I’m going on a trip. Around the sun. And guess what – you’re coming too!

This trip – what we call 2012 – is going to be a great one. Chock full of good memories, rich experiences, and adventures! What every good trip needs! I’ve set my intentions for the year and have decided that it will be great. I’m going to do my best to make it so. Every. Single. Day.

In all honestly, my 2010 and 2011 were amazing. In 2010, Scott and I went to Tahiti and he proposed! We then spent a feverish three months planning our wedding. 2011 played host to our wedding (amazing!), road trips galore, our first music festival. We even hosted our very first Thanksgiving!

All-in-all everything was awesome. But I have this nagging little voice telling me that I haven’t been being honest with myself. We did so much. We did so much. But I personally feel like I didn’t take the time to savor any of it. I have this tendency to always look forward and forget what’s laying in my lap! I have this tendency to over-plan. Everything.

It’s so easy to get caught up on the shoulds. Those nasty litle things have no place in my life (I’m working on it), but there’s something to be heard in their whispers. Because they tell us what feels wrong, what needs adjusting.

I know it as much as the next person – New Year’s resolutions fade quickly. It’s hard to keep your eye on the prize, because when it all comes down nothing really changes just because we’ve encountered another January 1. I wanted to form a resolution; I wanted to choose a word for the year; I wanted to have something concrete to aim for. How else was I going to conquer the world and still have time to make a meal plan for the week?

That’s just the thing; it’s a ridiculous idea to put so much pressure on oneself. Especially considering how easy it is to fail. So, it’s become apparent to me after the rush of the holidays has torn apart my once-methodically clean home. After I relaxed for two weekends in a row (mostly…). This trip around the sun is going to be magnificent and filled to bursting, but mostly…mostly this trip is going to be SIMPLE, no pressure, and as-it-happens.

Tahiti was a BLAST! Scott and I both came back tattooed…and engaged! Here’s a sneak peak to tide you over…

I’ve decided to train for a half-marathon next year. Although, so far the road has been rough. With my knee surgery 6 months ago, I can barely stand a jog right now. It doesn’t help that I fell last week on both knees, while running. I may have to delay my plans, but I’ll keep pushing where I CAN.

Easy as Pie Graphics and Copy is in the works. I am in my final week of entrepreneurship classes (well, one round of classes…) and ready to launch my web site!

More on all of this AND MORE to follow. Can’t wait!

Just feeding her storm
That want to incinerate
Everything into gray, charred to ash

Such a destructive twist, it
Spins within her, only
Held in check by its own limits

These strings are so binding
Defiant but defeated, we endure our own microcosmic hell
Digressing into redundancy

Hoping the embers hold enough heat
To draw fresh conclusions
Or at the very least
Comfort from the twist

But it’s temporary
You know
I just can’t live
Without that playful, dark little twist.

I feel like I’m finally on-track with a FEW things in my life. School has been steered in the direction of entrepreneurship, so I can get Easy As Pie going full steam ahead! The dogs are finally getting along. My new car is much more reliable than the old one. Need stronger friendships/relationships in general, more time to play guitar, and I will be SET.

And…now…even more exciting than seeing the Alamo and the Riverwalk in San Antonio…WE’RE GOING TO TAHITI! I am so psyched about it. We’re going to have over-water bungalow with a glass floor to see the ocean beneath. I cannot wait to go, but really need to kick it in the butt to wear a two-piece. I only have a month!

The grief inside becomes just an ache as I
Pull on my face for you, as I
Breathe in this same stale air.
Our lungs have been drenched in it.

All the same.
Oh so dull.

The fed-up feeling
That tugs at my core.
Screaming for fresh blood, new scenery,
A fleeting landscape as we sail across miles. Away.

It all stays the same, but
This tears and it wretches
Gashing new holes, attempting to part ways.

Every day a series of disappointing
Unstimulating decay.
So secure and so safe.
But is security satisfaction?

It can’t stay the same.
I rip it apart myself.

And the trail of destruction is the most obscenely,
Deliciously different thing I have ever torn from within.

http://www.latentsmile.wordpress.com

That’s the title of the book sitting next to me on my bed. It was a Christmas gift from my mom two years ago. I’ve never been a big fan of self-help/support, optimism-type books, but since I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and a bit down lately I’m going to give it a fair shot. She did recommend it, and mother always knows best.

Plus, having a book sitting on your shelf for two years unread is just a CRIME! 150 pages…I’ll knock it out in the next day or so. Review and opinions to follow.

UPDATE: Book has not been read as of 02-03-2010. Like so many other things I begin, this ‘project’ has been overwhelmed by the other various activities in my life. If I don’t have it read before Tahiti, I’m taking it with me and reading it on the flight…with about 10 other books.

They push and they pull. They work with and against each other. They lure us this way and that. Then, as soon as we’re sure we’ve caught the one we want to pursue, it slips back into its own realm; airy, immaterial, difficult to grasp. Hard to see. Near-impossible to defend our prior convictions for.

How to run after the dream that keeps shapeshifting?

Am I a/an…teacher? writer? artist? photographer? production mouse? cook? driver? librarian? editor? poet? musician? success?

But honestly, there are some really good pictures. There’s a lot of potential on these drives. Harking back to January 4, when we got the foosball table from my mother which we STILL haven’t used…I remember that deep down, my favorite photos are always the ones getting their blur on…

After a term of classes, I’ve grown less sure about becoming a teacher – and so I’m taking next term completely off. This means you may see more of me. I could continue to push forward and finish my generals, but don’t see the point until I know where I’m headed, or what I even enjoy. Yes, it has gotten that bad – I don’t even know what I like to do anymore.

Anyone who reads my blog, I appreciate it so much. And I hope you will wait out the storm and bear with me until I find my voice again. Eventually, I will write something interesting again – maybe sooner than I think.

Recently I’ve thought more and more about what is “okay” for my life. I had a goal when I moved to Omaha: I wouldn’t stay longer than five years. Well, now that Scott and I have bought a house here, it seems logical that I would have reconsidered that awhile ago – but, no. It just hit me suddenly again – I didn’t want to be here this long; what am I still doing here? At one point in my life, I realized that it didn’t matter so much where you were, as long as you were happy with your life there. I still feel this to be true. Maybe I’m just antsy and anxious for change (well, duh…I am über excited about teaching!). I still feel like I’m too young to be starting my fifth year at my job, too young to be paying for my own house, too young to feel, bottom-line, this unhappy. Just a self-reflection, I guess.

I can’t wait to show you what I’m making my co-workers for Valentine’s day. I hope they’ll love ‘em.