For the past couple of years, I’ve been promising myself to do a year-in-review in January for this blog. January has rolled around twice and I’ve found reasons not to do it – mainly “I’ll do it next week”, and then ”well, it’s already March”. But not this year! I’m stopping myself from coming up with excuses and doing as I planned. Here goes:

The beginning of 2011 I actually started off really well, and had a really good schedule going. I posted about my trips outside of Caracas, and debuted my personal superhero. At one point, it seemed like the world was going berserk (has that changed), and then I tried to make sense of it from the Venezuelan perspective. During the summer, I made a journey – experienced a reawakening of sorts – and my homesickness was cured. Then, stuff went from bad to worse in the Horn of Africa, and the US wasn’t doing so hot, either. In the meantime, I managed to enjoy some of the beautiful outdoor spaces that Caracas has to offer and then some. The end of year was a bit slower on the blog front, but lots of other stuff picked up on the homefront (I completely handed myself over to the domesticity gods over the past month, only to find out again – it ain’t for me).

There you have it good people. This year I have many goals, one of which is to write more (wouldn’t be a blogger if that wasn’t one of them), but my strategy to make this happen is to write down a lot more of what happens to me. I swear the funniest thing will occur and I’ll say to myself, I should write a post about this. But then I start thinking about candy or something and that thought gets put in file 13. I’m also going to include more of my own pictures. Again, I’m such a perfectionist that I want to post only the absolute best and those are few and far between. No more of that. I’m going to share ALL that I feel is worth sharing. If you have any criticisms, feel free to leave them in the comments section

What are your plans for 2012?

Well this has been quite a hiatus…possibly the longest in the history of this blog. Instead of jumping right back in with my ramblings, I thought I’d give a brief summary of what I’ve been doing while I wasn’t writing.

Spanish: Yes, I’m still hanging in there with the course. Technically, I have another 4 modules to go before completing the entire program, but I’ve decided that I’ll stop when I feel that the only thing left to do is get out there and speak. Fortunately, I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and very well may one day be fluent

Sick family member: It’s bound to happen to all of us – you find out someone in your family is sick and the prognosis isn’t good. As frustrating, shocking, and depressing as these situations are I try to take some perspective. Life is uncertain, so don’t put anything you’ll regret not doing off for later. Also, people are irreplaceable. Remember to take care of ourselves and each other.

Vacation: The kids had two weeks vacation and even though we didn’t travel this time around, they had a blast (I almost lost my mind ). Caracas was very tranquil the first week and it was nice to move about the cabin freely. I love discovering new places, but sometimes it’s nice to simply enjoy the old. 

So those are the big events that have been keeping me away. Oh yeah, the news also continues to amaze me – from Royal wedding mania to Bin Laden death mania – remember the earthquake in Japan? Crazy, isn’t it?!