Goodbye 2012.
It has been a good year overall.
I started a blog, this blog, multi-hyphenated-me. Though only 8 posts this year, I love it and have big plans for the future. I lived up to, or tried to live up to, my hyphens, every day.
My 7 month foot saga put me back in touch with my old friend Reading. Perhaps due to many Ohio winters with not much else to do or maybe it is the escape from reality that is reading’s gift, in either case, I have always been a reader. Being a project person and needing a project that would keep me down and resting while my foot recovered, I turned to reading. I decided to read all of the New York and Los Angeles Best Sellers , fiction, non fiction, children’s, hardback and paperback. It was mid-January when I started this project and it was sometime in February that I realized I had to scale back the lists in order to be somewhat manageable. The LA Times fiction nonfiction hardcover and paperback lists were my source of material. The Public Library was my resource. I’m happy to report that I have read 134 books in eleven and half months, roughly 12 books a month. I have so many favorites. I learned so much and was reminded of things I have known and lived and seen. There were a few books that were wasteful of my time spent reading them but I learned from them too. I travelled from Machu Picchu to Africa to Paris to India and points in between. I cried. Sobbed. I laughed and laughed. The library staff knows me by name. The intelligent, literary conversations I had with so many in discussing books was truly one of the highlights of this journey. On Facebook I “liked” “The Book Isn’t Dead” Community and have been inspired by discussions and quotes and moments. This journey inspired me to be the Book Fair Chairperson with the elementary school PTA where we had our most profitable sale to date. From my Book Fair experience and my frequent trips to the library, I learned about Battle of the Books and rallied 5 twelve year olds to form a team and read. I was asked months ago if I would keep up the reading pace, off the same reading list in 2013. My answer then and remains, no. Will I continue to read? Of course! To focus on the best-selling Pattersons, Silvas, Picoults, et al is a huge oversight to the countless great writers out there with books that deserve to be read. The best part is to say, because of this project, I have grown.
My foot finally healed and I embraced the ability to move. I ran three 5 ks and one 8k. My friend and I walked/ran 95+ miles in the month of August, in the wee hours of the morning before we had to go to work.
We, as a family, spent great time together. Camping trips in the Santa Ynez mountains and at the Kern River. An awesome house rental in Palm Springs, and resort living in San Diego. Summer was filled with trips to the beach, the water slide park, movies and parks. We experienced the multi-facets of Southern California.
Successfully raising a child is one of life’s greatest rewards. To bear witness to my daughter graduating high school is a huge milestone for me. I am so proud of her. It wasn’t until she finished her first 16 collegiate units that I realized how quickly the next phase of her life, the college years, would pass. My work here is not complete, nor will it ever be. Our boys are quickly aging up too and their perspectives and antics are heartwarming and hand wringing, usually at the same time.
This was my year of fundraising. Or was it my year of baking? A fantastic combination of both. What I learned most, or what was reinforced most from these efforts was the incredible group of friends and coworkers that support me and have major sugar addictions. Thank you. I will keep you supplied.
This year, as a recruiter, I regained footing lost on the slippery slope of the recession. It feels great to have traction, being back in the groove, doing what I love. The icing is that I get to work with awesome people at an amazing company too. The chapter “How to Get a Job” in Augusten Burroughs book, This is How. Any recruiting advice that starts with a dual personality reference to the movie Sybil and the person we become when interviewing is terrific. “The truth is: You are only the person you actually are; you may not may not be the person they actually want.” This is How is one of my favorites and a book everyone should read.
As my boss tells me, with all on my plate, something has to give. He’s right, just don’t tell him I said so. As much as I feel I accomplished this year, the counterbalance is that I didn’t stay on diets I self prescribed, or lose the weight I wanted to lose (with all that mileage you would think…). I didn’t travel to all the places I wanted to go. I could have been a better wife, mother, friend, person, employee, better in all of my roles. My garden could have been better. I still can’t hula hoop. Something does have to give. Figuring out that something every day is the challenge.
Two Thousand Twelve was good to me and my family and we lived life well. For this I am thankful and know we are blessed. Thank you for sharing this year with me.
2012 Reading List
*books I enjoyed
Fiction
- The Book Thief*
- Extremely Loud Incredibly Close*
- The Marriage Plot
- The Art of Fielding*
- 1Q84*
- The Goon Squad
- Tinker Tailor Sodier Spy
- The Paris Wife*
- Against All Enemies
- Bonnie
- Then Again
- The Drop
- The Sense of An Ending
- Private #1 Suspect
- Breakdown
- Believing the Lie
- Raylan
- Death Comes to Pemberly
- Defending Jacob
- Homefront*
- The Summer Garden
- Kill Shot
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
- Dreams of Joy*
- 44 Charles Street
- The 9th Judgment
- Celebrity in Death
- War Horse*
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children*
- Night Road*
- Capture of the Earl of Glencrae
- The Starboard Sea*
- Sacre Bleu*
- Fifty Shades of Grey
- Fifty Shades Darker
- Fifty Shades Freed
- The Fault In Our Stars*
- The Lucky One*
- Calico Joe*
- All There Is*
- State of Wonder*
- Istanbul Passage *
- The Kings of Cool
- Beautiful Ruins*
- Private Games*
- Guilty Wives*
- Bones are Forever*
- The Beautiful Mystery*
- The Night Circus*
- The Next Best Thing*
- The Prisoner of Heaven*
- A Hologram fro the King
- Mission to Paris*
- The Age of Miracles*
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette?*
- Creole Bell*
- The Fallen Angel*
- Shadow of Night*
- The Life of Pi*
- Broken Harbor*
- 3rd Wheel Diary of a Whimpy Kid
- Invention of Hugo Cabret*
- The Timekeeper*
- Zoo
- Notorious Nineteen
- In One Person*
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower*
- Gone Girl*
Non Fiction
- Bossypants*
- Outliers: the story of success*
- Unbroken*
- Heaven is For Real
- Steve Jobs
- Elizabeth the Queen
- The Obamas
- Ameritopia
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts
- The Power of Habit*
- Wild*
- Bringing Up Bebe
- Killing Lincoln*
- Blue Nights
- Full Service
- Take the Stairs*
- Great by Choice*
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*
- Thinking Fast and Slow*
- The 17 Day Diet
- Taking People With You
- Abundance*
- Moneyball
- The Big Short
- Tipping Point*
- I Am A Pole*
- Turn Right at Machu Pichu*
- Pioneer Woman Cooks
- Behind the Beautiful Forevers*
- The 5 Love Languages*
- The Happiness Project*
- Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt*
- I Remember Nothing
- The Vow
- Paris versus New York*
- The Irish Americans
- It Worked for Me
- Cronkite
- Mortality*
- How to Be a Woman
- I Hate Everything Starting with Me
- Yes Chef
- Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness*
- Not Taco Bell Material
- Farther Away*
- A Natural Woman*
- Go the F*** to Sleep*
- American Grown*
- Boomerang
- Blood Bones and Butter*
- The Mobile Wave
- The Amateur
- My Berlin Kitchen*
- Sh*itty Mom
- Moonwalking with Einstein*
- Drift
- Help Thanks Wow*
- America Again
- Along the Way*
- The Grand Design
- Joseph Anton
- F in Exams
- Dearie
- Strength Finders 2.0
- This is How*
- Darth Vader & Son