2012 here I come.

I am surrounded by incredibly intelligent, motivated and talented people.  It can be a little daunting at times but mostly it's just inspiring and I find it drives me to be a better person.

Today I came across one of my sister's blog postings on Facebook.  It's about New Year's resolutions and how she would prefer to set goals for herself.  Her goals for the year made me pause and think about the things that I wanted for myself.

2011 proved to be an interesting year with many challenges, the most difficult of which was mourning the loss of my father who passed away unexpectedly near the end of 2010.  It took me over 4 months to not cry into my pillow every night before I went to sleep.  After that, it was another couple months of thinking about him every day and feeling the loss.  Then as the anniversary of his death came soon after Mason's 3rd birthday I fell into a dark time where the very idea that he no longer existed was something that I couldn't comprehend (this was also around the time that my blogging took an unexpected hiatus, my exercising came to a halt and everything other than my family and DH's work simply stopped happening).  In fact, one day I was driving and a man in a truck bore so many physical similarities to my Dad that it took me a couple minutes to stop seeing my father behind the windshield and recognize that it was someone else.  I can't fully explain how odd and difficult a time it was, but I worked very hard to not fall into a deep depression at that point.

I think for the most part of the last year I kept myself busy and focused on my little ones to keep the sadness from consuming my days.  In part this ended up being a blessing but I think it also prolongated the grieving process.

On the flip side, the need to keep myself busy led me to create this blog which opened my eyes to something I love to do.  Create, share, and (hopefully) inspire.

I love that this blog has given my projects a purpose (not that why I was doing things in the first place wasn't pupose enough!) and has motivated me to really delve into my creative self.  It's a part of me that I hadn't given much time to in the last ten years or so and it's nice to have it back.

My goal for this year is simple, to focus on what makes me feel happy with who I am. 

I have a feeling that 2012 is going to be a very good year.

Happy New Year!

- Jacs