Hello there, everyone.
Tonight I am grateful for the company of good friends. For a lovely dinner with the Turner family, including a game of pool, coffee, concert photo sessions, pigs on a truck in Bali and gossipping. For all my wonderful friends - Jarrah, Rere, Jake, Becca, Ryan, Gavin, Reegan, and anyone I may have accidentally omitted, it was grand indeed to welcome in the New Year with you. Thank you to the Beatons, for being wonderful hosts, and for the fireworks set off in the paddock and the lovely paper lantern. Grateful for meaningful conversations, a bit of crazy dancing, a very nice midnight message from Tahlia, armchair boats, toasts to anything we fancied and a rose which smelled delightful. It was a great night (and morning) and I'm glad that I could begin this new year and new adventure surrounded by wonderful people as I was.
We've reached the end of another year, and this blog has been going for exactly twelve months. It's been an interesting project, challenging at times but I think I got out of it precisely what I intended to - to be able to find the little positive things in even the worst, most dreary, want-to-hide-under-the-covers-forever type days. Even when everything seemed to be going wrong there was always something (there IS always something) that I was grateful for that day. If it was a friendly shop assistant, a lame joke, the completion of a difficult task...always, there is something to be grateful for each day. I hope that in some small way my blog might have helped the lovely people who read it to ponder what they were grateful for, too :)
I've got 221 blog posts for the year, and so many things that I have been grateful for in 2011. It has been a big year not just for me personally, but also a year of great change for the whole world. There have been countless devastating earthquakes, floods, fires and other tragedies. There has been a royal wedding and the death of Osama Bin Laden. Sudan gained independence, Egypt and Libya broke free from the tyrannous claws of dictators. Many talented people, including Elizabeth Taylor, Steve Jobs, Brian Jacques and Amy Winehouse have left the world and as always new talent is rising. Closer to home, Tropical Cyclone Yasi devastated the Far North Queensland Coast, Parliament passed a bill legalising same-sex marriage in Queensland and Darren Lockyer played his final football game for the Brisbane Broncos.
On a personal level, this year has also been a big one. We lost our beloved Grandad Col earlyish in the year, I was maid of honour at the Deb Ball and was honoured to be crowned Atherton Maize Queen. I graduated high school with not one 'C' on my report card and exited with an OP score of 2. I gained my teaching qualifications for BDA tap and jazz, spent an amazing week with friends at Mission Beach to celebrate graduation and had a blissful time at various musical festivals. I performed in my final Dance Connection production, acted like a fool backstage with all the marvellous people, drank champagne and giggled with the girls. I've been on camping and road trips. I've watched good movies, heard beautiful music, met wonderful and inspiring people. To all the wonderful friends I have kept and the new ones I have made - thank you, you are wonderful and the year has been so much better for your presence.
This is my final blog, and I feel that I'll miss the experience of keeping it. I'm so very glad that I did it, and am ever so grateful to those of you who have read it, regardless of how regularly that may have been.
Last year, my New Year's resolution was to keep up this blog for the entire year, which I have somehow managed to do successfully. This year, my resolutions are;
- to learn to speak Italian
- to get fit and eat healthier
- to work hard and save as much money as possible to go to Europe with at the end of the year.
- to let go, emotionally, of what is no longer needed, however rose-tinted and lovely it may seem, and look to the future in the hope of finding a more true and fulfilling sense of happiness and purpose within myself.
Thank you for your support, and for the last time I wish you a good night's sleep (or not, as the case may be) and the very sweetest of dreams. May this new year be as glorious and prosperous as you could possibly hope.
All of my grateful, grateful love.
Lise xx
