2012 Retro

2012 taught me many things. It taught me even more than I already knew that life is not really linear. That happiness and sadness, reason and questions, are floating around with us all the time for us to embrace or wrestle. I am thankful for the growth I have experienced in 2012, and the countless named and unnamed blessings that have touched my life and the lives of those closest to me this year.

 

As the last photo montage of 2012, the following pictures mark times throughout the year when I felt most deeply the educating presence of creation in my life. If I could post 365 pictures, I would, but this should give you a sense of things. With love.



In love

From the moment I saw it, the Fort Hill Area has held my heart.

I have daydreams of photographing it in every season, every weather, every time of day.

You've seen it before on this blog, and you'll see it again for sure.

Thanks to my lovely friend S, I got out to Fort Hill on a terrible weather day - cold, rainy, about to blizzard. S was having a potluck for her brother, the occasion for which I was so lucky as to get in one last Cape Cod trip of 2012.

Enjoy the landscape of the day that I was able to capture, and if you're feeling more adventurous, this song about the new year, by one of the local musicians S had at her shindig.

Some days

...my cat is my favorite person in the whole world.

Random things I found to be cute 2012 edition

 

You're welcome.

Snowy salutations

One more day of vacation with the family. Lots of time for love and hugs.

Then lots of time for survey reports. All good things.

And...break!

The family and I had a wonderful Christmas, as you should be able to tell from our pleasant picture, and my general state of shortness within it.

I'd felt rather slumped these past few days, as I tried to tell myself to relax and unwind and enjoy the break. The problem with me as, in so much that I really enjoy having "down" times of the day everyday, and balance, I am not too sure that I really like extended breaks, and I am quite sure that this is okay, if my personality tends this way.

So instead of waiting until 2013 to start, I've decided.

Marathon training here I come!

This picture above is somewhat facetious, it being taken during a snowball battle to the death, and not an actual marathon training session (however, I was quite out of breath upon the completion of snowball battling).

But, I am excited to have registered, on this 26th day of December, for the Baltimore Running Festival Marathon on October, 12, 2013. I am even more excited that this is another race to be run with my beautiful friend K, as a sequel to our amazing race journey of October 2011.

I am going to be running for charity: water, because I live in a world where I can get clean water more easily than others, and that is not okay with me. But I am also running for me. Because running makes me stronger, happier, less worried, less stressed, and better able to take on the world. Because running reminds me that I can, even when I think I can't.

I know I run when some others may be cannot, and I do not take that for granted. But primarily, from the joy and purpose I get from it, running is a selfish act for me, and I want to make it an act of as much love as possible this 2013.

So tomorrow, and next week, and the week after that, I'll be running. And then maybe after October 2013, I'll never run again. But this is an important adventure for me, and I am willing to be open to all it will teach me, starting...right...now.

Merry merry!

I am taking a blog break to spend time with my lovely family, my beloved friends, and the reason they exist, a wondrous and awesome God who gives us a beautiful, chaotic, fascinating creation of which to be a part.

Please be well and know you are so loved!