic-buying toilet paper, pasta, beans, and just about anything else they could get their hands on. And, like everyone else, I was having terrible trouble even wrapping my mind around the fact that we were facing a fucking plague of biblical proportions.

Unfortunately for us, we were almost entirely out of food at the time, as I was waiting until closer to my birthday to do some shopping. That turned out to be a huge mistake, as none of the stores had a damn thing left. Not even a can of beans or a package of hamburger, let alone the lobster ravioli and pesto sauce I wanted for my birthday dinner or the corned beef I wanted for St. Patrick's Day. I somehow managed to score a lemon bundt cake for dessert, but that's all, and the pickings stayed pretty slim around here for a while.

I've been hyper-paranoid about running out of food ever since. I was never someone who believed the fridge and pantry had to be stuffed as full as possible to feel like there was enough to eat, but now I totally am. I'm still careful not to waste food and to make sure everything gets eaten promptly, but I grocery shop every week now, whether we really need it or not. I'm also extra-prepared this year for all our upcoming festivities. I have a heritage-breed ham and a corned beef hanging out in the freezer for Easter and St. Patrick's Day, respectively. And you bet your ass I have that lobster ravioli and fresh pesto I didn't get last year in the fridge already.

I'm turning 45 this year, which just feels plain odd. I still think of 45 as my parents' age, even though they're both well into their 70s by now. I've loved being in my 40s for the most part, though. I'm saner, more grounded, and more grateful at this age by a landslide. I actually stick with things that I start now -- positive things like daily exercise, balanced eating, productive writing routines, and regular quality time spent with my husband. I feel dangerously close to being one of those people who have their shit together, and it's a nice feeling after being so restless and undisciplined most of my life. 

On Being Female and Writing on the Internet

A funny thing happens when you go from no one giving a flying fuck who you are or what you write about to actually having an audience somewhere that's growing, no matter how slowly. Suddenly, you're no longer just writing for yourself or for a handful of friends who would be interested in almost anything you put out there because they're interested in you. You're writing for people who know nothing about you beyond what they can glean from your content. 

Most are also less interested in you as a person and more interested in what you can teach them or how reading you can make their lives better. Some of those people will be total strangers, and it turns out the experience of writing for such people is a mixed bag. You often get to find out what others honestly think of you because they'll tell you in no uncertain terms sometimes. Hopefully, you've got a thick skin and a relatively down-to-earth mental image of who you are and what you're really about because you will need them.

The vast majority of the folks who interact with my content or decide to get in touch with me outside of Medium because of something I wrote are lovely. They enjoy my writing, get something useful out of it, and want to thank me for writing it in the first place or ask me a question about something I said. I've also had people point out specifics that they enjoy in my work that make me look at myself in a different, more positive light. One of the things I hear the most often is that people dig my authenticity and my strong sense of self. I've even had certain individuals, especially other women, tell me the way I present myself inspires them, and that makes me feel pretty darned good about being me.

But there are always a few sour apples in every barrel. As a heterosexual woman on the internet who frequently writes very frankly on topics like relationships and dating, I've attracted my share of incels and "nice guys" who feel personally attacked by some of the things I have to say. They especially don't want to hear those things from a woman who's attractive, happily married, and old enough to have been around the block a couple of times. It makes it harder to default to insulting my looks or pointing out that I'm single or divorced as proof that I don't know what I'm talking about. They're forced to actually consider my words instead, and that's not something overgrown man-babies like to do. At all. 

Down with January and Onward to February

 

Mercury retrograde really managed to sneak up on me this month, as I woke up this morning to a surprise notification from my favorite astrology app that it had started. (Yes, if you are not already aware, I'm into astrology, although I do like to think I'm pretty sensible about it.) I'm usually better about keeping on top of significant aspects, but I've been so scattered this month. Mercury retro would definitely explain why I've been having more trouble communicating lately, though. 

I've been feeling unusually talkative lately, so I've actually been tweeting and posting on Facebook with some regularity. However, I've also been managing to step in it a lot. Being misunderstood online isn't usually a massive problem for me, but I've had it happen a handful of times over the past week or so. One of the times even involved a fellow Medium author I look up to a lot. I felt so bad about that particular instance, I even sent him a rare Facebook message to apologize, but yeah. I haven't exactly been my smoothest this week. 

I am starting to feel a bit more like myself in general, though, and I sense my post-holiday blahs are finally lifting a little bit. After an abysmal start to the month, I finally got back up to speed with my self-imposed Medium schedule. I even miraculously managed to get my monthly newsletter for Elevated Living out on time as of this morning. This week will mark the start of a new month and a fresh set of goals, which I find I'm looking forward to. 

Among other things, I've been focusing on publishing more often to publications other than my own. That's a stretch for me, as I love the expressive freedom that comes with self-publishing or sticking to my own publication, but I also love the reach more established pubs let me take advantage of. It's time to get back to work as far as building my audience goes, as I'm determined to keep building on last year's successes.

A Few Year's End Thoughts on Writing, Inspiration, and Ideas

With Christmas and New Year's Day having fallen on Fridays this year, I don't know whether I'm coming or going at this point. On the one hand, I don't really take vacations anymore, as it just doesn't make sense for my writing career right now. That makes the occasional long weekend extra important, though, and I've realized just how badly I needed some downtime these past couple of weeks.

Naturally, 2020 was stressful for me for all the same reasons it was stressful for everyone. But it's also been a very productive year for me personally. I never would have seen that coming at this same time last year, but it just goes to show you that you never know what's around the corner. It does pay to hang in there and keep trucking, even when you're sure you're not getting anywhere. 

In fact, the past twelve months have done something for me that I wasn't sure could be done after well over a decade of full-time professional writing. It gave me new reasons to get excited about sitting down to write, as well as new chances to do precisely the kind of writing I've always wanted to do as far as my living goes. I'm currently working on becoming my own version of Carrie Bradshaw, and it's been both fun and lucrative so far -- a winning combination if ever there was one. 

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Our Christmas and New Year's celebrations were blissfully low-key. I slow-cooked a ham for Christmas and made pork chops with homemade mac and cheese, black-eyed peas, and collard greens for New Year's. I also baked for a change -- gingerbread for Christmas and sugar cookies for New Year's. I often forget just how special homemade baked goods can make a holiday, but I enjoyed them immensely this year -- both the baking and the eating. 

Seth and I spent our time enjoying being together, as well as catching up on movies and television we'd missed in recent months and years. We watched HBO's Chernobyl, which we just finished last night. We also watched an absolutely fantastic movie called I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, the same writer responsible for another long-time favorite of mine -- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

On December, News Break, and the Holiday Blahs

I suppose there isn't much left of the dumpster fire that's been 2020 at this point, although it hardly matters. It's not as if something magical is going to happen the minute the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve or anything. The world will still be as it is, and we'll still be as we are -- hurting but healing and figuring out what's next for us. But that is, without a doubt, one of the more valuable lessons I've learned this year. 

You may not be able to control all of your circumstances to the extent you'd like, but you have total control over how you react to them. As someone who's had to teach herself to willingly take the reins of her own life over the years, I'm pretty proud of how consistently I showed up and showed out this year. I managed to turn some of the worst challenges of my life into fruitful, productive ways to earn, heal, and express myself this year.

This has especially been the case with my writing. I ended last year as a burnt-out copywriter who wasn't even sure how she'd be making ends meet in the year to come. I'm finishing this one in a completely different place. Not only did I find newer, better avenues for my copywriting skills, but I also became a professional blogger and found paying outlets for what I think of as my "real" writing. I completed the first draft of a book this year -- my very first stab at book writing ever to result in a finished manuscript. I have a running list of additional avenues I'll be exploring in 2021 and beyond, as well. I'm exceedingly happy with where I am right now and excited about everything yet to come.

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Like a lot of my friends and favorite writers on Medium, I've been testing the waters at News Break this month. I was invited to join their creator program at some point over the past couple of months, but I slept on it a while, as they seemed to be looking for citizen journalists as opposed to writers who do... whatever the hell it is I do. But then many writers from my circle started saying they saw some decent traffic there, even if all they'd done is republish their personal development stuff from Medium, so I decided to try the same thing. 

"Christmas Means Family" Is a Full-of-Shit Statement

Clark Griswold is still my spirit animal.

Now that November's over and December is officially here, we're officially in the process of shifting gears at my house. That means the Christmas lights are lit on a nightly basis, and we've officially started our yearly watchings of some of our favorite holiday films. Last night's pick was one of my personal favorites -- National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. 

The older I get, the more I think I relate to Clark (Chevy Chase) on a level I never did when I first fell in love with this film. I keep holidays very low-key these days for all sorts of reasons, but I'm usually the person in my household that does most of the planning for holiday celebrations. I put together the menus and do all the cooking. Back when my living situation allowed for it more, I used to get pretty into decorating my apartment and trying to make it feel like a magical place to be for the holidays. Sometimes I'd go overboard or fail to plan ahead well enough and wind up shooting myself straight in the foot, just like Clark, but it's probably not too hard to understand why.

Growing up, I was a very idealistic child, and my home life failed to measure up in many ways. My parents stopped loving each other at some point when I was a little kid but made the "honorable" decision to "stay together for the kids" anyway. I don't know who they thought they were fooling, though, because it was pretty apparent that neither of them was about that family life. My dad openly dated other women and was home as little as possible, even around the holidays. My mom more or less just gave up on domestic life -- hated to cook, hated doing the mom thing, and hated keeping house. Each of my parents bad-mouthed the other to my brother and me non-stop, so that was fun.

End of November Thoughts

Stéphane Audran in Babette's Feast (1987)

How we're about to put another month in the can, I really couldn't tell you. It feels like just yesterday that Halloween was approaching, and I was still planning out my November. Now it's already time to start thinking about Christmas, and my little mind is blown. It's true what they say about time as you get older. It just goes faster and faster until you're just dizzy from it. 

After today, there are only three more days left of NaNoWriMo. I'm definitely starting to run out of gas at this point in the event and will probably be happy to get back to normal, but I'm so glad I did this. It taught me a lot about how even a busy person can make room in their schedule for something new if they want it badly enough. I also really surprised myself as far as how creative I still can be. I'm thrilled with some of the stories I came up with. Some even have the potential to become very good longer works with a little patience and TLC.

At any rate, I'm definitely going to finish. I'd better! I ordered my official 2020 Winner shirt and everything. And despite not being expected to ship out until mid-December sometime, it showed up in the mail today. I feel a little silly admitting how excited I am about wearing it when I cross the finish line and hit 50,000 words on Monday, but what the hell is life for without a little childlike excitement from time to time. I've planned well enough that I'll be coming out of the event with a finished book, as well -- very exciting.

On Holidays and the Malaise That Sometimes Comes with Them

Every time I randomly decide to blog after not having really blogged for a while, I wonder what my problem is as to why I'm no longer the consistent blogger I used to be years ago. I usually just blame the fact that I write professionally for a living because of the way it burns through so much of my creative energy for the week. And honestly, that probably is part of it.

Every so often though, I realize that it's probably more because I don't truly feel like my life is worth recording the way I used to. I don't do anything or go anywhere. I feel like I never have good news or exciting changes to report. I honestly feel like the only thing I really do with my time is work and lie around like a slug attempting to recover from work. While I definitely like being able to eat, I don't get any kind of personal fulfillment out of working for its own sake the way other people do, so it's a problem that that's the only thing I really have going on. 

I guess what I'm saying is I feel like my life kind of blows right now. When I feel like life blows, I feel very little urge to actually record anything about it. This is despite the fact that I've always found journaling to be therapeutic. I know I need to be taking back some of my creative energy for myself now and then, but it's not as easy as it probably should be.

Writing Lab: It's Not Christmas without Our Duck

Christmas dinner wasn't a big deal in my home growing up, but it has become an extremely big deal to Seth and me since we've been together. Lots of different dishes have taken center stage over the years and they've all been delicious, but our favorite is definitely roast duck.

Although we absolutely love turkey, we're just not ready for another one so soon after Thanksgiving. We also love ham, but that just seems so much better suited to New Year's dinner, as it's considered good luck to eat pork as your main protein. Pheasants and geese can be expensive and hard to find. Chicken just doesn't seem special enough for Christmas dinner, as we eat chicken frequently throughout the year.

Where all of those other things just aren't quite the right fit, duck is perfect. It roasts long enough to make the entire house smell like Christmas. It's fancy enough to feel like a nice splurge and it generates just enough meat to feed the both of us. There's usually a bit of leftover duck -- enough to make the homemade duck chili Seth likes or a couple of wraps for lunch -- but not so much that we're still eating our way through it by the time New Year's rolls around and we want to make a ham or something.

Writing Lab: Of Late I Think of Germany

When it comes to my identity as a person, it's probably fair to say that I don't necessarily consider myself to have one at all. At least not in the same way I feel other people do. I'm not a down comforter or a wool blanket. I feel more like a patchwork quilt -- something that's quite literally made of very random bits all stitched together to create something else that is motley by definition.

For one thing, I'm very mixed ethnically. (My dad is African American and Blackfoot Indian. My mom is of Irish and Scottish descent.) My parents are two very different colors and are very obviously from different ethnic backgrounds. However, my brother and I were sort of raised to see ourselves as colorless -- just "American" without any further elaboration.

Ethnicity and culture were not concepts that were celebrated in our home the way they were in other people's households. I think the desired effect was for the two of us to grow up seeing ourselves as belonging everywhere and with everyone. I can't speak for my brother, but I think the opposite happened to me. Culturally speaking, I felt more like I belonged nowhere and around nobody, especially since I look so racially ambiguous that it's not immediately obvious to most people what my background might be. I'm clearly not white, but I confuse people. If they really want to know, they have to ask (and they always ask).

Since we were military, we moved a lot as well, so that made it difficult to form lasting connections with places or with other people. I don't really consider myself to have a hometown in any real sense and I don't have friendships that go all the way back to kindergarten or anything. Instead of being a person with clear roots and a cultural identity -- the usual things that dictate which foods make you feel the most nostalgic and rooted -- I feel like I'm lots of things all at the same time. Both everything and nothing all at once, so I suppose my personal "time travel" foods are chosen according to a different logic.

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Writing Lab: New Traditions Have a Way of Sneaking Up on You

It occurs to me that I picked the strangest possible month to start participating in one of BlogHer's post-a-day challenges. As anyone that's read my responses to any of the other prompts is probably figuring out, I tend to feel like a fish out of water around the holidays.

Despite being on the threshold of middle age, I don't have children, nor do I have really close-knit, lifelong ties to most of my other family members. I don't have a busy social life that finds me entertaining friends (or letting them entertain me) every year either.

All I really have is my relationship with my fiancé. We're not exactly people of means, nor do we connect with many other people around the holidays. We are very much used to being a team of two at this point and when I picture holiday traditions, I tend to picture a coming together with lots of other people, particularly family. That picture doesn't really apply to our life as we know it, so for a long time, I didn't think the word "tradition" applied to anything we liked to do either. That said, I actually like how these prompts are challenging me to take a closer look at that point of view and reevaluate a few things. I'm beginning to realize that that's something I really needed to do.

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Writing Lab: On Traditions, Family, and Filling the Void

I don't actually have children, nor have I ever wanted any. I've never developed even a hint of a maternal instinct or thought I would make a good mother. That said, I guess I'm realizing I've never really thought about anything to do with the holidays (or life in general) from that particular angle -- what it would all look like as one of the heads of a family.

I've never daydreamed about having someone to mentor and teach things to someday. I've never wondered what it would be like to have somebody else to inherit my traditions and keep them alive after I'm gone. I have no idea if it's odd for a 39-year-old woman to literally never have considered those things, but there it is just the same.

Seth has three children from his previous marriage. Back when we first got together, I assumed that sooner or later I would wind up developing some form of stepmother relationship with them at some point. But they're older now and seem to have little to no interest in either of us, so at this point, I pretty much just take it for granted that such relationships weren't part of God's plan for me. It's not even something that bothers me. It seldom to never crosses my mind and I don't feel like anything is missing from my life because I'm not really a parent in any capacity. It just is what it is like a lot of things in life.

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Writing Lab: Lights, Legs, and Zombies

The funny thing about Seth and me around the holidays is we aren't always consistent about things like decorating. Although we may stay put in the same spot for years at a time, there's been a tone of impermanence to our lives as far as where we live for quite some time now.

Hardships like lay-offs and serious illness have seen us moving a lot, living with family members when/if we need to, and so forth. That said, it's been a long time since we lived somewhere that truly felt like "home" -- someplace that felt like it was ours to decorate and leave our stamp on however we chose.

There have been many, many holidays where we just haven't been able to get into the holiday spirit at all because of that. On the down years, we will still very likely watch our Christmas movies or make something delicious to eat for Christmas dinner, but we might not really bother decorating. It just depends on where we both are mentally and emotionally at the point where it's time to start thinking about it.

Thankfully, a bit of that malaise that's sometimes surrounded the holidays for us has been lifting a bit in recent years, so we've been doing at least a bit of decorating. As with everything we do in life, we have our own unique spin we put on things that really feels like us.

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There are two kinds of people in this world -- those that think Halloween is a single day that comes once a year and those that treat Halloween like an all-the-time affair. Seth and I are the second type. We are very much into things like horror movies, Gothic novels, creepy folk tales, and ghost stories. (Seth actually runs a very popular horror website called MoreHorror.) A lot of our Halloween-themed items stay up all year round and get a special holiday treatment. 

Writing Lab: End of the Year Traditions

I hemmed and hawed about it a bit like I do, but I eventually decided I did want to participate in NaBloPoMo this month. BlogHer apparently decided to repackage the monthly event as an ongoing Writing Lab with daily prompts though, so instead of making a commitment for a month, you're supposed to just pick up a prompt whenever you feel like it instead.

Personally speaking, I think I'd still like to at least try to stick with things all month. However, I might eventually find that I'm grateful not to have made an ongoing commitment. That way I don't feel like I have to quit altogether if I need to skip a few days because of work or whatever. I'm just going to play things by ear and see how it all works out.

I also decided to join the BlogHer Writing Lab Facebook group so I can share my progress and some of my posts if I feel like it. I've fallen way, way out of the habit of actually meeting and socializing with other bloggers and sometimes I wonder if that might be part of the reason I don't invest more energy in my personal writing. I tend to go back and forth between wanting an audience and not wanting one, so I hesitated to even mention I was doing this challenge to anyone. I eventually decided the worst thing that would happen is I make a couple of friends and discover some new blogs to be interested in though. So here we are.

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Back to Life, Back to Reality

Social media is a veritable paradise for the avid people watcher. Because what one does is incredibly public while feeling like it's not quite happening in reality, there's a lot you can tell about someone by looking at not only what they say over social media, but how they say it. You can see exactly how they want to come across to other people, but if you're paying attention, you can also see all the ways their online image isn't quite in line with who they really are underneath.

I'm relatively open with others about how I treat my social media accounts and how I view the people on my contact lists. I've even openly compared scrolling through Facebook in particular to watching a bunch of fish swimming around in a bowl. I don't consider myself to be much of a people person, but I do enjoy people watching. People watching is most interesting when people have more or less forgotten they're being observed and pondered in such a way. The things I've learned have taught me a lot about the way others operate... and about how I fit into that dynamic as well.

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That said, I don't really tend to spend a ton of time on social media once the holidays roll around. Everyone tends to put on one or two of the same acts and that gets tiresome. I barely even bothered to check my feeds over this past Thanksgiving weekend. Over this past year, I've been able to upgrade my client roster a bit so that I'm only dealing with high caliber clients willing to pay for top-notch content. That said, I was easily able to take five days off to celebrate the holiday.

Chewing the Holiday Fat

So I finally jumped on the bandwagon and got myself a tablet. It's fucking awesome and totally convenient for those times when I want to read online or look through my social media but don't necessarily feel like being on my phone. It was my Christmas present to myself for really making some great progress professionally this year. I've been working smarter, not harder, and it's been paying off really well. My business feels like it turned a corner this year and I'm excited to see where my writing takes me next. I'm incredibly proud of myself, not only for working as hard as I have, but for actually rewarding myself with something I really wanted.

I'm even happier about the fact that it wasn't even hard for me to make the decision to buy the tablet, because at one point in my life, it totally would have been. I had the money and I was able to score a great deal on a Nexus 10, the kind I wanted the most, so I just bought it. Since surrounding myself with better people and better situations as far as my daily life goes, decisions like that have been a lot easier to make. I'm officially through with letting other people tell me that I'm not allowed to enjoy my life or spend any of the money I work so hard to earn on myself. I'm better when I actually enjoy my life.

Independence Day 2013

Wolfie With Our American Flag

As my American friends and readers already know, yesterday was Independence Day here in America. It's been so terribly hot here in Monterey over the past couple of weeks, but it finally started to cool down late in the day yesterday. Somehow we hadn't really gotten into the spirit of barbecuing yet this year, but 4th of July is always a great time to start, so that's exactly what we did. 

We also finally got around to taking some new pictures of ourselves and each other. I don't know how it is that we got so bad about this -- especially me. Granted I've never been someone who likes having their picture taken or who feels comfortable in front of a camera, but I definitely used to actually be in the habit of taking pictures on a regular basis anyway -- certainly at least a few new ones a month or something. This was especially the case since I've been so active online for so many years and plenty of uploaded photos are really the only way other people can see you and feel like they know you.

On Obstacles and Goals for 2013

Wow, I can't believe that yet another year has been and gone. This realization never seems to get easier to deal with for some reason. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I always tend to look back on the year in review, feel like I didn't accomplish very much, and wonder where the hell all the time went. How could I have been as busy as I was -- and really, I'm always busy -- yet not feel like I made any real progress?

Occasionally, it occurs to me that I'm probably keeping myself busy focusing on the wrong things and that's why I feel the way I do around New Year's every year. I always fall into a very well-defined trap, especially professionally. I start feeling like the best way to gain the sense of accomplishment and well being I want most is to focus on earning more money. Money -- at least in theory -- buys you choices, freedom, and wiggle room. I feel like people need more of those things in order to feel happier and to have more time to pursue their real dreams and goals. However, the process of earning money takes up the lion's share of your time and energy, so ironically you never actually get what you were after in the first place.

That's totally what happened to me this year. I wanted to earn more money so that I could afford more and I did that. I was able to pay my bills more easily, as well as pay for a lot of things that my loved ones and I needed. However, I didn't accomplish any of the things that were the most important to me. I wanted to try to reclaim my creativity at least a little bit this year and produce at least two or three pieces I felt were good enough to send out to some publications I have my eye on. I also wanted to get off the computer at least somewhat regularly, get out more, eat out more, go to more local events, and make some memories.