So here’s the thing.

I’m going back to work today after almost 4 weeks of leave.

I really don’t have the words to describe how I feel about this, so please watch this video instead.

Hold me.

One of my favourite parts of New Years Eve is filling out this meme.  It’s such a great way to reflect on the past year – good and bad – and make plans to make the next year even better.  I’d love to read your answers too so please leave yours in the comments if you’d like to play along!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Threw myself into art in a big, big way!  I’ve always been interested, but I’ve never been very good at drawing and painting.  My classes at Melbourne Studio of Art have been really exciting.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t think I had any new years resolutions for this year.  Tomorrow I will begin a brand new 101 Things in 1001 Days list, so I think that takes care of resolutions for the next few years!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
We welcomed two tiny babies into the family this year – Archie and Harrison.  My cousins are very good at growing cute babies!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
We lost our beautiful Gran in March this year.  Missing her very, very much,

5. What countries did you visit?
I didn’t travel at all this year, unless quick trips to Brisbane count.  We’re planning to visit the US next September and spend some time with Tim’s family.  Can’t wait!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Fitness.  This will be a major theme of my 2012.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The birth dates of my cousins’ two new bubbies.  Their arrivals came at a time when our family needed a great big smile!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
2011 was a year for supporting other people.  Big things were happening to the people around me this year, and it was my job to help them through it as much as I could.  I’m proud of myself for taking a back seat, and not letting it all get me down.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I was much fitter at the beginning of the year than I am right now!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I have an ankle injury which thwarted my latest attempt at Couch to 5K.  I should probably see somebody about that, since it’s been bugging me for about 10 weeks now.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My MacBook Air is basically the greatest thing I own.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
When I am Prime Minister there will be a national day of celebration dedicated to Tim.  He was dealt a really crappy hand at the beginning of this year when he lost his job, and finding a new one wasn’t easy.  I’m extremely proud of him for persevering and not taking the first crappy job that he was offered.  He ended up being hired by an excellent company who seem to value him, and he works with a great group of people.  Blessing in disguise!

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
There have been some terrible things said and done by conservative Republicans in the USA this year.  It’s like a terrible movie that you can’t turn off.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, bills, food.  And art supplies – my new addiction for which I hope there is no cure.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Painting!  Before I started art classes I thought I wanted to learn how to draw, and I’m getting there.  But drawing with paint is my new favourite thing.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

This incredible songwriter, this incredible voice.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?
a) Despite the upheavals, happier.
b) I think we covered this already!
c) Richer, in every sense.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I’d spent more time on creative endeavours. 2011 was a very creative year for me, but I’m not very disciplined at practising in my own time.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
I wish I’d had fewer late nights, and fewer braindead days at work.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Christmas Day was spent with my Mum & Dad, who are staying with us for a couple of weeks.  I shared some photos of our little Christmas a couple of days ago.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Yeah.  He’s tall and funny looking and he has the biggest brown eyes <3

22. What was your favourite TV program?
We discovered (and obsessed over) a few great shows this year.  Community and Breaking Bad were my favourites.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t think I hate anybody.

24. What was the best book you read?
Most of the books I read this year were related to the study I’m doing.  And I don’t recommend them, they’re pretty dry!

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Civil Wars, First Aid Kit, Emma Louise, The Tallest Man on Earth, Husky 

26. What did you want and get?
A laptop.  New couches!  I am using both of them right now.

(… no, I’m not using both couches.  You know what I mean!)

27. What did you want and not get?
Time travel?  I don’t know, I’m pretty lucky to have what I’ve got.

28. What was your favourite film of this year?
I loved The King’s Speech and Thor.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I had a strange birthday this year.  I turned 31, and Tim was on the other side of the world.  My friends and family spoiled me to make up for his absence and Tim had a beautiful bunch of roses delivered to me at work.  It was good to see him again the following week!

Also, because my birthday falls on St Patrick’s Day there was green beer.  Obviously.

30. What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Tim and Harry, my partners in crime.  I love coming home to our house and my boys.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I suppose I was a little more interested in colour this year, but I still wore the black Melbourne uniform most of the time!  I nurtured my girly side a little more and took more interest in makeup and nailpolish.

32. What kept you sane?
My nearest and dearest.  They know who they are, and I’d have been lost without them this year!

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Nobody famous rocked my world this year.  Gillard dropped a few rungs on the ladder, but Abbott fell off the ladder completely.  I’d appreciate it if Tony Abbott would give up ladders entirely, figuratively speaking.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Australia’s appalling policies and track record with regard to asylum seekers.  Equally, the actions of human traffickers and bogan Australians who think that refugees who arrive by boat are terrorists and/or queue-jumpers.  If you believe this rhetoric, you’re wrong.

Australia signed an agreement to grant asylum to refugees and we are not meeting our obligations.  Our government should be developing policies which will save the lives of desperate people, not pander to the racist and ignorant opinions of voters.

I’ll stop now.

35. Who did you miss?
I’ve been missing Gran & Grandpa.  And wishing I’d asked them more questions while they were still here.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
I made a couple of new friends at work this year, and they’ve become really good mates.  My friend Kentucky (who has a real name that I never use) is pretty rad too!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
2011 was a really difficult year in many ways.  Gran passed away, my Mum’s health deteriorated suddenly and Tim lost his job when they decided to cut his whole department.  It should have been a terrible year, but I’m proud of the way that we were able to turn it around.  Mum is on the mend, Tim found a new (better!) job before we ran out of cash, and I think our whole family is closer as a result of the upheavals we’ve had.

I suppose the lesson I take away from this is that which does not kill us makes us stronger.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

You can keep me grounded
Keep me on my toes
I’ll always be chasing you
Wherever you may go
And if you slip ahead
And break away from us
Don’t run out of sight
I just might not catch up

But I won’t let that happen
Not while we’re having fun
You can be the runner
I can be the gun

- Biding My Time (Busby Marou)

Whew!  What a month this has been.

Our little Christmas was perfect, but just a few days later it’s hard to believe that it’s all over!  This month has been full of preparations – not only for Christmas Day itself, but for the enormous party that we threw for our extended Melbourne family on December 23.  Plans for our outdoor candlelit dinner party were thrown into disarray at the last minute when the forecast mentioned thunderstorms and a heatwave, so we quickly sourced some trestle tables and turned our living room into a Christmas wonderland instead.

But, in true Melbourne style the forecast wasn’t correct.  There were no thunderstorms that night, although they would have been very welcome to break the sticky humidity!  It didn’t really matter though, we still had a lovely meal in front of the airconditioner and it was a really happy night.  My cousin broke some exciting news too, so there was an extra reason to celebrate (although she had to toast with a glass of water!)

Once the happy chaos of the big family dinner was behind us things were a lot more relaxed.  We celebrated Christmas Day with my parents, who are staying with us for 2 weeks, and it was such a perfect day.  We all had a great sleep-in, I made breakfast, and while we opened our presents we had phone calls from my brother in London, my grandmother in Brisbane, and Tim’s family in the States.  The presents were thoughtful and it was great to have our little group together.

I had hoped to be writing here more while my parents are in town, but I’m finding that I’m enjoying having them around too much to spend time on my computer!  We’ve been doing lots of shopping, day tripping, eating and catching up on each others’ lives.  Dad has been doing odd jobs around the house that we have ignored (hooray!) and the furmonster has been desperately trying to track the movements of the extra two members of the household.

It’s all very exhausting, but it’s lovely.

Aside from all of the festivities I’ve also been thinking a lot about next year, and making some plans. One of my big projects will be another round of 101 Things in 1001 Days and I am working very hard to complete my list before January 1! I’m going to have a section of my site devoted to my new list, but it might be a few weeks before I will find time to build it. My 1001 Days begins next week though, eek!

Anyway, it feels good to have checked in here and to share some news. My parents are here for another 8 days, and then my little cousin arrives with her tiny baby for a week-long visit! So excited about meeting baby Archie and kissing those chubby cheeks of his. Also? Look out Chapel St, my cousin is on a mission and that girl intends to SHOP.

I hope your Christmas has been as wonderful as ours!

Whoops.

I didn’t actually mean to drop off the radar.  It’s been really strange to have a few days away from the blog, since I’ve been posting almost daily for a couple of months now.  Strange, but (dare I say it?) good to take a little breather.

It all began on Tuesday, which was a really frantic day at work.  My little car drove me home (it always seems to know the way!) and after saying hello to the dog I basically faceplanted the bed and fell asleep.  In my work clothes.

I stayed that way until my alarm went off, twelve hours later.

So I’m trying to be a little bit kinder to myself this week.  I’m giving myself some space to enjoy wrapping the Christmas presents and figuring out the menu for the massive Christmas feast we’re hosting for our extended family.  I’m getting the house ready for 3 weeks of guests, so that I don’t end up leaving everything until the last minute.  I’m making donation piles of “stuff” that we don’t need (where does it all come from?) and trying to simplify.

I’m making lists, and I’m even crossing stuff off them!

The final week of photos for the 30 Day Photo Challenge would have been little more than throwaway snapshots if I had kept going this week, and I’m enjoying the challenge too much to waste it on uninspired shots.  So I’ll be returning to it as soon as I have some of the things on my to-do list under control, when I am able to give it my full attention again.

How are you coping with the Christmas/end-of-year madness?

Today’s drive to work was a little bit unusual, thanks to my my big, heavy camera sitting beside me on the passenger seat.  The theme of Day 18 in the 30 Day Photo Challenge was journey to work, and I really wasn’t sure how I was going to safely operate my manual transmission car and a DSLR at the same time.  Obviously, I only took photos when the car was completely still (and the handbrake was on) but I was still a bit worried that I’d see flashing lights in my rear view mirror!

Fortunately it was a beautifully gloomy, wet drive to work today which made for some lovely moody photos.  I was even lucky enough to spot my last Movember tram for 2011 on the last day of the month!  I will miss that big moustache, and the smiles that it put on the faces of my fellow commuters.  Such a great idea.

All of my photos turned out pretty well, but my favourite is below.

Day 15 in the 30 Day Photo Challenge is Technology.

I am quite sure that our leading innovators of computing and telecommunications technology had other things in mind when they came up with their inventions.  Like, for example, curing cancer.  They almost certainly did not develop their genius so that I could blog, RSS and tweet simultaneously from my bed.

But I’m glad they did.

We’re totally living in the future, by the way.

(This ridiculous scene was set up for the sake of today’s photo.  I usually make it a policy to only use two idevices at any one time…)

Today was sponsored by Kleenex, Blackmores vitamins, and especially pseudoephedrine.  Science, you are the BEST.

I realise that I’ve been complaining about  being sick here for more than a week, and that’s really boring.  I had a couple of good days over the weekend, but for the most part I’ve been miserable and snotty and cranky for ten days straight.  I can handle most things, but as soon as my watery eyes start to ruin my mascara the bottom falls RIGHT out of my world and that’s how innocent people die, Your Honour!

Forcing myself to go to work this week has absolutely prolonged my illness.  I wish there’d been a way for me to stay home for a few days, but in my job a day off work only makes things harder when you go back.  One more day, then I can fall in a heap and work on recovering.

Anyway, the point of all of this complaining is also the theme of Day 12 in the 30 Day Photo Challenge – Someone you love.  That boy of mine has been taking such good care of me – cooking, cleaning up, feeding me vitamin C and putting me to bed when I hit the wall.  When I fall asleep with the lights on he covers me up and rescues my laptop before it gets dropped on the floor.  In the morning he makes up funny lies about my snoring (as if!) and makes me an extra strong coffee for my drive to work.

He’s my favourite boy, and I’m a very lucky girl for finding him.

I think I’ll keep him.

I have possibly bitten off more than I can chew.

In addition to having a fulltime job (which, by the way, is totally breaking my brain at the moment) I seem to have committed myself to about a thousand other things.  I’m studying for a Diploma through work, taking a Saturday art class, and I’m also signed up for two e-courses which are running concurrently for the next couple of months.  I’m doing NaBloPoMo and the 30 Day Photo Challenge, and since I’m a terrible perfectionist I’m trying to do everything as well as I possibly can.

(Oh, plus that little thing called Christmas that’s coming up!  We’re hosting dinner for 10, and gearing up for having house guests for 3 weeks.  Lots to do!)

This post isn’t about seeing the error of my ways, though.  I thrive on having too much to do, especially when so many of the things on my “to do” list are fuelling my creative juices!  Tonight I came home from work with a heavy head cold, desperate to fall into a coma for 12 hours.  But instead I did a little watercolour drawing, I took my photo for the 30 Day Photo Challenge (which, I’ll admit, is just a snapshot this time) and wrote this blog post so that I didn’t miss any of my deadlines.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up wishing that I’d gone to bed early, but I’ll also be happy that I did something towards all of my little creative endeavours.

(You know.  Once I’ve had my first two cups of coffee.)

A quick and dirty snapshot of The view from my (living room) window for Day 10 of the 30 Day Photo Challenge.

And… goodnight!

Day 8 of the 30 Day Photo Challenge is Morning routine.  These are the makeup items that I use every single day – sometimes while driving.  (Except for my hair straightener – that would be irresponsible!)

Here’s what I use:

Primer:
Smashbox Photo Finish Light (revolutionary!)

Foundation:
M.A.C Studio Finish (NW20)

Blush:
Gorgeous Cosmetics (rhubarb – I’m obsessed with this colour)

Eyeshadow:
Gorgeous Cosmetics (colour not labelled, grr! It’s THE best coppery brown for blue eyes).
Model Co (Jamaica)

Eyeliner:
Gorgeous Cosmetics eye pencil (black jack)

Mascara:
Lancome Hypnose Drama (still searching for the perfect mascara, but this is really good)

Lipstick:
M.A.C craving (a deep rose colour, nice and natural)
M.A.C lickable (an amazing blue pink)
M.A.C ruby woo (bright fire engine red)
Shiseido RD516 (an easier-to-wear bright red)

I also use Moroccan Oil before straightening my hair, and that stuff has changed my life.  I was skeptical at first, but my hair is in far better condition now having used it each day for the past few months.

All these products look a bit overwhelming in list form, but it only takes me a few minutes to throw it all on and run out the door.

It takes a lot of products to look this natural!

Day 6 of the 30 Day Photo Challenge is Breakfast.  Here’s what I ate this morning – Vegemite toast and my first coffee of the day.

Dark chocolate espresso, you guys.  That’s the stuff.