Have I mentioned that before? About the palm trees? Well, it’s true. And it’s one of the great tragedies of my life that I find myself living a couple thousand kilometers from the nearest palm tree.

But palm trees are only one of the great things about Sydney. There’s also this:

And this

This is the 3rd time that I’ve been lucky enough to visit Sydney. Even though I’m here for work I’ve been lucky enough to have a few days to explore around. Even luckier is the fact that it poured rain each of the 3 days of meetings but the sun shone on me during my free days.

Today I walked the coast between the beaches of Bondi and Bronte

Then, like a native Sydneysider I spent some time reading in the shade of a palm tree. Happy girl.

I am lucky to have found a great community, or several communities, really, of photographers online. Every day I am inspired and encouraged and supported and frankly blown away by what these “photo friends” of mine are doing. This year, along with my 365 project I’ve been invited to play along with projects that are being hosted by some of these amazing photographers.

{in the picture} is one of those projects.

I first came across the work of Urban Muser Christy on Instagram. She has a fantastic knack for shooting street portraits of strangers on the New York City subway. At some point I came to learn that Christy is also a really talented and creative self portrait photographer. What Christy can do with an iPhone is nothing short of amazing. I was thrilled to have one of my own selfies featured in her Muse University post on self portraits for Mortal Muses. All that to say that I’m so pleased that Christy has created the {in the picture} self portrait project and community and I’m really excited to be part of it.

As part of {in the picture} I’m committing to take at least weekly self portraits over the year.

This is interesting to me for a few reasons. First, I like the thought that I will have a series of self portraits to look back on at the end of the year. I like the fact that I won’t just be documenting how I see the outside world but also how I look and how I see myself. Also, I have lots of ideas for self portraits and having a weekly commitment to do one will hopefully give me some extra motivation to put these ideas into practice. The two photos above are examples of that. I’ve been meaning to do a self portrait double-exposure on Polaroid since Meghan taught me how at Camp. I love the ghostly effect of the image. As well, I’ve been meaning to get out and shoot that path in its winter glory and when I got there I just KNEW that I had to take some selfies framed in those trees (fortunately there weren’t *too many* dog walkers out!).

So back to {in the picture}. This month’s theme was “pieces of me”.

I think it was a perfect theme for January. We’re just starting into the year and what better way to start (or re-start) a self portrait exploration than by revealing pieces of ourselves to the lens.

Maybe just a tiny sliver…

… then a bit more

And because I can never resist a colourful prop…

So thanks again to Christy for {in the picture}. I’ll be playing along all year and sharing my selfies here on the blog once a month as part of the linky party. I invite you to check out Christy’s site and the other {in the picture} participants and if you’re so inclined we’d love for you to join in.

One happy bi-product of the photo workshops I’ve done with Tracey Clark is that I’m tuned to notice heart shapes. I take great delight in finding these symbols of love in everyday objects like his palmier.

On the theme of found love, this morning I’ve been reading through the book Missed Connections, Love Lost & Found by Sophie Blackall. It’s a book of illustrations based on Blackall’s blog. Over the past while she’s been creating lovely illustrations based the “Missed Connections” pages on Craigslist.

Each picture is a vignette that, as Blackall says, lets us experience “love, loss, and regret”.

But there’s also hope. She calls it “a hopeless sort of hope” and I suppose that it is. Someone strikes your fancy but you’re unable to act in the moment so you send your regret (and affection) out in the universe in a likely futile effort to recapture the moment and right your wrong. It’s a lovely and dreamy thing for a cold Sunday morning.

I mean, we’ve all had missed connections, right? The guy in the cafe that held the door open, smiled and held eye contact for just a beat longer than was necessary. The woman on the bus who kept glancing up while trying to appear concentrated on her book.

My most memorable missed connection was at a 54/40 concert at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, sometime in the early ’90s. I was standing near the stage and I remember feeling someone very close behind me – so close that I was afraid his cigarette was going to burn my hair. I turned around and he said hi. He was blonde and gorgeous. He grabbed my hand and we snaked through the crowd to find another spot to watch the concert. He stood behind me with his arms around me as we swayed and sang to the music. It’s funny, I don’t remember talking with him… Maybe we were just enjoying the music and figuring we could get to know one another after the concert was over. Unfortunately we never got that opportunity. As the concert was ending a fight broke out just in front of us. I hated bar fights and moved quickly to get as far away from it as I could, splitting from my fellow music lover in the process. My friends found me before I could find him. Allison was recovering from wisdom tooth surgery and was in no mood to wait around while searched. I reluctantly followed them out of the club and rode home daydreaming of my missed connection and the way he sang in my ear.

Have you had a missed connection?

It may sound crazy, given what I just said about the Abundance of work and other stuff in my life right now but I have decided to commit to a 365 Project for 2012. Now, you may remember that I started a 365 back in June on my birthday. Reality is that I abandoned that sometime in August or September. Oh well. Now is the time to begin again.

I’m doing the 365 (or 366 since 2012 is a leap year!) both as a way to improve my photography and as a way to honour my commitment to create. Plus, it’s on the Life List and it’s never a bad thing to check those off! I am going to give myself a bit of a break though. I will be using a combination of cameras (digital, iPhone, Polaroid) and while my plan is to post *somewhere* every day (Instagram, Flickr), I’ll try to post at least weekly here on the blog.

This year I am also buoyed by friends who have launched their own 365s and by others who have completed theirs (or at least the first one).

And with that, here are days one (below) and two (above). No looking back now.

Last year, for the first time, I chose a word for the year. I loved the idea of choosing a word that could help to guide me, consciously and unconsciously, through the year. And I believe that it did.

My word for 2011 was Open and as I looked back on my year I couldn’t help but agree with my friend Heidi that I was certainly open to adventure through the year.  I also think that in 2011 I let my heart lead decisions more than ever before. I chose to seize opportunities, despite feelings of discomfort and insecurity (or sometimes BECAUSE of the discomfort and insecurities they raised). This payed off huge and made for a year that was rich in experiences and friendships.

While last year’s word came to me after just a bit of reflection, when it came time to choose my word for 2012 I was a bit stumped. Fortunately the magic of Twitter brought Amy Palko and her goddess readings into my life (yep, I’m fully embracing the woo woo here and I don’t care who knows it!). Amy sent me a lovely e-mail with my reading and suggested a few words for me to think about.

The word Abundance jumped out at me and while I resisted it at first (it seemed a little arrogant or presumptuous or something to choose Abundance) in the end I realized that it is my perfect word for 2012.

So, Abundance.

And no, I do not plan to make 2012 about an abundance of candy!

There are two main reasons behind choosing Abundance as my word in 2012.

As I’ve written about here and here I have big plans for 2012. Actually it’s a big WANT. The thing with WANTing something this badly is that it can lead to focusing on what I don’t have. The WANT can take over. As I go through this year I want to keep one eye on my hopes and dreams for the future and one on the Abundance that currently exists in my life. I don’t want to get lost in the WANT and lose sight of how rich and full my life is just as it is.

The flip side of Abundance for me is about remembering my priorities this year in the face of many demands on my time and attention. My work situation seems to be changing. In some ways the change is welcome. After 3 years of being quietly sidelined into projects that for the most part were neither very important nor very challenging, my new boss seems to have recognized my skills and wants to put them to use on high-profile and complex projects. While it feels good to stretch a little and to feel valued, I can also feel myself getting consumed by the work. One of the things that the situation over the past three years gave me is the opportunity to discover what I love and who I am apart from my job. I value these lessons and have often said that I must find a way to hold onto them. As interesting as a job can be, I don’t want to go back to living for mine. So this year, in addition to the reminder to Create that adorns my wrist, my word will serve as a reminder to balance my life and remember my priorities in the face of an Abundance of demands and pressures.

What’s your word for 2012 and how do you plan to invite it into your life?

2011 was a pretty great year. I travelled, I Unravelled, I made new friends online and off and I sought to connect with my world with a renewed sense of wonder and gratitude. Photography was a huge part of all that, just as it’s become a huge part of me. Here are the 12 photos that sum up my 2011.

In January I travelled to South Africa, spent a LOT of time on a bus, met up with a lovely friend, and celebrated the beauty and abundance of the universe.

In February I signed up for my second course with Tracey Clark and did some dabbling in self portraiture.

In March I went wandering in search of some photogenic scenery.

In April I got to meet beautiful baby Madison and take her picture.

By May 15th, just when we thought Spring would never come, the tulips were FINALLY beginning to bloom.

In June I was my own muse.

In July I fell deeply in love with Polaroid and captured my two favourite blondies with my SX-70. *sigh*

In August I said goodbye to an old friend and hello to a new one. SHINY!

In September I embraced the everlasting Summer weather with a picnic in the park and some Polaroid 600 film.

In October I found the sweet spot, both in my borrowed Lensbaby and among my Camp Sisters.

In November I made a wish on 11.11.11 with a community of wishers.

In December I celebrated joy and magic with people I love.

How are you remembering 2011 and looking ahead to 2012?

This post is part of Relish 11. I’m so proud to be participating along with other bloggers and friends.

What flavor did you most relish this year? Perhaps it was a whole meal, but what can you say about the flavors of the last eleven months, what do you want to remember?

Before I straight-up answer the question I want to put something out there – mostly for me, as is the norm with this blog. I hope that in the future I will look back on 2011 as the year that I finally changed my relationship with food. That’s a biggie, right? I’ve known for ages that my habits weren’t working for me but I just never had the motivation to change them. The changes seemed hard. And unpleasant. And really freakin’ hard.

Then came the seismic shift in my priorities and all of the sudden Hello motivation. So in the past few months I have radically altered the way that I eat and in the process I have radically altered the way that my body looks and, more importantly, the way it feels. I’ll admit that at times I’ve been a bit of a crazy person (with my self esteem and my mood heavily influenced by numbers on a scale) and I can’t say for certain that those times are over but I think I’m settling into a new normal.

OK, that’s out of the way. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I talk about it but now onto answering the real question at hand…

I’ve written before here about having learned to cook really over the past 2-3 years. I’m all about the fresh ingredients prepared simply and flavourfully (now minus grains and sugar). In terms of stand-out flavours this year I can think of three – two made by me and one made by Arigato Sushi in Santa Barbara, California.

First is my homemade pesto. There’s nothing special about it. I chuck basil, pine nuts, garlic, salt and olive oil into the food processer in eyeballed amounts. But the result? It is the freshest, “greenest” flavour I can imagine. Every time I made it this summer I wondered why I had been buying pesto all my life when this was SO MUCH BETTER!

Next are fish tacos. I made these pretty much every week over the summer. I started with this recipe from Everybody Likes Sandwiches but I have to say that over the summer I started lazying it up, in terms of the toppings (reverting to the cumin yogurt, store-bought salsa and avocado). No matter. I looked forward to taco night all week. Every taco night I would sit at the dining room table and think that it was too bad that there wasn’t someone sitting across from me to say “This is an effing great taco” so I could say “I know! Right?”

And finally (though really writing this post is making me think of a whole bunch of other awesome things I’ve eaten this year, notably everything I purchased at the Ferry Building in San Francisco) we have the scallop hand roll from Arigato Sushi. Holy crap people! I’m a lover of sushi but had somehow never had the scallop and how did I ever live without it? Arigato itself was a delight. It was super-busy on a Sunday night but they wedged me into a table for one and then brought me one fantastic dish after another. But that spicy scallop hand roll? It was transcendent.

*This post is part of Relish 11. I’m so proud to be participating along with other bloggers and friends.

We like to think no one knows who we are better than we do. I mean, we’ve lived with ourselves our whole lives, right? (Sometimes we might even like a break, but can’t seem to get one:)) But every once in a while we do something, or say something, or think something that catches us off guard, and we realize we just surprised ourselves. When did you surprise yourself this year? What happened?

How many times had I said that it wasn’t my thing? It was fine. I understood why people suggested it to me but it just wasn’t for me. Theoretically I could do it but I just didn’t WANT to. I was sure of that. Absolutely certain and absolutely comfortable in that certainty. Until suddenly I wasn’t.

Surprise!

This wasn’t a gradual process. It wasn’t a slow burn that turned into a fire that prompted me to change my mind. I’m not sure that I can pinpoint the moment when it turned but I can certainly pinpoint the day. I had brunch with friends, not unlike other days. I found myself trying the idea on for size where did *that* come from?). I couldn’t possibly, right? Then, do you think maybe I could?

And in the space of a day everything had shifted. My plans. My priorities. My lifestyle. My wishes. All altered. Never became possibly became maybe became oh hell yes became gathering all my eggs to put in this basket. I am all in here.

Surprise!

So now I am headed clearly down a path that was once inconceivable to me but now makes more sense to me than anything I’ve ever done in my life. It’s not an easy path. I’m playing with the odds stacked well and truly against me. But I have a lot of skin in this game and while I have one eye on the statistics my heart is fully in the realm of magic.

I’m holding faith in the magic. And I’m hoping for happy surprises to come.

*This post is part of Relish 11

Even in this innovative age we live in where we all seem to have our camera phones with us at all times, there are going to be moments that simply don’t get caught on film or pixel. What was one such moment, that you know lasts in your memory right now, but that will fade as time goes on? Describe it here, as if you have the photo right in front of you.

This one is an interesting one because, of course, I am a photographer.  Capturing moments with my camera? It’s what I do. More and more as I go deeper into photography I see the world around me as photo compositions. I think about how I would shoot it and often I do shoot it (which reminds me that I should write a blog post about how much I adore Instagram).

That said, it took me about 30 seconds to come up with an idea for this prompt. Of course there were many moments in 2011 that did not end up being captured in my camera. Some of these moments stand out, while others fade away.

I remember a moment at Camp Shuttersisters in California. We campers were sitting by the campfire, toasting s’mores and drinking wine. We were soaking up the warm fire, the damp air and the overwhelming positive energy of the sisterhood.

Jen Lemen was sitting on a picnic table, her face illuminated by the flames. She was telling her story and ripping her soul bare. For us. For herself. For the dark night. 70-odd chatty women gathered and you could have heard a pin drop.

Jen’s voice is magic. It is truly beautiful and I remember listening to it – so soft and kind but strong as a diamond. I remember being awestruck at how raw and open she was.

At some point I realized that I was crying and I wondered if I was crying for her or for me.

So this little blog turned 1 yesterday. That fact didn’t occur to me until last night during a conversation on Facebook about what people were planning to do around a Reverb 11. Any of you who have been around this little blog for the whole year (p.s. I love you, all 4 of you!) may remember that my entrée into the blogesphere was prompted by the Reverb 10 projects. Last December I was greeted each day with an e-mail prompt intended to inspire me to reflect on the year that had been and consider what I wanted to manifest in the year ahead. Unfortunately Reverb isn’t running in the same way this year but a few kind souls have stepped into the breach. One of those kind souls is Rebecca of Relish Life. Rebecca is offering up prompts for Relish 2011 and I will be going along for the ride.  I may also mix it up with my own prompts or one or two from elsewhere around Twitterdom coz that’s how we’re gonna roll this year. 2011 has been another pretty transformative year with lots to reflect on and bringing much goodness to manifest for 2012.

1.  Perfectly Ordinary

Pick a random day, at any point throughout the last eleven months, and close your eyes. Try to imagine one single moment on that otherwise ordinary day. So much beauty and truth can be contained in the routines we create, the schedules we keep, the world we travel through, even when we are hopelessly unaware. Be aware now. See one moment with all your senses and connect to it now. What happened?

I am not the world’s best housekeeper. Sometimes it surprises people when I say this because my house is almost always presentably neat. That’s the key. Neat. I don’t like clutter and try to shuffle it to the areas of the house that I don’t see eliminate it but actual cleaning I prefer to outsource to a lovely woman named Evelyn. In thinking about routines and ordinary moments though, what came to mind is changing the sheets on my bed.

There’s a particular rythm to changing the sheets — bringing the clean sheets in from the spare-room closet and laying them on the floor beside the bed, stripping the bed and wadding the dirty linens into the laundry basket. Usually these tasks are done on auto-pilot and while I’m thinking of other things. Then the re-making begins and I shift to be more in the present and attuned to the task at hand. I have two sets of sheets. The fitted sheet of the grey set is *just* big enough for the mattress so it has to go on just right and requires some tugging and pulling on the 4th corner. The white set is the expensive set. It is generously proportioned and so very smooth. After the fitted sheet comes the top sheet. Borders are arranged and corners are folded (not too tight because my feet need freedom!). Now the duvet. Before laying it back on the bed I shake it to try to redistribute the feathers. This is often followed by sneezing as I breathe in the feathers that have been “redistributed” into the room. I line the duvet up carefully so that the pattern is centred and then turn my attention to the pillows. Stuffed and fluffed I arrange the pillows on top of the duvet and step back to admire my handiwork. There’s always some satisfaction in this job well-done. This restoration of the pretty, perfect state of my bedroom but there’s also a little something else.

At some point near the end of the job my mind flits briefly to settle on a point several hours in the future. I think about the exact moment that I will turn down the covers and slide between those freshly laundered sheets. I smile with anticipation.

I invite you to Relish along with Rebecca (and me!) this month.