On New Year's Day.

It was so nice to sit in the afternoon sunshine and talk about our hopes for the year. Silly little hopes like trying new recipes and restaurants, and serious hopes like creating a happy home and preparing our marriage for children. 

An afternoon coffee date in the sun may just become a new New Year's tradition.

As for me, one thing I hope to continue to do in the new year is take pictures and reflect on the little things in life that make me happy like I did in this post. Taking pictures of random things I come across in life helps me remember to look around, observe, and appreciate things. Although it may be trite, this little corner of the internet really helped me to focus this year on being positive and appreciating life's little and big moments. Sometimes life is challenging, and I can get to the point where I mostly focus on the negative things like struggles in our marriage, or the exhaustion that comes with teaching, or feeling inadequate, or... the list goes on. However, life is good, actually really good, when I change my perspective and focus on the good, so I plan to continue to do that in 2012.

(Side note: Sorry to those of you who follow me on Google Reader. Apparently, there have been some glitches lately. Reader posted my happy new year picture four times, and never even posted my 2011: a year in review once. Oops.)