the list of now

Happy last day of January. It’s around now when people are making their jokes about how only a few short weeks ago, they made resolutions that are now getting abandoned, forgotten or given up.

This year, just for fun on New Year’s Day, I tweeted random resolutions off the top of my head. My goals and somewhat silly vows ended up being more of a mini-bucket list than anything having to do with commitment, resolve or discipline.

This is my 2012 bucket list:

- Drink more whiskey in 2012. Since discovering hendrick’s gin, I’ve been neglecting all the whiskey that needs drinking.
- Spend a night on a boat
- Write (draw) a short webcomic.
- Read a novel in Italian
- Learn how to knit socks.
- Talk to my cats more.
- Learn to play top five Springsteen songs on the ukulele.
- Go on a rollercoaster.

So these are all good, and I fully plan on achieving them. I’m excited about achieving them. There is a bit of quality of life improvement, a bit of “I’d be proud to be able to do that” and a bit of “stuff I want to get around to doing”.

However…

If I’m being super honest with myself, there isn’t a hell of a lot of deep reflective challenge going on here.

So here it the part about resolve. It’s taken me all of January to figure out what I really want from my year. What I really want to push myself to change.

I’m terrible about starting things, too many projects, well-intentioned ideas and sometimes even great things that I care about a lot  — and then for whatever reason, not finishing.

If I’m being honest with myself, that is my one real resolution for 2012:  To stop being the person who begins and doesn’t follow-through. My simple steps to change this are:

- To finish the projects that I have started (the ones that really matter).
- Let go of, abandon or table the things that are not priority.
- Don’t start anything new that I can’t, or realistically won’t finish.

and perhaps most importantly, telling myself:

- Shut up and just get to work now.

Oh hi, middle of January. It was time to do this 3 weeks ago. Alas, I had some priority issues over the past month – this blog being one of the things that had to go hang out on the back burner for a while.

So here’s my list of highlights from 2011:

Books

Music
Some of these are albums and tunes I revisited this year, some are ones I discovered this year.  Most were not new releases from 2011.  Click albums to launch on spotify, the individual songs I listened to are all playable in that handy widget guy.

Albums

Songs

(in totally random order)

Movies
I didn’t see as many movies as I would have liked to this year. And I didn’t keep track of the older ones I watched (there were a lot of dvds from the library, netflix and hulu streaming this year).  Here is a handful of movies from this year that I really enjoyed. I will do better keeping track in 2012.

loving right now:

-chai
- music by Ólafur Arnalds
- scavenging people’s “best of ” lists for 2011 for great music, movies, and books that I missed.
- the books The Wave by Susan Casey, Graceling by Kristin Cashore
- watching American Pickers with Darcy and scheming to go roadtripping/antiquing/flea market scrounging sometime
- the kindle fire (an unexpected holiday gift this year)
- brussel sprouts, soup, risotto and all citrus fruits
- David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Rooney Mara’s interpretation of Lisbeth.
- still having christmas lights up in our house
- new (paper) journal and sketchbooks.
- a positive resolution for our lemon car nightmare. it’s almost over.
- ginger spice, my ukulele.
- dying my hair nearly-black. I think I’m going to go with this for a while. I like it.

on the horizon:
- A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Marting. And maybe I’ll get around to watching the Game of Thrones tv series
- reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close before I can go see the movie
- still want to see The Artist, The Descendents, the new Muppet movie, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Shame, Pina and a bunch of arthouse stuff that takes a long time to get to Rhode Island.
- wondering if I have time to make Valentine’s Cards for the shop? am I too late?
- Skins 6 is starting soon
- finding a good (safe, reasonably cheap and in decent condition) used car so that our schedule can go back to normal instead of being a mess of ride-sharing and long car trips back a forth to get both of us to work.
- learning to knit socks before the winter is over.

The first weekend of November we had a mini-roadtrip to the Cape with our friend Kate. I have been meaning to write about it, here I am in December just getting around to sitting down and collecting my thoughts.

It was only a short weekend and only a couple hours from our house, but it felt like a delightful little vacation. It was one of those special times where just everything fits. We picked a little Inn online, just from the website, reviews and the fact that we could bring Max with us! We left after work on Friday, stopped to pick up groceries for dinner on the way and drove into the main stretch of Provincetown around 9pm, not knowing really what to expect.

It´s SO lovely. I´m a ¨seaside town¨ kind of person anyway, but this was BEYOND. I could not get over how adorable the town was and when we arrived at the Inn, it was just surreal. This is the main reason why I feel the need to write about this trip, where we stayed is pretty much responsible for how special the entire weekend felt for us.  Gabriel´s at the Ashbrooke Inn is really an incredible place. For three of us and one dog we stayed in a suite that was really more of a little apartment. Kate had her own bedroom with a door for privacy, we stayed in the open main room with a couch, fireplace and efficiency kitchen and a little bedroom nook. There were two bathrooms and flat screen tvs in the main room and each of the bedroom areas.  So first off, this was perfect space-wise and affordable.  There was even a dog bed and treats in the room for Max!

The Inn is a few buildings with a garden courtyard in the middle, which has beautiful landscaping decks and patio levels everywhere and lights in the trees and lining the paths. (the photo above is the entrance-way). At night when we arrived, the lights everywhere were warm, welcoming and provided comfort  and safety. I took Max out for a walk around midnight and it was so nice to not feel creeped-out by darkness and an unfamiliar place. It was peaceful and glowing.

With our room rate we also had breakfast included and were expecting kind of a (nice, but basic) continental breakfast. Again… it was BEYOND. Omlettes and Waffles to order, cereal, yogurt, croissants, muffins, juice, good coffee and tea, alternatives to dairy included soy and almond milk (like, for real? amazing.). All served in a totally cozy great room area, again with a fireplace and couches and books, dvds, and boardgames available for guests.  If we had hit a rainy day, they would have had to roll me out of there, because I would have been curled up on the couch, drinking that coffee and watching The Wire all day (they had the dvd sets!).  The owners (Elizabeth and Elizabeth) were around at breakfast to chat with and they are delightful ladies! They recommended a place for us to go for dinner that was really excellent and were just so absolutely helpful and friendly all the time (as was everyone we encountered who works there).  The Inn is also phenomenally located. We parked once and walked everywhere all weekend.

So that was where we stayed, but more about Provincetown… We wished we had more time to just walk, hike out to the point and peruse all the local art, because there was a lot of it. We wandered around and peered in windows of galleries for a while.

The have one of the best dog parks that I´ve ever seen. It´s massive, well-designed and maintained. This is definitely a community of dog-owners and it shows. Before we got Max, I never noticed and appreciated these things, but now it´s so obvious when we travel with him. Trash bins everywhere in parks and on the street, free dog bags and the park. Awesome.

We also stopped in to Coastline Tattoo so that Kate could get her second tattoo. It was a really laid-back, nice shop. I really liked it there. We were hanging out for a while the artist was working with Kate and the music was just kicking-ass. Tom Waits, William Elliott Whitmore, the Pogues… I don´t even remember what else, but it was just all kinds of good. So I finally complimented them and they told me they just had Pandora on, the station was based on Gogol Bordello. And this made sense.  I looked through a lot of their books while we were there and I think I really want to go there to get my next two (maybe more) pieces done.

We have plans to go back in April. Hopefully we will take a day off or something so that we can have more time there. Cannot. Wait.

November has been wonderful to me.  I had wanted to write this list last week before Thanksgiving, but here I am already looking at Christmas lights. So before I get all swept up in December, I figured I should reflect a bit before moving on.

- The first Thanksgiving in years that actually felt like a celebration.
- New opportunities. I have some consistent freelance blogging going on. Darcy and I are going to be managing a website today. And she is starting a really phenomenal new job next week.
- New developments for many people I care about. It feels like one of those time periods where everything is shifting around and people are beginning new eras in their  lives.  I’m seeing lots of people making really beautiful things happen.
- Being on the mend. I had a little relapse with my back at the beginning of the month, but it’s been all improvement and lessening pain since then.
- Productivity. I’m always really inspired in the Fall and it is the good kind of busy. Writing a lot. Designing holiday cards. More and more ideas.
- Cozying up to when I get to listen to Christmas music and watch all my favorite cheesy holiday comfort movies.
- Planning gifts and making all my usual candies and treats for people.
- The chill in the air. I know by February I will be officially sick of Winter, but I have really been relishing the few cold days lately and wanting more.