A 2012 Wish List

Hello! It's nice to see you in this shiny new year, full of magic and possibilities. Even though our adult years seem to run together (and I often have to think really hard to remember how old I am), each year is unique. So here is my list of things that I wish would happen in 2012 (in no particular order):

• Meet my new niece in June. - It's not necessarily a wish as much as a thing-I'm-really-excited-about. I have seven nephews, guys. SEVEN. This is the first niece and oh how I'm going to spoil her with princess outfits and sparkly ponies and girly stuff!! (She'll probably be a tomboy - which is OK too but not quite as fun for me.)
• Finish that novel I started a year ago. - Writing is hard, guys. But worth it. But also hard. I'm going to do it though! And when I do, I can start on the shiny idea that I put on hold because I was determined to finish that first idea.
• Finish replacing the grout in the kitchen. - I won't say how long our kitchen tile has been without grout (*cough cough* ... since May .... *COUGH*) but it's finally time we do something about it. It was cracked, so Hubs and I used a grinder to remove the defective grout. Now those spaces are filled with crumbs and I don't want to look at them but I've been too lazy to fix it. NOT ANYMORE.
• A career change for Hubs. - The economy was not very kind to Hubs when it took a nose dive. Because of that, he's been doing a job that really doesn't suit him for a long time. But this year it's going to change. (Fingers crossed for us, guys. This is a biggie.)
• Save for our dream vacation. - Hubs and I really, really want to visit Australia. Preferably before we have kids. But have you SEEN the cost of plane tickets to Australia? Yikes-a-rino. So we need to save, save, save! (Or make a ton more money - I'd really prefer this option.)
• Read as much as possible. - I have a ZILLION books. That is a real number, guys (999999999---------------98, 999999999---------------99, a zillion!). 2011 had so many good books that I never would have heard about if I wasn't part of this community. About 90% of the books I have are ones I haven't had time to read yet. But I just finished A Million Suns by Beth Revis (sequel to Across the Universe) last night in the wee hours. OH MY, it's awesomesauce. For reals. Go read it now so I have someone to talk to about it.
•  Get rich. - I figured while I was at it, I might as well throw this in. It can't hurt to dream.

Here's to an awesome 2012! I'm partial to even-numbered years. And heck yeah, the Olympics are this summer!

Pretending January didn't exist, and introducing: Theme Weeks!

January was a rough month for me. In the last thirty days, I have:

-Had a muscle spasm in my back. I couldn't turn my head for three days.

-Had my cat drop a laptop on my toes. It landed on its edge, by the way.

-Went to the more-than-urgent-care-but-not-quite-ER for some scary chest pains (apparently, the cartilage between your rib cage and sternum can swell and make you think you're having a heart attack. Who knew?)

-Gotten an interview for my DREAM-dream job.

-Not gotten my DREAM-dream job.

-Gotten food poisoning. Twice.

-Entered a much-beloved but long-shelved manuscript in a contest.

-Gotten a reprieve for a close animal friend at work

-Lost my close animal friend after all

-And jumped back into the query pool, feet first, eyes closed.

Having shown you this, dear friends, I hope you can understand exactly why the Archives have been a little delayed thus far this year. I don't really have an opinion on the whole "The world is ending in 2012!!" thing, but I have to say that I certainly hope it's just getting all the challenging/ difficult bits out of the way right off the bat. With that optimism in mind, I want to introduce you to two new concepts we're going to try out here at the Archives, hoping to advance our way further into the blogging world and interact with you all in a real-time, digital megaspace reality that's sure to innovate our fluxative capacity. (Okay, so that was actually my attempt at shoving as much nonsense jargon as I could into that sentence).

Our two new concepts?

The first:

NO WRITING ABOUT WRITING. (Well, except maybe a little).

Frankly, we're all sick of writing about writing. And I know I'm sick of READING about writing. I'd rather be writing! So while our blog will stay topical, and while we are still writers, we hope to include a lot more of ourselves in our blog posts, and a lot less of . . . well, you know.

And the second:

INTRODUCING: THEME WEEKS!!

You guys, I don't know if you've noticed, but it's HARD coming up with ideas for blog posts. Some weeks, we just give up out of sheer lack of motivation. Others, the well simply runneth dry. So we're going to try something new and fantastic: giving ourselves a theme to write to. Each week will have a theme, and you will get five different points of view about the topic at hand. We've already got a bunch of ideas, but if there's something you want to hear our thoughts on, leave it in the comments of this post!

Now, having waded through all of THAT business, we can move onto, er, business. This week's theme?

A wishlist.

It's been a new year twice now since the last time we really, really posted, and I'd like to celebrate and hallow the start of two new years by sending some wishes out into the universe. I'm genuinely hoping for some good things to happen this year! Here's my wishlist:

-Get another interview for my dream-dream job. Don't suck at it. Get the job.

-Have some small (or large) writing success-- find an agent, write another story that I can't stop thinking about, get past the first round in that contest.

-Continue to grow as a better friend, wife, relative, blogger, writer, critter mom, and employee.

-Get my gorgeous loveable stubborn spooky horse down to the Big Arena-- and ride her there. Safely.

-Learn. Learn more. Learn everything. Find more to learn once I've learned everything.

-Spend quality time with wallabies at least twice a month. (I'm happy to report that my profound love of wallabies can at last be satisfied on a weekly basis! And guess what: they're WAY softer and fuzzier than they look!)

-And while we're at it, I'm just going to go ahead and ask the universe to help me out a little financially.

Now, universe, I don't want any of these to be Backhanded Wishes. No killing anyone or anything or ruining lives to make it happen, ya hear?

Do you have a wishlist for 2012?

Erm, Maybe

So I may have lied. We're trying to come up with some new ideas for this here blog business, and as a result will need another week, folks! Maybe two. I'll keep you posted.

Hope everyone has a glorious, success-filled New Year!