The 2015 New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! 2014 was a truly incredible year for me, both professionally and personally. I re-discovered my love of writing (and blogging), which I'd accepted as being 'something I did as a kid' up until June of this past year. Committing time to nurture a blog is a new experience, and one that has been more challenging than I could have ever expected.

I also traveled.

I got tattooed (a bunch).

I was a Maid of Honor in my sister's wedding, and gained a brother-in-law.

I also have come back to my first and strongest love: movies.

I have many goals for 2015, but really, they are all subsets of the same thing: Find peace in the busy day-to-day to give my passions room to grow. What does that mean?

Write more movie reviews.
The AFI Top 100 personal project has been so rewarding. My review process and style and approach is constantly refining, and I want to challenge myself to take a more critical look at newer films—ones that are sometimes harder to take a firm stance on. I may not do it for every new movie I see, but I'll certainly try.

Go on more hikes.
I used to hike all the time. Los Angeles is a great place to pop out for a hike and then be done in time for lunch; or even gear up for an all day trek. My body felt so healthy when I was hiking regularly (the last time it was "regular" was probably 2011), and for the first time in my adult life, I wasn't Vitamin D deficient. When 90% of your time is spent indoors and probably in front of a computer, that happens. So I'll tag that on this goal too: Get more Vitamin D.

Get better at taking pictures.
New camera + new editing software (thanks Christmas!) = hopefully better images. I have so much to learn, but I'm up for the challenge. Getting more comfortable taking pictures in public. Getting more comfortable taking pictures of myself. Maybe a 365 Project?

Explore what this blog can be. 
When I first started blogging, the blogging world was very different than it is now. No photography, no sponsored posts... you just wrote about what happened that day. When I started blogging again in July, I had a lot to catch up on. I posted every day for several months, with the goal of just filling space. That's what I was supposed to do, right? But there are so many interests I have that weren't being posted about, and things I didn't care much about that were getting a lot more play. I want to explore different posts and different series... and discover what kind of blogger I want to be.

Do you have any resolutions? Let's get started!

{photo via Sinjun Strom}