2011 Year-End Review

Around this time of year, I'm always bombarded with questions about resolutions. Did you meet yours for this year? Are you making any news ones for next year? Would you like fries with that?

I've never been a 'New Year's Resolution' kind of girl. I don't have goals for a year; I have goals for my life. I kind of think of it like a company's long-range plan. Your overall goals should never really be met since they are constantly evolving with you. You can achieve the smaller objectives that support your overall goals, but those goals serve as the road map to your life. They end when your journey does.

2011 has been a year of huge changes for me and my family. At the end of last year, we welcomed our first son. In the spring of 2011, we moved into our new house. We went on our first 'family vacation' this past summer and this fall I completed NaNoWriMo for the first time. In a day and age when things are rough for everyone, I count my blessing daily and am so thankful to have the most wonderful friends and family. Things can be hard. They can be crappy. They can suck big time. But when they are, I try to push my eyes away from the ugly in front of me and focus on the horizon. The bigger picture is sometimes a lot more cheery than the narrow view of today.

That said, I do have some things in 2012 that I want to do:

• Run a half-marathon
• Finish my novel and start sending out queries
• Learn to knit and sew
• Find a volunteer opportunity

These aren't resolutions per se, they're things I want to accomplish to support one of my life's true goals: be good to myself and be good to others. I want to spend the time when I'm laying bed before I fall asleep reflecting on the day and knowing that I've done just that.

Happy New Year!