Looking Back

Today is New Year's Eve and naturally I find myself reflecting on 2012.  I'm thinking back on all the happy and sad times the year has brought, as well as considering how I've done on keeping to my resolutions that I publicly laid out for myself in January of this year.  I want to share how I rate my progress on my resolutions and give you my 2012 highlights.

1-Take more pictures- B+.  I took a lot more pictures this year, however I gave myself a B+ because when I went to do my Christmas cards I didn't have one picture of Kraut and I that stood out to me as the perfect picture of us to put on a card.  Also, there are still times that I take my camera along and miss out on great photo opportunities.  Overall, I think I did pretty well on this one though.

2-Learn how to use my camera better- A.  I took a 3 week course at the Memphis college of Art and I've also been doing a lot of reading.  There is still a lot that I don't know, but I think I'm well on my way to becoming the photographer that I want to be.

3-Blog more- B-.  In all honesty, I really should give myself a C on this one, but I'm giving myself a little bit of leniency here because I started out the first part of the year pretty well.  I had a very hard summer that kind of got me out of my groove, and I think that deserves consideration.  I am disappointed though in some of the things I never shared with you that I really wanted to.  Below, I give you the highlights of 2012, but I never blogged about most of them.  Some of the events I told you were coming up, but then never gave you the follow up and photos.  Hopefully I can improve on this resolution in 2013.

4-Send birthday cards- A.  Overall, I think I did pretty well on keeping up with birthdays this year.  There is some room for improvement on this one, but I hit most everyone on my list.

5-Send 2012 Christmas cards- A+.  I had my Christmas cards ordered and shipped to me prior to Thanksgiving and had most of them addressed before December 1.  I am really happy with how I did with this one.

5-Build arm strength to where I can do 30 pushups (not on my knees)- A-.  In November, I completed 27 real deal, non-girly pushups.  My goal was 30 so I divided out 27/30 which comes to 90% or an A- by a college grading scale.  I wish I'd gotten to 30, but 27 is still more than I could do this time last year, so I'd say I was successful in building arm strength.

6-Get up 15 minutes earlier on work days- A.  Surprisingly, I was pretty diligent about getting out of bed earlier this year.  I am feeling pretty good about this accomplishment given that me and my snooze button have had a pretty solid relationship prior to this year.

7-Read more- B.  Early in the year, I was reading a ton, but as the year went on and I got busier I kind of lost some momentum.  However, I think thats understandable given that during the winter months its colder and gets dark earlier, so there just isn't as much to do besides curl up in bed and read a good book.

Now that I've graded my progress, here are some of the highlights of 2012 for Kraut and I.  Like I said, there is a lot I never shared so hope you enjoy my 2012 pictorial:

-New Year's/Kraut's birthday in New York City with our friends Beth and Corey

-St Patty's Day in St. Louis

-Easter in Memphis with both mine and Kraut's families

-Memorial Day weekend in Ft. Lauderdale with our friend Hang

-Long weekend of camping, music, and people watching at Bonnaroo in June

-My 30th birthday!!!!

-My sister's wedding

-Sadly saying goodbye to my mother and best friend- I've shared lots of pictures of her, but I didn't ever show you the pictures I took of her beautiful funeral flowers.  She loved flowers and she would have appreciated all of these...

-Football!!!! ND and MSU started off with a 7-0 start, and ND continued on undefeated!!!!  We are headed to Miami for the National Championship in a week.  The games we went to this year were:

      *ND/Miami in Chicago for our anniversary weekend

      *MSU/TN in Starkville

      *ND/OK in Oklahoma

      *MSU/Texas A&M (I'd like to forget this game)

-Flying to Michigan and surprising my bff Erin for her birthday

-Spending time with family at Thanksgiving and Christmas

I hope you have all had a great 2012, and cheers to a Happy 2013!!!  I'd also like to give a birthday shout out to my wonderful husband!  He's a New Year's baby so while the rest of you count down for the ball to drop at midnight, we will be counting down to the end of his 20's!!!  Happy 30th honey!  I love you!!!!

~Crawfish