multi-hyphenated-me

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

1. The Book Thief*
2. Extremely Loud Incredibly Close*
3. The Marriage Plot
4. The Art of Fielding*
5. 1Q84*
6. The Goon Squad
7. Tinker Tailor Sodier Spy
8. The Paris Wife*
9. Against All Enemies
10. Bonnie
11. Then Again
12. The Drop
13. The Sense of An Ending
14. Private #1 Suspect
15. Breakdown
16. Believing the Lie
17. Raylan
18. Death Comes to Pemberly
19. Defending Jacob
20. Homefront*
21. The Summer Garden
22. Kill Shot
23. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
24. Dreams of Joy*
25. 44 Charles Street
26. The 9th Judgment
27. Celebrity in Death
28. War Horse*
29. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children*
30. Night Road*
31. Capture of the Earl of Glencrae
32. The Starboard Sea*
33. Sacre Bleu*
34. Fifty Shades of Grey
35. Fifty Shades Darker
36. Fifty Shades Freed
37. The Fault In Our Stars*
38. The Lucky One*
39. Calico Joe*
40. All There Is*
41. State of Wonder*
42. Istanbul Passage *
43. The Kings of Cool
44. Beautiful Ruins*
45. Private Games*
46. Guilty Wives*
47. Bones are Forever*
48. The Beautiful Mystery*
49. The Night Circus*
50. The Next Best Thing*
51. The Prisoner of Heaven*
52. A Hologram fro the King
53. Mission to Paris*
54. The Age of Miracles*
55. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?*
56. Creole Bell*
57. The Fallen Angel*
58. Shadow of Night*
59. The Life of Pi*
60. Broken Harbor*
61. 3rd Wheel Diary of a Whimpy Kid
62. Invention of Hugo Cabret*
63. The Timekeeper*
64. Zoo
65. Notorious Nineteen
66. In One Person*
67. The Perks of Being a Wallflower*
68. Gone Girl*

Non Fiction

1. Bossypants*
2. Outliers: the story of success*
3. Unbroken*
4. Heaven is For Real
5. Steve Jobs
6. Elizabeth the Queen
7. The Obamas
8. Ameritopia
9. Quiet: The Power of Introverts
10. The Power of Habit*
11. Wild*
12. Bringing Up Bebe
13. Killing Lincoln*
14. Blue Nights
15. Full Service
16. Take the Stairs*
17. Great by Choice*
18. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*
19. Thinking Fast and Slow*
20. The 17 Day Diet
21. Taking People With You
22. Abundance*
23. Moneyball
24. The Big Short
25. Tipping Point*
26. I Am A Pole*
27. Turn Right at Machu Pichu*
28. Pioneer Woman Cooks
29. Behind the Beautiful Forevers*
30. The 5 Love Languages*
31. The Happiness Project*
32. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt*
33. I Remember Nothing
34. The Vow
35. Paris versus New York*
36. The Irish Americans
37. It Worked for Me
38. Cronkite
39. Mortality*
40.  How to Be a Woman
41. I Hate Everything Starting with Me
42. Yes Chef
43. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness*
44. Not Taco Bell Material
45. Farther Away*
46. A Natural Woman*
47. Go the F*** to Sleep*
48. American Grown*
49. Boomerang
50. Blood Bones and Butter*
51. The Mobile Wave
52. The Amateur
53. My Berlin Kitchen*
54. Sh*itty Mom
55. Moonwalking with Einstein*
56. Drift
57. Help Thanks Wow*
58. America Again
59. Along the Way*
60. The Grand Design
61. Joseph Anton
62. F in Exams
63. Dearie
64. Strength Finders 2.0
65. This is How*
66. Darth Vader & Son