In 2013, I will learn.

For the past two years, my friends and I have dubbed the ensuing year The Year of ______. Two years ago, in 2011, it was the year of the lasagna. We had just partied ourselves exhausted in Saratoga Springs (and I had just met Mike!) and were all giddy with the experience of staying up until 7 AM to sled into the sunrise and the new year. Our dinner that evening consisted of homemade lasagna and too many cupcakes, and we snatched up the memory to take with us for the rest of the year. That group spent the eve between 2011 and 2012 in separate states, but we texted and emailed and dubbed 2012 to be The Year of The Trader Joe's Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwich (have you never had one? You must!). Through all kinds of unfortunate circumstances, we weren't able to have the Trader Joe's chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches at this past NYE celebration in Saratoga, but we made them from scratch. Through some mixture of nostalgia or lack of creativity, some of us have dubbed 2013 The Year of the Lasagna & The Trader Joe's Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich. It's different if you combine them, you see?

So to follow tradition (while making tradition my own), I'm thinking of this year as The Year of Learning. My friends tease me about all of my different hobbies: sewing, crocheting, baking, writing, reading, making jewelry, the list goes on. This year I want to add a few more to the list, but not just for the sake of making the list longer. I really want to focus on quality this year. I don't want think of myself as the Jane of all trades anymore. I want to hone my skills, discover things I love and figure out ways to marry what I do for a living with what I love to do. There are also a few things in there that I love to do that I never want to give up.