Weekly, no wait, yearly priorities

First night! Had plenty of drinks at this point...ready for food...

All the pictures this week are from our New Year's Eve party at Hollie's. We partied hard, slept in late, and made an awesome breakfast. Great way to end a great year.

Every week at my work, my manager asks me for a "weekly priorities" email. It's a sign of how nerdy I am, that I actually enjoy this exercise. I write the three biggest accomplishments of the week and then the three biggest tasks I hope to accomplish the next week. Since it's a new year, I thought I should document the priorities I've set for myself in 2012. My hope is that by changing from a resolution, to a priority, I'll somehow manage to keep my priorities a little more than I have resolutions in the past.

Before I start my yearly priorities I want to acknowledge the things about 2011 I will not miss. Social drama; I had a lot of it at really intense levels this year and I'm glad to leave it in 2011. Uncertainty; I spent half the year worried about finding a job or finding a house - hoping that 2012 is a little more stable.

This is our friend Melissa with her dog Harley, a tibetan terrier. Love them both.

Accomplished this year:

1. Started a career. I finished graduate school, the two hardest working years of my life. I sank my teeth into graduate school and pulled hard. Generally speaking, that's how I approach everything. The rest of 2011 I focused that energy towards work, since I felt I'd gotten as far in my academic education as I'd like to go. I found an awesome job, and hated it immediately. I won't say why, but suffice it to say that I was bizarrely depressed in my first big job out of college. I refused to get used to how I was feeling so I looked for work elsewhere and found a job that I'm lucky to have. Working for Camden National has been an awesome experience and I hope to accomplish a lot next year. I look forward to work everyday and I acknowledge that blessing often.

2. Bought a house. I've wanted to own a house since I was 18. Yeah, I'm the kid that would drive around calling on cool houses for sale; pretending that I actually had a job and a life that justified having a house. I've always hated paying rent. I find it fundamentally offensive that I spend my money paying someone else's mortgage. Renting is a necessary evil and I've never viewed it as anything but. Not to offend anyone who rents...this got awkward, didn't it? Anyway, now that I have my house, I spend most of my free time and money on making it a home. Painting, building, gardening, cleaning, and stopping to admire each project as it finishes.

3. Started my family. We have been dating for a couple years, but this was the one where Ammon and I really solidified that we are a family. Some people don't understand that, but it doesn't matter. We are a family whether or not people understand it. Our goals are shared, everything from family to finances bound together. We would have been legally married this year but unfortunately the people of Maine voted that we don't deserve the same things as straight people. But like I said, that doesn't matter. We built our family as best we could AROUND marriage because we weren't allowed actual access. The time will come when we are given equal access and Ammon and I know that we'll be one of the first couples there to have the ceremony performed.

Hollie and Ammonoid. We squeezed her a lot because she'd been gone for weeks.

Next year's priorities:

1. Visit more family. A trip to Utah and a trip to Hawaii have been made priorities for 2012. We miss our Utah and Hawaii family real bad. Hopefully, I will have some of my sisters out to visit us here in Maine and Ammon has one sister that might also visit. We have our home/family and now we want family to come and share in our happiness. Of course, this priority comes with a heavy cost so we will see how much we actually get accomplished on this front.

2. Add to the family. Geneva needs a brother. Being one of those weird people that thinks of his dog like he does one of his children, it makes me sad knowing Geneva sits at home alone all day. Also, I just love dogs and would like another one. Again, a dog is an expensive priority so who knows if this will actually happen. That's the nice thing though about a priority versus a resolution. I'm not dead set on this, but I'm going to work my hardest to have a puppy with some kind of crazy Hawaiian name (there are so many vowel combinations in hawaiian the words sometimes make me laugh). I named Geneva so Ammon gets to name (anonymous) and it's a safe bet he'll pick some deep meaning hawaiian word. I'm allowed to put a syllable limit on said name though, so no worries.

3. Be more active in other areas of my life. Exercise, volunteering, politics, hobbies were all pushed to the side as I focuses on finding a job and a house. 2012 will see me more involved in life outside my work and involved in my community. The only place I've ever loved living more than here in Maine is Germany. Since I'm not moving there any time soon, I want to make the absolute most of my time here in Maine. Give back to the place that gives so much to me. 2012 has a lot of intense stuff happening; London Olympics, Presidential Election, Armageddon (if you go by the Mayan calendar anyway). I'm going to sink my teeth into 2012 and get what I can out of it, while stopping to enjoy all the other awesome stuff happening in the world this year.

This was our hangover breakfast. Blueberry Cheesecake Pancakes and bacon. Stupid good.