"Hello 2012"...

Photo taken on Christmas Day Eve after the Thunderstorms...

A new Year has commenced... 'thankfully'...

At the tail end of several months of many commitments  in 2011, I had to really dig deep to get through that last week of school and Christmas commitments. Regardless the end of year festivities were an amazing ride with a couple of tough decisions made to not accept all invitations due to self preservation.

Unusually our end of year seemed to start in October with several birthday celebrations, most importantly my partner's 40th, which really was a week long celebration of dinner, drinks including an overnight stay in the city. Since then we have had more fortieths, not so typical every year! We also had the start of the school commitments, with prep orientation for my daughter, school fete, end of year concerts, parties for school, Kindergarten and childcare. In between, friends birthday parties, annual friends Christmas party, annual picnics. The list was varied and long and you can see why you wouldn't try to attend everything, I'm am tired just thinking of it!!!

However, we managed to get through most of these commitments and finished of the year with me almost a physical wreck, more on that sound topic later!

So having waved "goodbye" to 2011 and in a very mellow fashion said "Hello"' to 2012, the annual major life changing decisions made (Ahh ha ha), My chosen word for the year made (will write about this next post) and maybe a couple of realistic goals for 2011, I feel I may have some attainable lists to tick off.

Otherwise we are spending the Christmas/School Holidays in Melbourne, apparently this is know as a 'Staycation', with no expectations of going away, we will look forward to revisiting some favourite places and rediscovering new ones!
 
So Happy New Year for 2012, it is certainly proving it will be a roller coaster ride on many levels and on that note and inspired by the following scene from the movie Parenthood, I leave you with the words of wisdom from Grandma...

Grandma: You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster.
Gil: Oh?
Grandma: Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride!
Gil: What a great story.
Grandma: I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.