I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions, per se. However, at the start of this new year, I have been rather contemplative and have several goals I’m working toward.

In general, I’m working at becoming more disciplined, both in my spiritual life and in other areas. I’m trying to become more diligent in studying the Word, memorizing Scripture, and generally reading, watching, and listening to more things that are edifying. I want to be more purposeful in studying and improving in the things I’m interested in, such as web design and photography.

To sum it up, I want to spend my time wisely, to live to the fullest serving God and others, to grow and advance, both in my walk with God and in my hobbies and interests. I want to be able to look back at the end of this year and see ways I’ve done these things, to see ways I’ve grown and changed and things I’ve learned.

It’s also been a time of reminiscing, thinking over ways I’ve changed over the last year, and even two years. I can see ways I’ve examined standards and preferences we have, and adopted my own. Not that I didn’t do that before, but I’ve fine-tuned them a lot in the past year. Though, in some ways, I feel like I’m turning into an old fogey, especially when I realize I’m almost 24.

Oh, and another thing I want to work on this year: getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. I had started getting to bed and getting up earlier several months ago, but, well, old habits die hard.

Isn’t it pretty? I got it a couple of weeks ago, before I went to the wedding. I was trying to make myself a skirt, but was having issues with the machine we already had. My parents were already going to get it for me for my birthday, so they got it early. I like it a lot, though I haven’t gotten to use it much yet.

Okay, so to pick up where I left off back in August…

I went to Dallas back in August, to meet up with some friends from HSA. Spent time with lots of awesome people and went to some fun places. I had met a lot of them in person already and knew them well, and I got to meet new people too. We played Ultimate Frisbee and Capture the Flag, went roller skating, went to downtown Dallas, and just generally had fun hanging out and talking. And…I got to fly for the first time and loved it!

In case anyone is really interested, here are my pictures from that trip:

Album 1
Album 2
Album 3
Album 4
Album 5
Album 6

In September, we evacuated for Hurricane Ike. We stayed with family in north Louisiana. Thankfully, we had little damage done to our house and yard. We were without water for a few days, but really fared better than so many people. The following are pictures showing what Wal-mart looked like when we got home:

Wal-mart after Ike

Then a couple of weeks ago, I flew up to Little Rock to see a couple of HSA friends get married. I’m so glad I was able to make it to their wedding! I’m friends with both the bride and the groom, and they really mean a lot to me. I’m so happy for them, and their wedding was beautiful. She made a beautiful bride too. While there, I stayed with my aunt for several days, and got to see my cousin and her new baby.

Wedding pictures
Baby cousin pictures

So yeah, I like taking a lot of pictures. If anyone is interested, I can be found here on Flickr.

Right now, I’m working on designing a website for my dad’s company, and want to learn and do more with web design. I’m also very interested in photography, as you may have guessed, and I want to improve my skills in that area a lot this year as well. I have a photoblog here.

I also hope to blog more this year, so hopefully you’ll all hear from me more often in the coming months.

Also, I ordered a new lens the other night! A Canon 50mm f1.8. It’s supposed to be here Wednesday, and I’m really looking forward to playing around with it and learning to use it.

In other news, I’ve been doing some work at my dad’s office whenever they need help with the computers. I got all the internet and networking issues smoothed out a while back, and fixed some issues so they could access their office computer remotely. But they just bought a new building and moved over to the new place, and got a different internet service and new equipment. Which meant I was back at the beginning and got to set it all up again. It was touch and go for a while there, but it’s all working now. It can get frustrating at times, when I don’t know what’s wrong and can’t find a logical explanation, and I still have a lot to learn. But I do enjoy it.

Not much else to report right now, really. I’ve been sick a lot lately with sinus and cold type stuff, but I think I’m over most of it now. Still pretty tired, and still fighting weed pollen allergies. I’m praying for a good hard freeze early this year, to kill all the ragweed. I always feel so much better when it dies off.

Meanwhile…I’ve started a photoblog.I think that’s a good way to share pictures with people who want to see them, and to encourage me to work at it more. It will also be neat to look back over later, after I’ve been doing this for a while, and hopefully see how I’ve improved over time. I have so much to learn, but I’m enjoying it!

I’m also working on learning more web design. I’m currently working on a blog for Caroline, learning to make my own Wordpress templates. I need to learn more PHP so I can code more stuff myself, but this is a good way to get started. I’m really enjoying it, and would love to do more with it.

Also, I finally found shoes! Two pair, at that! I like them. I’ve been having the hardest time finding something besides Riley shoes or running shoes. Slipons seem to be the fashion, and they’re really cute, but I need a strap to hold them on my feet. I have high arches, narrow heels, and problems with the tendons in my right foot. All that makes it very hard to find shoes. But I got smart tonight and checked the girls’ sizes at Payless. I wear women’s 7 to 7.5, and I found a girls’ 4.5 is about that size too, and fits perfectly. Most of the girls’ shoes have straps. So I found shoes. It’s such a relief to have that over with.

Seriously, anyone who enjoys shoe shopping must have perfect feet that can wear anything.

I was getting rather worried about my camera, because I couldn’t get it to focus, and everything was so dark, despite the bright sun and the settings I was using. Then I checked the lens and realized the problem. After that, I kept a microfiber cloth out there with me to clean the lens periodically, and that worked much better.

Before
After

Edit: At a much later date, I disabled comments on this entry because I started getting a bunch of spam comments on it.

Most definitely not a happy cat. She’s pretty good about it though, and will stand there and let my sister clean her up without much fight. She just gives out an “I will kill you look” while doing so.

One more picture. I dare you.

A little less angry after the bath, but still not happy.