2011 A Year In Review PLUS New Years Past
Ahhh my 2011 is finally winding down to it's close and I couldn't be more ready for the changes 2012 might bring. It has been one upside down crazy kind of year this year. A lady I worked with at the end of 2010 told me something that kind of stuck and while it may not always be true it seems to have held up through this year. How you spend New Years Eve is how you will spend the rest of your year. If you spend NYE alone...good luck in the relationship department, if you spend it at home...expect a slow and unassuming year, you get the picture. So last year I spent NYE with the man I love and even though I had grande desires for a night out on the town doing something elegant and adult style...I compromised and let him pick the event for a change and we ended up spending the evening at his friend's parent's house party. This party was packed with drama and new people as well as old friends and was definitely not what I would have picked to be doing but I was spending the evening with him so that was all that mattered to me.
And some how my year has been filled with drama and new people and just a few old friends, go figure, but it has also been spent with that man that I love so much. 2011 turned out to be the year I decided to strike out on my own and do something not only uncharacteristic but wildly insane. I don't remember the beginning of my year to well but a few highlights... In February I celebrated turning 28 with family and friends at another party that I planned for myself thus pushing me further in the direction of wanting a career as an event coordinator. In March I reached my 5 year mark working for the State of North Carolina. April brought a really big fight and then a late night drive to the beach that ended in an ultimatum for him and a big decision for me. The challenge was accepted and in May I began searching for a place to live in Wilmington and a job as well as some way to pay for the move. In June when my lease on my rental was coming to an end and I still had not found a job but had found a fantastic place to live, I put in my two weeks notice and quit my State Job without another job to go to and with only a little over 3 grand in retirement funds to live off of as well as pay for a move. The craziest most insane thing I have ever done in my life turned out to be a great adventure. I spent most of July depressed and lonely until my roommate moved in at the end of the month and around the 1st week of August someone finally took a chance on me and gave me a job! I would start hostessing for BlueWater Grill on Wrightsville Beach the following week followed shortly by an offer to work as a photographer for Lifetouch Studios taking pictures of school kids for their yearbooks. August was the month when my roommate decided to move back home and I was forced to live alone again and my first hurricane at the beach. September and October were filled with work work and more work driving back and forth to South Carolina and the northern parts of North Carolina for work and learning the in's and out's of a restaurant all over again. But it was also filled with learning to fish, learning to go places like the beach all alone, and lots of time spent cultivating a relationship that I wanted more than anything else. November brought a new job as a recruiter and an end to the photography with Lifetouch (which I quit willingly, it just wasn't something I was in love with and never was going to be) but an opportunity to be a contracted event photographer for a local magazine as well as my 1st Thanksgiving alone, oh and I can't forget, a day of pain and agony as well as my first trip to the Emergency room in an ambulance with no health insurance and a week off work with no pay. December has brought a stronger relationship, a visit back home with family and friends who I missed dearly, a realization that I need a more stable job somewhere, my first Christmas where I was able to afford to buy everyone something since I was a kid and mom and dad bought it for us, and it's brought me another New Years Eve.
WHOA! 2011 is one long paragraph. Other notable facts about this past year...I have not made any true friends since my move but in December I have started to form a good relationship with a few of the girls I work with at the restaurant. My whole family (and by that I mean my two sisters and my sister-in-law, just so there's no confusion there) decided to get pregnant at once and so October brought two babies and December brought us one more. Since my move I haven't had to borrow a single penny from my parents, but I did have to borrow a very small amount from Nathan, to make sure I could pay my rent on time, which was promptly re-paid the following day...this is a HUGE deal because while living in Raleigh I borrowed money from my parents all the time, even though I paid it back I was on a constant cycle with that. My relationship that probably would have ended had I stayed put, is now stronger than I ever expected it to be by this time this year...he was supposed to join the army and disappear one month after I moved but it didn't work out that way and so he's still here and so are we.
This NYE we are going out with his sister, her fiance, one of his brothers and his girlfriend to a place downtown called The Reel Cafe for dinner, they are planning to stay and dance on the second floor and then watch fireworks from the 3rd floor...we're not sure if we will stay that long but it's on the table as an option. If he decides he doesn't want to stay downtown I'm going to talk him into driving to the beach and watching the fireworks from there :-). And now for New Years Eve of year's past...kind of a time-line to show you where I am now. I rang in 2006 at home with my parents while my sisters hung out with their church friends at a dance, 2007 was spent watching Veronica Mars on DVD in my bed, I rang in 2008 at a Willy Wonka Themed Young Single Adult dance, I brought in 2009 in style at the Masquerade Ball that I planned for another Young Singles dance, I spent the end of '09 and the beginning of '10 with a man that I had fallen in love with very quickly and my brother and his wife out on Carolina Beach's boardwalk in the cold with a huge group of people watching a "beach ball" drop and fireworks explode and getting my very first New Years kiss, and as you know I rang this year in at a house party with the same man as the year before and a whole lotta drama and drunk people. Here's hoping that ringing in 2012 will be a bit more of a grown up experience and a lot more fun than last year!
Happy New Year to you all and I hope that you ring in 2012 in a manner befitting the way you hope to spend the rest of your year. Here's some pictures from 2011 and in no particular order...
And some how my year has been filled with drama and new people and just a few old friends, go figure, but it has also been spent with that man that I love so much. 2011 turned out to be the year I decided to strike out on my own and do something not only uncharacteristic but wildly insane. I don't remember the beginning of my year to well but a few highlights... In February I celebrated turning 28 with family and friends at another party that I planned for myself thus pushing me further in the direction of wanting a career as an event coordinator. In March I reached my 5 year mark working for the State of North Carolina. April brought a really big fight and then a late night drive to the beach that ended in an ultimatum for him and a big decision for me. The challenge was accepted and in May I began searching for a place to live in Wilmington and a job as well as some way to pay for the move. In June when my lease on my rental was coming to an end and I still had not found a job but had found a fantastic place to live, I put in my two weeks notice and quit my State Job without another job to go to and with only a little over 3 grand in retirement funds to live off of as well as pay for a move. The craziest most insane thing I have ever done in my life turned out to be a great adventure. I spent most of July depressed and lonely until my roommate moved in at the end of the month and around the 1st week of August someone finally took a chance on me and gave me a job! I would start hostessing for BlueWater Grill on Wrightsville Beach the following week followed shortly by an offer to work as a photographer for Lifetouch Studios taking pictures of school kids for their yearbooks. August was the month when my roommate decided to move back home and I was forced to live alone again and my first hurricane at the beach. September and October were filled with work work and more work driving back and forth to South Carolina and the northern parts of North Carolina for work and learning the in's and out's of a restaurant all over again. But it was also filled with learning to fish, learning to go places like the beach all alone, and lots of time spent cultivating a relationship that I wanted more than anything else. November brought a new job as a recruiter and an end to the photography with Lifetouch (which I quit willingly, it just wasn't something I was in love with and never was going to be) but an opportunity to be a contracted event photographer for a local magazine as well as my 1st Thanksgiving alone, oh and I can't forget, a day of pain and agony as well as my first trip to the Emergency room in an ambulance with no health insurance and a week off work with no pay. December has brought a stronger relationship, a visit back home with family and friends who I missed dearly, a realization that I need a more stable job somewhere, my first Christmas where I was able to afford to buy everyone something since I was a kid and mom and dad bought it for us, and it's brought me another New Years Eve.
WHOA! 2011 is one long paragraph. Other notable facts about this past year...I have not made any true friends since my move but in December I have started to form a good relationship with a few of the girls I work with at the restaurant. My whole family (and by that I mean my two sisters and my sister-in-law, just so there's no confusion there) decided to get pregnant at once and so October brought two babies and December brought us one more. Since my move I haven't had to borrow a single penny from my parents, but I did have to borrow a very small amount from Nathan, to make sure I could pay my rent on time, which was promptly re-paid the following day...this is a HUGE deal because while living in Raleigh I borrowed money from my parents all the time, even though I paid it back I was on a constant cycle with that. My relationship that probably would have ended had I stayed put, is now stronger than I ever expected it to be by this time this year...he was supposed to join the army and disappear one month after I moved but it didn't work out that way and so he's still here and so are we.
This NYE we are going out with his sister, her fiance, one of his brothers and his girlfriend to a place downtown called The Reel Cafe for dinner, they are planning to stay and dance on the second floor and then watch fireworks from the 3rd floor...we're not sure if we will stay that long but it's on the table as an option. If he decides he doesn't want to stay downtown I'm going to talk him into driving to the beach and watching the fireworks from there :-). And now for New Years Eve of year's past...kind of a time-line to show you where I am now. I rang in 2006 at home with my parents while my sisters hung out with their church friends at a dance, 2007 was spent watching Veronica Mars on DVD in my bed, I rang in 2008 at a Willy Wonka Themed Young Single Adult dance, I brought in 2009 in style at the Masquerade Ball that I planned for another Young Singles dance, I spent the end of '09 and the beginning of '10 with a man that I had fallen in love with very quickly and my brother and his wife out on Carolina Beach's boardwalk in the cold with a huge group of people watching a "beach ball" drop and fireworks explode and getting my very first New Years kiss, and as you know I rang this year in at a house party with the same man as the year before and a whole lotta drama and drunk people. Here's hoping that ringing in 2012 will be a bit more of a grown up experience and a lot more fun than last year!
Happy New Year to you all and I hope that you ring in 2012 in a manner befitting the way you hope to spend the rest of your year. Here's some pictures from 2011 and in no particular order...
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