The last few years I’ve spent the week leading up to the new year deep in thought about what my big personal goal will be for the new year. Last year it was to handle critique better and be less sensitive, the year before to be less negative. It’s funny because the year I wanted to be less negative I worked really hard at it all year, coming back to it constantly. But this year I completely forgot about being less sensitive and handling critique better. I think because the theme of the year quickly turned to just adapting. Adapting to a new city, adapting to a new workplace, then adapting to working for myself, and then the biggest bump in the road of all: cancer. I feel like I let all my goals and organization fly out the window in the last few months while my main objective was surviving, just making it to the new year in one piece.

While I do feel stronger in so many aspects, jaded and wiser to the world around me, I also feel like a mess. This year has to be about organizing my life – largely my business. It has to be about getting back on track and focusing on making decisions to grow and expand rather than just trudging along at the same steady rate. Figuring out if this whole freelance business is even financially a sustainable thing for me.

But besides that, at the risk of sounding incredibly sappy, this year I want to apply the lessons I learned in humanity and compassion from everyone who supported us during Will’s treatment. I want to be a better friend and family member. I want to be the person who calls rather than the person who waits for the phone call. The person who sends birthday cards or things for no good reason other than knowing you needed a pick me up. And maybe this will be the year I finally start volunteering for something, to give back.

Some quick goals:
- collaborate more with other creative people
- get this blog back on track – more features, more polished
- make more music with my brother
- walk, walk, walk everywhere
- make happier memories in LA – hit the restart button on this neighborhood
- get more photo gigs
- open my print shop back up
- focus on making our neglected apartment look better (cheaply!)
- hang out with people in person more

No simple tasks, for sure, but life is short and I wholeheartedly believe that 2012 will be a better year. It has to be.

What about you guys? Anything inspiring on the horizon?

Well, we had an interesting Arizona Christmas spent mostly in a retirement community in Mesa and a little town up north. I learned how to shoot a gun, bonded with an 80 year old man over vintage cameras, watched Will slowly turn back into the healthy and chatty guy I know, thrifted an amazing haul with friends (last photo), ate more red meat than my poor stomach ever wants to see again, and saw some of the most beautiful scenery in my life. Also, I left my digital camera at home. I brought along a disposable camera Anabela sent me recently, and indulged in my Instagram addiction instead (above, of course), which was fun. I’ll share the film when I get it back, I feel like I took totally different photos with it than these. I’m so happy to be home, and Wendy is happy to have us back even more – she will not stop climbing all over me. I hope your holidays were great, friends! Now back to reality…

We are headed to Arizona today and will be gone until next Wednesday, so in my absence I have some wordless posts with a recent roll of film to share. I’m doing a little experiment and not uploading anything to flickr, so you’ll have even less info on what’s going on, but I imagine the internet will be quite quiet in the coming days anyway.

Also, so many people keep asking me what is going on with Will, and I just wanted to say that we’re not saying anything until we get test results back on January 4th, so maybe if you have a little extra room for prayer and healthy thoughts you could think of him in the coming weeks? He has such a fantastic chance for good news and I feel so confident, but we’ve been sidelined by so much bad news this year that we are prepared for anything that needs to come our way. We have so many thanks and love to gush to you, but not quite yet.

I hope all of you who celebrate have/are having a happy Christmas and Hanukkah! See you next week.

I was going to wait to post this until next week, the last week of 2011, but I have something else for next week and figured you could use a little something over the holiday break to jam to – the best songs of 2011. I usually do a round-up of my favorite albums of the year, but who cares? Wouldn’t you rather hear my favorite songs of 2011? I think so. 2011 was a fantastic year for music, and I get so nostalgic listening to some of these – for a time that seems so incredibly far away. I’ll save my thoughts on this year as a whole for later, but as for music, it was so great. I reconnected with music when I moved to LA – between spending time in my car and time at my desk as a freelancer. It kept me going, alive.

In no particular order:

1. Settle Down    Kimbra
2. Stop    Twin Sister
3. Surgeon    St. Vincent
4. How Come You Never Go There    Feist
5. You And I    Washed Out
6. The Rip Tide    Beirut
7. Eleven    Thao & Mirah
8. Shuffle A Dream    Little Dragon
9. Somebody That I Used To Know    Gotye
10. Still Sound    Toro Y Moi
11. Sadness Is A Blessing    Lykke Li
12. Barton Hollow    The Civil Wars
13. Truth    Alexander
14. Lorelai    Fleet Foxes
15. He Won’t Go    Adele
16. Big Burned Hand    Iron & Wine
17. True Blue    Dirty Beaches
18. Origins    Tennis

I’m trying to finish a roll of film so that I have some wordless posts to schedule while we’re in Phoenix for Christmas, a glorious seven day trip I’m so looking forward to. So, I don’t have much digital this morning to share. But it was a great weekend – kicked off on Friday with an epic walk with Lisa to discover some secret stairs in Silverlake that blew our minds. Then Saturday Will and I got up early, got breakfast take out and drove to Griffith park while we stared at the beautiful view and ate French toast and bacon. We wandered around a little and it felt pretty fantastic to be outside with Will again. Sunday we were complete and total bums, with a little bead making here and there (my hands hate me). We’re easing back into normal life, slowly.