Happy New Year!

Transition.
If I were to describe 2011 in one word, it would be transition. It was one of the best years and the worst years of my life and I am ready to say good-bye.
2011 taught me that God is not interested in religion but a deep genuine head-over-heels love relationship with us, although I am still not sure what this looks like. And through this lesson, like so many other years, the hardest thing I had to do was to TRUST. Trust God. Trust my husband. Trust myself as we packed up our home and moved our vulnerable little family thousands of miles around the globe to a little town called Cambridge.

2011, however, also brought inspiration. I found an outlet through photography and I am proud of how far Audrey and I have come in the last year. I found peace as I took time – time I have not known in the last three years to enjoy the little things, drink coffee, walk with no agenda and grow relationships with my husband, my son and my daughter. I had time for dreaming and scheming, exploring and discovering more of who I am as a woman without a job, without my friends and family and without my Kitchenaid mixer.

Now.
2012.
Here already.
Here at last.
What will you hold?
More transition? Inevitably.
More Peace? I hope so.
More inspiration. I know so.

Many choose a word, a scripture, or a phrase to beckon in the New Year but to be honest, I see a blank canvas. The Autumn has given my wounds a chance to heal and now the numb tissue left after the scab has fallen away can regain feeling.

I have no resolutions. Just hope and a few goals.
What about you? What do you hope for as we enter 2012?

“What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from….

…We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

-T. S. Eliot

I asked Jakob what he would like to do on this first day of 2012.
He said, “Go for a picnic.”
So we did.