Last Post, Old Year

We get off work a little early today, which is awesomeness!  I will head home to walk the dog, maybe run by the grocery store, and then pack up all the gifts and presents, board games, and whatever else strikes my fancy, and head up to Centralia later this afternoon for the big old family party.

I am really looking forward to spending New Year’s with my great wonderful family, and then we get to get up in the morning and do the whole Christmas routine.  There will be lots of food and drink (though probably very little alcohol; for some reason, none of us are big drinkers.  A few people might have a single beer, but the rest of us will be high on caffeine and sugar), lots of fun, and it will be a nice way to ring in the New Year.

Then I took Friday off work so I have a full three-day weekend after that, and I have no plans!  I have no idea what I’m going to do, but it will probably involve processing a lot of pictures, cleaning the house, and doing laundry, and that is all ok with me.

The only snag in all of this is that the motherboard on my laptop appears to be failing.  It doesn’t want to play nice with the dock in my cubicle, and the ethernet port isn’t working, so I guess it’s already called in sick to work for the rest of the week.  It’s fine at home, though- it can do wireless and my extra monitor without any problem.  The new motherboard is supposed to arrive today, but with the holiday schedules, I don’t know if I will hear from the IT department even if it does arrive.  So I will be carefully backing everything up as I work this weekend, as I think I’m on borrowed time with the existing motherboard.  As it is, I’m currently using an older laptop at work.  It is pretty slow, but it does the job.

Well, last year I did a wrap-up of the year’s events, and I would like to do that again this year.  Last year, I spent most of the actual evening on that post, but this year I envision more fun for myself than typing up blog posts while Tracy and my sister and her notboyfriend played video games.  Ok, slightly more fun than that.

Here goes:

• I took a bunch of trips this past year.  I traveled all over the damn place, actually, starting with a work trip to Philadelphia in late January and ending with a two-day run to Chicago after Thanksgiving.  In-between there was: Anaheim, Columbus, Madison, more Chicago, Orlando, Springfield (Massachusetts), Des Moines, Adam-ondi-Ahman, Ste. Genevieve & Palmyra (to shoot weddings), Lake of the Ozarks (for a family vacation) and, best of all…
• I took a nearly-two-week spectacular fantastic trip to San Francisco and other areas of Northern California last April.  This was probably the highlight of the year for me.  I had such a wonderful time, I saw so many beautiful places, and I took so many beautiful photos, and I haven’t even processed most of the photos because the trip still lives on as such a wonderful memory.  I loved that trip.  It was amazing.
• I made some huge strides in terms of photography.  I can look back on this time last year and just be startled at how far I’ve come.  Last year about this time, I decided to meet up with some women from Model Mayhem to help me get used to working with people.  My first Model Mayhem session was last February.  That seems a lifetime ago!  Since then, I’ve shot with several MMers (as they’re called) and have actually stopped using the site because I just don’t have the time anymore, though I have had some contacts through the site and may have some leads for the early part of the year, if I want them.
• One of my goals for the year was to second-shoot or assist with a wedding, but I was scared shitless.  I put up some ads for myself to see if I could get someone to hire me.  It didn’t seem to work out for a long time, and then all of a sudden it did.  I did a total of seven weddings this year.  Two were solo and the rest were as a second-shooter/assistant.  Two of the latter were paid positions, which was awesome.  I knew from the first one that wedding photography isn’t for the faint of heart.  It’s really hard work, both mentally and physically exhausting.  And the processing afterwards takes days and days of time.  I wasn’t enamoured from the get-go, but then despite myself I really enjoy the work.  So I think I’ll get to do more in 2009, and though I’m glad I don’t have one this weekend, I look forward to it when it happens.
• I was paid for the first time as a photographer in 2009, not including ‘gas money’ given by friends and not just the hourly wage I made as a second-shooter.  I was actually paid by a client.  That was pretty cool.  It was great also because I made some big photography purchases this year, including my Nikon D300 (which is starting to show some signs of wear & tear, and might need a trip to Nikon Service in January) and new lenses, like a Tamron 17-55m f/2.8 ‘event’ lens.
• I was also published several times this year in mid-Missouri newspapers and magazines, like the Columbia Tribune, Inside Columbia, and Columbia Home & Lifestyle.  Most of this was related to a couple of events that I worked in the fall, but I was included in an article about Flickr last spring and another general photography spread in late September, and both of those included nature or landscape photos.  I was pretty proud of all that.
• And I had my first exhibit this year, even if it wasn’t really an exhibit.  In my head, it is, and it may be the closest I’ll ever get, so I’ll take it.  I framed and mounted pictures (which is not insignificant in terms of price), and they hung where others could (potentially) see them.  Some people may have walked past them every day and completely ignored them!  And that is so great, so much better than just keeping them on a hard drive somewhere.
• I started going to the Jeff City Photo Club in February, and I have really enjoyed that.  I like to participate in their monthly contests, because it’s a fun little test for me as I would never choose the subjects and themes they choose.  It’s nice to talk about photography in person, not just online.  And I’ve met some really cool people there.
• In addition, I set up a photo blog over on my photo site, and so a lot of this (and a lot of photos) are available there if you’re not already aware of it.  Also, check out my Flickr site.  Hey, pictures are a huge part of my life, and I rarely force you to look at any of them.  But if you should happen to wander over there, then that’s great and I appreciate it.
• We got some big shit done with the house!  The roof and gutters were replaced in the fall, and in June we had some landscapers come and make a flowerbed out of the mud pit that was left by the people who fixed the foundation in fall 2007.  They also rebuilt the retaining wall in the front of the house.  And then our little maple tree, which was looking so nice, had a bad time in a windstorm and fell over.  I was never very happy with the placement of that maple tree, so I dug out the little stump and later in the fall, my dad helped me plant two nicely sized crabapple trees.  I am very pleased with the arrangement of the crabapple trees in the yard.  Then I cleaned up a couple of the other plants and if I get even some of the rest of it done, I will have a very pretty front yard.  Anyway, I don’t really have anything left on the ‘big shit to get done with the house’ list, unless I live here another couple of years and start to get serious about refinishing the wood floors.  But I am not at that point yet.  We also had that big fence debacle last spring, where the neighbors rebuilt their fence but changed its location, so we had to replace a section of fence to match it and cover the hole left behind.  It looks good now, though- I’m glad we did it. 
• Oh, also my mother helped me repaint the bedroom last spring and Dad helped me put in a lovely ceiling fan!  Gosh, my parents are awesome about helping out with house stuff, aren’t they?
• Actually, we got a lot of house stuff done for a visit from my grandmother in July.  I feel like the house finally came together in July.  It looked good, for the most part, inside and out.
• Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time in hospitals this year for people that are very close to me.  I don’t like to talk about other people’s medical conditions on very public blogs, but let me tell you that 2009 is one of those years where the idea of toasting to good health seems like a concrete thing, not just an abstract idea.  I would like to spend most of 2009 out of hospitals.
• My sister and I started a 5:45am gym routine.  You’d think I’d shut up about that eventually, don’t you, but I don’t stop mentioning it.  That’s because I’m truly astounded that we ever got up out of bed that early in the first place, all those months ago, let alone that we kept getting up that early and kept at it and then switched from two days a week to three days a week, and now we’re even thinking about thinking about a four or five days a week schedule, because it’s working out that well.  I knew it would be a good time of the day, because it doesn’t cut into other activities, because we don’t have time to procrastinate, because I want to shower after the gym and I like to unwind after my day… but, seriously, I don’t like getting up early.  It’s absolutely insane that we’ve managed to stick with it.  Amazing.  I am so, so proud of this.
• The neverending high school & college reunion that is Facebook really became that in 2008.  I am now friends with people on Facebook that I have not seen in 17 years.  But we saw each other every day before that, and at the time it was impossible to understand that I wouldn’t know these people for the rest of my life.  And then I moved, or I graduated, or they graduated, and life changed, and we never saw each other again.  But now the miracle of Facebook has brought us together, and I feel like I get their little status updates are a way of keeping them in my life, in the tiniest way possible.  The best way possible, if you’re an introvert like me who has sometimes Google-stalked some of those folks in the past few years, when you’re bored and faced with a blank Google start screen.  Now I don’t have to guiltily Google-stalk anyone, because if they’re on Facebook, I can just friend them and stalk them with permission!  Seriously, though- it’s cool.  It’s very, very cool.
• It’s hard to describe, but I changed my style this year.  I wore very androgynous clothes for many years, even the same few pairs of khakis over and over again, and then something snapped last spring, and I changed everything.  I started growing my hair out, I started wearing nicer clothes to work, I started wearing little girly flats instead of sneakers all the time, I started wearing perfume last summer and then I even changed to a wintery fragrance this fall… I started wearing hairpins!  I have to fix my hair now!  It’s all new and bizarre but fun at the same time.
• I had a root canal in August… and September…. and October.  Man, I just did not know how many dental appointments are required for one root canal.  I sent my dentist’s office a holiday card and told them I thought I spent more time with them this year than with many of the people who are actually related to me.
• Oh, there was a little thing in November, maybe you heard about it… the ELECTION???!!??  Goddamn, that was in my head for the entire year.  I don’t really talk about politics on this blog either, any more than I talk about other people’s medical histories or actually a lot of really personal stuff (I learned my lesson long ago, I think), so from rereading posts from last year, it’s not apparent how absolutely insanely obsessed I was with the 2008 election.  For the six or eight weeks leading up to the actual day, I watched CNN like it was the most fascinating thing on the planet.  I read Politico and Wonkette and the New York Times and the Washington Post (online) every day.  I was familiar with all of the CNN contributors.  I threw money at the Democrats, I knocked on doors, I registered voters.  Tracy and I waited in that long line for the chance to not see Obama behind the other thousands of people who showed up to see Obama.  My parents, apparently, were a little concerned about what I might do if Obama lost.  But I didn’t have to face that prospect, because he did and it was wonderful.

So that was the year that was.  And a lovely year it was too.

And I am off for a long weekend without a new motherboard because it didn’t come in today.  It will be in on Friday, I bet, but the IT guy won’t be there until Monday.  So let’s hope that my little laptop just didn’t want to work at work this week, and is fine sitting at home, messing with photos and watching The X-Files, just like me! 

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year, and that you had great holidays, and that you’ll keep up that holiday spirit into January, when it is bright and cold and quiet, the way Januarys are and are supposed to be.

And thank you for reading my blog.  You clearly read it, right, because you’re here and you’re reading it, and I think that’s really nice of you to spend your time reading it.  Obviously I like to write it, but sometimes I get lazy, and it’s just nice that you come by and check it out.  So I hope you have a great holiday weekend and I will see you next week, when we have to go back to work (and blogging).