NOTES ON A NEW YEAR.

Welcome to day 5 of 2012. I'm typically slow to digest time in general. And the whole hype surrounding the end of the year (sorting through the best and worst moments of our lives, ranking and listing them in order, etc) always leaves me feeling a little weird. But I will attempt to embrace that sort of business this year with the awesome power of LISTS! Incredibly wordy lists.

Cool Stuff From 2011:

1. Kept myself busy with Deadweight. Took on design jobs (City Of Craft, album art, etc), did a series of illustrations for my first national publication (The Walrus), sent cards to some cool shops and Etsy orders all over the place (hitting the 100+ sales milestone in my shop!), started a line of leather goods with a good pal (Falconwright), and generally become more focused and comfortable with my design style. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me this past year - it means a lot!

2. Challenged myself to try to be less reserved (attempting to tweet and blog more, however lame, was part of this exercise). A happy bonus of this attempt was meeting some really cool new pals. I also joined Facebook this year, one million years after everybody else in the world, and guess what? I don't hate it!

3. Upped my spice tolerance in foods (ha). I will continue this mission by using the ridiculously hot (but totally delicious) sauce my friend Shayna gave me for Christmas.

4. Went camping for the first time and loved it. Can't wait to go again. #bears

5. Started a savings account. The important word being started. It's truly embarrassing how little I have in there, but it's a start.

6. Did something fun for Halloween. Finally.

10 Goals For 2012:

1. Be less distracted by the Internet/TV/my phone and more focused on the company of the people around me and the tasks at hand. Sometimes I see people hanging out together and someone is on their phone and I'm like "ewww," but then I realize I am just as guilty of doing that exact same thing.

2. Build onto my current tattoo, then add another to the mix. Frivolous and fun.

3. Don't dwell on sad feelings. To anyone who reads this blog, I likely appear to be a pretty happy person, and I am, but I also struggle with a pervasive sense of sadness that always seems to lurk around me at all times (oh, and I tend to be a bit dramatic at times - can you tell?!!). I don't really plan to start airing that business out around here, but it can be a struggle. Life feels long and hard to me a lot of the time, despite all the great/wonderful/exciting/inspiring things all around me. I'd like to spend more time focusing on all of that good stuff, and wasting much less time on the other stuff. But I'd also like to use this as a bigger source of inspiration for my work - make more meaningful illustration/print stuff and less greeting cards! How did I even begin making greeting cards? It's a mystery....

4. Cook more! Sounds simple enough, but it's hard to execute when you tend to busy yourself to a point of ridiculousness. I hope to make time for cooking, like I make time for everything else. I've started with this soup, a recommendation of Danielle's, and it's impressive. If you make it, you will not be unhappy about it.

5. Continue learning new things. I start a ceramics class this month and I can't wait. Other things I'd like to learn: how to use illustrator, how to use a sewing machine, how to knit, flexibility, everything.

6. Seriously consider a new career path. I have a day job on top of this design stuff. It's not realistic for me to quit my job and do this full time, but on the other hand it's not desirable for me to continue spending 8 hours a day doing something that isn't challenging or inspiring me. That being said, part two of this goal is to take my day job for what it is at the time being - a very reliable way to pay my bills and put food on my table - and stop feeling so entitled about deserving anything else. It takes time to figure out where you want to be in life, right? So many people have a job they don't like, and so many of them likely do not complain about them endlessly (and those people might have kids, or responsibilities that are much larger than my own). I think it's good to remind myself that things aren't half bad and nobody really likes the sound of an alarm clock in the morning.

7. Make more music. My first artistic love/pursuit/hobby was making music. I went to college for music production, and I moved to Toronto to work in a post production studio. Until I almost immediately quit because talking about gear bores me beyond belief (as did recording voice overs for commercials and the shitty starting salary/work hours). I was also 22 when I up and quit that job - so I certainly wasn't thinking clearly. I still make music with my band, and we do plan to release some music this year (which I'm pretty pumped about!), but I don't put nearly as much time into it as I would have liked to last year. Home recording 2012.....bring it on.

8. Be a better friend/partner/person. I have a really wonderful network of excellent people all around me. And a dude that always makes sure I have full glasses of water and cheesies. For someone with very little family in her life, my friends are invaluable to me, and I want to let them know that ALL THE TIME. But not too much, because that would be annoying to them. "Alright, alright, we get it!"

9. Plan a trip. Somewhere, anywhere.

10. Hit a home run. Mark my words - this is the year!

Honourable Mentions: win the lottery and buy a cottage and move there forever, learn to tolerate cilantro so I can go out for more Mexican food, draw people more often, collaborate with Caitlyn, build a better backyard garden and DO NOT let the tomatoes take over again, enjoy salad (jokes!), spend time with more dogs, go to more Jays games, curb my mild ocd tendencies by learning to trust ovens and alarm clocks and door locks, buy more records.

Ok, that was all terribly indulgent! But I guess my friends can now say "Sandi, you are totally letting your tomatoes take over - I thought you said you wouldn't let that happen again? Liar!!!"

I'm looking forward to 2012. I hope you are too. Let the games begin.