Star Shaped

Felt flowers in the living room of my apartment.

So, it's almost 2010. It's been a strange, strange year, filled with ups and downs, disappointments and triumphs, happiness and sadness. I've made new friends and lost others. I moved. I moved! Back to New England, a dream I finally accomplished after wanting it for years and years. I love living by the ocean and smelling the sweet salt air while wandering around my new hometown, though at times I do miss South Bend and the friends and restaurants. But, I love New England; this is my home.

I suppose it's also the end of a decade, but for some reason I haven't really put much thought into that. When this decade started I had just turned 19; I was a freshman in college and I had just dyed my hair black for the first time. I worked in the bakery department of a grocery store in Massachusetts and I hadn't yet decided on a major. I feel myself of 2009's much different than myself in 1999, obviously. I have grown and learned so much this decade.

I'm trying to decide if I want to make resolutions this year. Maybe I will, only because I can think of a few things I want to improve in 2010. Maybe these are just goals, not resolutions, but is there a difference, anyway?

• Stick to a budget. I need to do this.
• Visit at least two new states. I'm already planning on going to California this year (I'm hitting San Francisco for Drupalcon in April!), but I need to plan on going to another state sometime.
• Stay positive about things.
• Write more and create more.
• Listen to more new music. I listen to playlists created by others; I need to listen to more of these.
• Finally, finally, make a new layout for this site! This one's been up for over 2 and a half years, and I need a change. I'm in the process of making a few new layouts, but I haven't finished any yet. Soon, hopefully.
• Stay more motivated, in general.

Anyway. Hopefully 2010 brings many, many good things to everyone. Happy (almost) New Year!

I've had an interesting year this year, full of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, good things and bad. In general, I'm happy with where I am right now, and I'm thankful for the many good things in my life.

• I live on the East Coast again. I walk through the town in which I live and smell the salt air. I live 3 miles from the ocean. I absolutely love it. I'm thankful for the ocean, for the town of Portsmouth, and for the cool restaurants and bars in my new home town.
• I'm spending Thanksgiving with my family for the first time since 2004! I'm thankful I live so close now that I can just pop in my car, drive for 2.5 hours, and be at my parents' doorstep. I'm thankful for my mother and father, my sister and brother, and their significant others.
• I've met so, so many new people within the past six months. I've met new knitting friends, people in the Drupal community, and coworkers who have become friends. I'm thankful for all these people, and I'm thankful for all the other friends I have, who have known me for much longer.
• I'm thankful for anyone who has lent me a shoulder to cry on and a beer to drink while out. I'm thankful for everyone in my life.

This is an incomplete list, but for the most part, I'm thankful for living in a place I love, and having so many wonderful people in my life. I am thankful for YOU.

This past weekend? Very, very delicious lobster (seriously, one of the tastiest lobsters I've ever eaten), Sam Adams Octoberfest, playing Wits and Wagers and In A Pickle with my family, running around the Boston Museum of Fine Arts trying to solve a murder mystery, raspberry truffle cheesecake, formatting my computer and installing Windows XP (yeah, yeah, I know... Photoshop's the sole reason for the format), drinking my first Dark n' Stormy, and hauling serious ass back up to Portsmouth on Sunday night.

And I get to do it all over again this weekend when I drive out to western Massachusetts for Thanksgiving!

. . . . .

It's still strange living only 2.5 hours away from my family when I lived over 800 miles away from them for 8 years. It's weird thinking "Hey, I'll just hop in my car and see my family tonight!" when just 8 months ago, visiting my family consisted of planning flights, coordinating being picked up at the airport, and making sure people would be in town when I visited. It's a nice change.

Now, onward to Thanksgiving!

The DrupalCamp Montreal 2009 crowd!

This past weekend, myself, along with a few cohorts at Commonplaces (@sethcohn, @himerus, @bymiche, and @ebeyrent) traveled by van up to the faraway land of Canada to attend DrupalCamp Montreal! My coworkers each presented at least one session over the two day camp, and I was there to cheer them on from the sidelines.

Among some of my favorite sessions were, of course, my coworker Jake Strawn's presentation on Advanced 960.gs theming with his awesome Omega theme, my coworker Michelle Lauer's presentation on Advanced Views: Arguments and Relationships, and my boss Erich Beyrent's case study on Twolia.com, a site I worked on a little bit at the very end of the project when I first started working for Commonplaces.

I also enjoyed Michael Collins's Extreme Navigation Tactics, Lisa Rex's presentation on an awesome site she worked on with Jake called What's the Soup, implementing Google Map goodness, and Angie Byron's BOF on patching Drupal.  Her presentation made me want to dive on in and see what I can help with! So, now I'm excited.

Of course, I was also reminded that Drupalers love to get their beer on afterhours.  Two thumbs up to Benelux and their awesome, delicious brews! 

I am happy to have become part of the Drupal community during the past six months.  I love the people, I love the comraderie, and I love the project.  I am hoping to give a presentation of my own in December at DrupalCamp NYC; I'm considering giving a talk on the basics of Ubercart.  The prospect of this has me very excited.

Thanks to everyone who put together such a great DrupalCamp!  I'm very excited to see the quality of the video recordings for each session; props go to DNB for their awesome job recording, and I can't wait to see what the results look like! Thanks for the good times, Montreal!

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It's started again; National Novel Writing Month!  This will be my seventh year participating in the madness that is writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, and I look forward to it every year. The madness starts on November 1st, but I will be spending the month of October getting ready for hardcore novel writing.

This year's Nano will be strange; I met a very awesome group of people who became some of my best friends when I lived in South Bend, and doing NaNoWriMo without them will be an adjustment.  However, I've joined the New Hampshire region of the forums this year and the region seems to be fairly active with meetups and write-ins, so I'm optimistic I will find new writing friends here.  Still, I will miss my South Bend writing buddies.

This year I am going to attempt my grocery store romance yet again.  I've tried writing this for NaNoWriMo both in 2005 and 2007 and failed miserably, so I'm crossing my fingers I can finish it this year.  I plan on outlining, fleshing out my characters, and having a general idea of where I want the story to go, so hopefully that will help me out this year. Either way, I am excited! And writing a funny, cheesy novel about grocery store employees is right up my alley, I have to say.

Is anyone else participating in NaNoWriMo this year?