January - A Look Ahead

January 2014. Wow! I passed another milestone when the calendar flipped this past Wednesday. I’ve been blogging for six years! Can you believe it? What on earth have I been jabbering on about? As an introvert, it is amazing that I’ve said so much here, but then again, writing has always come easier to me than talking. Hand me a pen or a keyboard, and the words come pouring out. Talk with me and ask me direct questions, and I'll give mostly short answers and let you do the majority of the talking. That’s how I roll.

December has been put to bed and 2013 has closed. December was decidedly a good month. 2013? The vast majority of the time it was filled with fear and anguish. But we endured our brush with that conniving devil called cancer. I have never picked a yearly one-word theme, and I won’t begin now. But I did utter a statement to Mr. Jim on New Year’s Eve that sums up 2014:

It’s got to be better.

That thought will stick with us while we face whatever comes our way. And we’ll do our darnest to make it come true.

So what lies ahead for January, the first month out of the starting gate? The Christmas decorations got put away on New Year's Day. So now I can focus on organizing and accomplishing some needed tasks around the house. I find I am using my handy iMac computer tools more and more these days, such as Notes and Reminders, and other apps such as Skitch and Evernote. With the clever Apple iCloud, it is so easy to synch notes, lists, contacts, etc. between my desktop and iPad. I plan to also finally jump into the smartphone waters in the near future, and it will be an iPhone to round out the integration.

I am also signing up for a month or two of lynda.com 24/7 video training (see sidebar for link), most likely starting this weekend. Mr. Jim gave me a Wacom tablet for Christmas, and I need to take a video course to learn how the tablet device can help my Photoshop editing efforts. There are over a dozen new photography-related courses on lynda.com that I would also like to take. Technology is changing fast, and I’m not going to let it pass me by! I plan to have a follow-up post in a couple of weeks that outlines my specific photography-related goals for 2014.

Mr. Jim is doing well these days and is regaining his strength. He has a CAT scan scheduled mid-month, with a follow-up visit to the chemo doctor. My mom is continuing to make progress in recovering from her latest health scare. She got out of the hospital yesterday and is now settling into a beautiful rehab facility. Thank goodness! As always, I am very appreciative of the prayers that you say for my loved ones and me.

All of Mr. Jim’s doctors told us last month to start living our normal lives again, so we’re taking them at their word! Yesterday, we finished all of our planning and completed reservations for a photo tour to Moab, Utah, in March. And we’ll soon start rescheduling a summer trip to Newfoundland and a fall trip to Yellowstone/Tetons. I’m sure we’re going to schedule more jaunts during some other time periods this year. The bucket list is back on top of our priorities!

My other blog is coming up on its 1-year mark next month. A Personal Photo Challenge has been well received, and I plan to continue it for the foreseeable future. It creates a lot of extra work for me, but I think that the participants are really enthused about the monthly challenges and enjoying their new and improved photography skills. I have already developed a 2014 plan for subject matter. And I will continue this month to glean informational resources from the web that will help challenge participants throughout 2014.

I hope that you are approaching the month and the New Year with enthusiasm and a commitment to do those things that you have been postponing for a while. Procrastination is not your friend! Oh, that reminds me. There are some boxes in our storage room that haven’t been unpacked from our move over three years ago. Oops! Now there is something else to add to this month’s list of activities. I think January is going to be a busy month.