Monday, December 31, 2012

2012: Year in Review

January: I posted about my book reading goals for the year and complained about how hot Sydney was. Oh, the irony!

February:  We went to Japan, where we skied, visited many cultural sites, stayed in a Japanese guest house, and pretended we were ninjas. I continued my reading plans.

March: I didn't post anything in March, I think because I was too busy applying for jobs!

April: Ethan and I took our last major trip in Australia to Uluru (Ayer's Rock). We saw a dingo, but no babies were stolen.

May:   I announced that we were returning to the States, but I didn't yet have a job. I pondered the future of the blog. I also posted my spider stories from Australia. I do not miss the giant creepy crawlies one bit!

June:  We returned to the U.S. I was surprised to find that Alaska hadn't changed much. By this time, I'd gotten my new job at the National Weather Service Alaska Regional Headquarters.

July:  We visited our good friends Heidi and Dan and lived "off the grid" for about a week. I missed having running water a lot. I also lost my camera cord.

August:  I visited my family in Florida and Virginia. I saw an armadillo and manatees. We started looking for houses, and I started my new job. Signs of fall started appearing in the end of August. And I got a new phone, so pictures started appearing again. Ethan and I went hiking with our friend Robin.

September: We visited Chicago over Labor Day weekend, where I stuffed myself silly and saw my favorite paintings in the art museum. I read a really terrible book and laughed about it. We got termination dust on the mountains.I started my watercolor class and shared my first paintings with you. I updated you on my reading list. And we finally got our stuff!

October:  We started playing board games with our friend Robin. I saw the Aurora for the first time since I'd been back and managed to actually get a picture of it. I shared my continued artistic attempts. I posted about Hurricane Sandy.

November:  another month with no posts, because we were too busy moving into our new house!

December: We had an earthquake, which merited a post about the '64 Alaska quake.

Honestly, this year was pretty stressful for us, both good and bad stress. I was trying to be positive the whole time, so I didn't post about a lot of things. I'll summarize what all happened:

We moved internationally
I changed jobs -- with much uncertainty, as one job was ending and I didn't have another lined up for quite a while
Ethan's mother remarried rather unexpectedly
We bought a house, but in the meantime we lived in a "temporary" situation for 5 months
We bought a new car
My sister had a healthy baby girl, although she had health concerns as she reached the end of pregnancy
Ethan's sister in law had a kidney removed due to a cancerous tumor, with positive results

Anyway, that's why I've been pretty sporadic posting this year. At one point, I was attempting to post once a week, which went well until we moved into our new house and my priorities changed quite a bit. I'm hoping that now that we're settled in, I can get into more of a routine again. And, I'm also hoping that 2013 is a much calmer year!

I wish you all a happy and healthy 2013!

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