My top artists for the year according to last.fm:

1. Zoé
2. Lucybell
3. Miami Horror
4. Cut Copy
5. Soda Stereo
6. Federico Aubele
7. Le Baron
8. The Strokes
9. Strange Talk
10. She Wants Revenge

As far as photography, I put my smartphones to good use this year. I went through my Flickr account and chose what I believed was the best photograph from each month. Here is the set (do feel free to let me know if your opinion differs. )…

Finally, here’s the last photograph of me for 2011. May the new year bring new experiences, new loves, and an abundance of happiness!

Does that ever get anyone anywhere? I’ve been afraid of asking, sure. I’ve been afraid to hear no; to hear that I’m crazy; to hear it’s impossible. But I won’t let a question linger too long in my heart or in my mind. Living with a question burning in your soul starts to wear down your body. It starts to show.

Ok, so what if you don’t know how to ask your BIG question? What do you do? You wait and you wait and you wait for the perfect opportunity to present itself. Or you hint at your question, you walk around it showing your question to the world in pieces. Yeah, what you’re really doing is putting it off! Stop it. Get down to the root of the question. What is it you really want to know? Why are you afraid of asking?

So, why are you afraid of asking? Fear is a powerful emotion but only if you feed it power. My curiosity has bitten me in the past and I’ve cried but after wiping the tears the fear is gone. Then I realize the fear wasn’t as big as I thought it was. Then I’m glad I opened my big mouth and asked my BIG question. Because you know what? I’ll always have another BIG question tomorrow so I might as well deal with it head on and without fear. Curiosity is good!

It’s almost the end of the year and I wanted to record everything I’m thankful for this year for Thanksgiving. So my life fell apart this year because I got divorced. Getting a divorce was my choice and sometimes it feels like the worst but also the best choice I’ve ever made. Better than deciding to study in a creative field. Better than deciding to have children. Better than deciding to always keep my hair long. Well, that’s just vanity but it’s important.

Anyway, I’m forever grateful to myself for making that decision. As hard as it was and as difficult as it’s made my life, I’m happier for it. My ex-husband is still my friend and he will always be my friend. Sure he can drive me crazy most times but he’s the father of my children and he is—in the end—a good father. I wish him nothing but happiness in his future.

During the end of my marriage I relied heavily on friends to get me through the arguments, the pain, the low points, and helping me find the brightness in life. I’m forever grateful to them for being there for me, for distracting me, for offering a sympathetic ear, for just letting me cry… I did a lot of crying. My friends let me cry and showed me how important they are to me by just being there. I am glad I reached out—with my curiosity always leading—to the few people I have to find truly remarkable and honest people. I’m learning that there are really good people in the world.

These days I’m especially grateful for my family. Well, they do drive me crazy all day every day but they’re offering my children and I a place to stay. I’m able to save money so I can build my future. I’ve discovered I’m exactly like my dad. THAT was a shocker. There’s an episode of Friends where Rachel is teaching Joey how to sail a boat and she ends up screaming directions at him. She then realizes she spent so much time trying not to become her mom that she became her dad. Ha! Something like that could apply to me. My mom is the most extroverted woman I know and thinks introverts are just very serious, dumb people. *sigh*

I’m grateful I have a career I love and get to work with wonderful people! I get to work with code and am able to work with big name brands. The people I work with are awesome and inspiring and after all I’ve been through they have supported me even if some don’t know it. Sometimes sharing a youtube link is enough to brighten my day. So many great people have left but that’s the nature of working in advertising. Every day it’s something new and different and exciting. I’m blessed to still be employed doing something I love and working with great people!

Ok, so getting to the point: I’m grateful! Yes, my marriage ended in divorce but my friends and my family got me through it. My friends and family are still getting me through this. I can never repay them, even with all the time in the world. All I can do is be there for them and keep moving forward.

I’m also trying to blog more so hopefully with the new year coming I can set aside time to blog at least once a week. Hopefully. Maybe. Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it and if you don’t enjoy the time off!

Grabbing the horns of life is still a challenge. I did it, I turned my life upside down. Completely fucking upside down despite everything. I tore down my fears and reached for happiness. I’m still reaching, I’m still looking for what I want for my future and my children’s future. It’s hard and lonely but I know I’m not alone. I’m not alone! Reaching out to my loved ones has helped me maintain my feet on the ground and clarity in the vision of my future I’m striving to create.

My optimistic heart also helps.

Le sigh. I took this photo this morning while waiting for the bus. A lovely ray of sun was shining from behind some tree branches just right.

bus stop sun

do you see the world like I do?

I’m still feeling very sad but I don’t think bordering on depressed just yet. I feel so isolated from everyone, like I’m inside my head and my eyes are windows that are shut but transparent. I hate this and I don’t know what to do. It helps to write it all down right? I think so. Hoping one day I can read this and laugh at my silly feelings. We’ll see. Still, I’m happy I can look in the puddle and see the sky.

See, my parents want me to buy a house. Now. Today! ACT FAST! I am on one income and have two children. Is it really wise for me to buy property and have a mortgage on one income with two children? Because if it is, I don’t see it.

In related news, living with my parents will put a hamper on my attempts at dating. I’m planning to attend SAIC in Spring of 2011 for a certification program in Photography. It’s something I should have studied a very long time ago. Anyway, perhaps that would be a way to get out and meet new people. Meanwhile my loneliness is my shadow.

Here’s a photo I took this morning using my myTouch 4G:

follow the power lines down

Our teacher then took the class to a Walgreen’s and had everyone buy supplies while she stood watch near the registers. I remember one of the classmates buying a can of Campbell’s ravioli or some such thing. He bought it because the ravioli was filled with beets and he was going to use that to color something.

I remember buying graphing paper, black shoe polish and poster board. My idea was to cut out a stencil from the poster board then use the shoe polish to stain the design onto the graphing paper. It was around this time that I woke up. I really wish I could have seen the project done.

I had a dream that I was having lunch in a high rise building with a great view of the city. Sitting at a long table with me was Alec Baldwin, Chandler from Friends, my sister and one of my cousins. Alec was teaching Chandler how to dance then he was going to ask me to dance. But suddenly people started running out of the room. I looked out the windows and was shocked to see the buildings in the city were smoking! There were these great large black plumes of smoke coming from every other building and I could see Lake Michigan in the distance with the sun close to setting. I remember thinking the sunset looked beautiful. That’s all I remember from my dream.

Ok, this is a wierd one. I was trying to discover why Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 was crashing and I couldn’t figure it out. After some googling, I found the Dreamweaver CS3 Read Me (pdf) file which states on page four:

Known Issue: Crash in Windows when CSS file size is exactly 8192 bytes, 16383 bytes, or specific larger sizes Dreamweaver crashes in Windows if you make an edit to a CSS file that changes the size of the file to exactly 8191 bytes or an increment of 8191 bytes. In addition, Dreamweaver won’t restart unless you change the size of the CSS file. To change the file size, open the CSS file in another text editor and insert a character or two, including whitespace characters such as spaces and tabs.

Adobe

Now, isn’t that the oddest thing you’ve ever heard? This is exactly what happened to me and I had to open my stylesheet in WordPad and add some comment lines to bring up the file size. Too weird.

I think I’ll also add my de.licio.us links somewhere on here like I did on my portfolio’s footer. Oh, and the title of this blog post will be the ‘theme’ of my blog’s look.

So my favorite band Zoé has a song Espectro Sol that is on an album that MySpace put out. I really and truly love this song so here are the lyrics with translation.

I can’t imagine what is going on or what the singer is trying to say but I really love the visuals I see in my head. It’s a little taste of this image I found on Flickr:

view larger version

So remember when I wrote about people I hate? Well, there’s one more. I don’t like people who dominate conversations. Let’s say Eggshell is this person. Eggshell will not only dominate a conversation, but will introduce a specific topic in order to into transition into her desired topic.

She will also make fun of anything that anyone else is talking about or look at you while making faces to let you know she doesn’t like what the other person is saying. I think this behavior is very rude and immature but she does it all the time.

I know of a few people who don’t like to be around this person because of that. One of them is me.

Everyone please put Virginia Tech students, families and friends in your hearts and minds.