- a week at a beach house in Wilmington, NC with friends (I did most of the planning)
- NYC for a long weekend with friends
- weekend in Charlottesville
- weekend at Smith Mountain Lake
- home to Ohio twice
Parties I hosted/co-hosted:
- Mad Men themed costume party
- Margarita birthday party
- Easter dinner feast
- a house concert for High Street Hymns
- a Fellows Reunion dinner party
- 2 Vision Nights
- hosted a dinner party for an out-of-town friend, planned a promotion happy hour for a friend, planned a birthday hike for another friend, planned a housewarming/art party for another friend, planned a restaurant week outing,
Social Organizations:
- switched churches
- began serving on a nonprofit board of directors
- hosted a newcomer’s dinner for my old church, attended one for my new church
- I went on a women’s retreat for my old church
- Spoke at a women’s prayer breakfast about my health journey
- Went on a board retreat for nonprofit
Spiritually:
- did healing prayer with several friends
- received healing prayer ministry from mentors
- took Restarting, Forming, Belonging, Theophostic Prayer Counseling
- learned to hear God’s voice, started a journal for cool stuff God has said to me
- met with my pastor 3x to share my vision for healing prayer
Events:
- went to 9 christmas parties
- saw Ray LaMontagne
- saw Josh Garrels
- attended a murder mystery dinner party
- ran the Dash for Dad 4 miler, cherry blossom 5k, 5k at LaPlata HS, and DC Color Run 5k
- went sailing
Design:
- took on a significant freelance project for money!
- designed pro bono sermon graphics for old church
- designed pro bono advertising collateral for an art exhibit in the czech republic
- designed pro bono course catalog for local nonprofit
Health:
- 15 IV’s
- 9 doctor’s appointments
- 27 PT appointments
- 360 smoothies
- lots of vegetables and also, french fries.
Random accomplishments:
- learned to roast a chicken
- got a new car
- went on 32 dates with 15 guys
- got a financial planner, started saving intentionally for retirement
- finished reading through the Bible in a year
- read Getting Things Done and mostly implemented it
- got through the aftermath of a tough breakup
- painted & redecorated my bedroom
- helped a friend get a job in a totally different sector
- met 2 of my mentors: Arthur Burk and David Takle
- my sister visited me for a week
- became friends with praying alt-health moms
- I went to the shooting range
I also worked a full-time job and hung out with a lot of friends one-on-one. 2012 was a great year. Full, filled to the brim with good friends and blessings and opportunities. For the first time in my life, I feel really content and happy with what’s unfolding in front of me, even though it’s not what I would have chosen. I’m confident 2013 will be even better, even if there are hard things.
I leave you with this benediction from one of my rad mentors, Arthur Burk:
“From my pilgrimage, from where I’ve walked, I bless you with no wasted pain. There will be pain. There’ll be all sorts of different colors and flavors of pain. But I bless you with being able to leverage every pain point into authority, into growth, failing forward, moving on, being dangerous. I bless you and your entire ministry. No wasted pain anywhere in the journey. Amen.”