New Year's in September

I know September isn't really the time when people reflect back on the last twelve months. That's usually left up to New Year's. But, for the first time in twelve months, I am finding myself at a pause. Here's why:

Last August I started the final, most difficult semester of my grad school program writing a 45 page public relations plan for the National Oceanic & Atomospheric Administration (NOAA). In Decemeber, I finished and graduated after two years of hard work.

Just when I came up to take a breath in January, Kevin proposed and we started planning our Do-It-Yourself wedding at a farm in Maryland. Then because we just weren't busy ENOUGH, in April we decided to buy a house. In July we closed on the little 50's brick rambler of my dreams, refinished the original hardwood floors ourselves** and moved out of our apartment of two years.

At the beginning August I was promoted to a new role in my company requiring lots of overtime, patience and people skills (did I mention that grad school, wedding planning and house hunting were't my full time job?). And finally, two weeks ago, we got married in front of 75 of our friends and family on said farm complete with BBQ, pie, a barn and some goats.

Our Sneak Peek photo courtesy of Sweet Tea Photography ;o)

Let's recap: new degree, new house, new job, new husband. Those are just the highlights, but in between those milestones there were months of slogging and celebrating, anxiety and excitement. In the last few months, when I was describing my situation to people the most common reaction was, "how are you still standing?" 

For months I have been pining for the cool freedom that September would bring and now we're here. I can't help but ask myself (as many others have begun asking me), what am I going to do next?

Mainly I just want to focus. I started this blog so I could explore and build my design skills, maybe somehow meld them with my PR/Communications stratEEgery skills, share my quirky artwork and focus in on the things that make me really happy.

Like this picture of a whale I started.

So, this is just a post to say, I'm back after a crazy awesome year and I'm ready for whatever comes next.