While it’ll be an unusually uneventful annum for you, with your wacky ruler Uranus rollin’ into Aries in early March you can expect the first. The first what? Well, that would depend on you. Whatever untried desire you’ve so far been ignorin’, spring 2012 is the time for explorin’! FFWD

Photobombed, Xander-style.

My Twitter/Facebook feeds seem to have an overarching theme tonight: 2011 sucked, bring on 2012 already! I’ll admit that 2011 was an extremely challenging year for me, what with taking on a new position, struggling through a masters’ class on grounded theory, being elected to two new boards and still making time to parent/game/eat/sleep as needed (or not, as the case may be). But I don’t feel that 2011 was a particularly hard or terrible year in my corner of the world.

3 Things for Calgary

Now 2012 could be a stressful year – or it could be a year filled with opportunity My new position will continue to push people’s boundaries about collaboration, community building and leadership, but I anticipate continued support from current partners and the opportunity to develop new supports through an increased staff team. I have to complete two masters courses this year, with one focused on organizational development starting in a few days (I’m already behind on my pre-reading – only 1500 pages to go), but completing them will bring me two classes closer to attaining my degree. My life seems to be spent in meetings, but I’m excited about what the boards will be doing this year (including the upcoming Project Ploughshares Calgary workshop “Non-Violent Cultures – from Antiquity to Contemporary Times”  and a spring Federation of Canadian Carsharing Cooperatives conference in Winnipeg, which happily coincides with my father’s 70th birthday).

CSRS "Dream a Little Dream" Event

Meeting the new year with gratitude, acknowledging that nothing gets done without hard work, and setting clear personal goals so that I don’t lose sight of what matters – these are the strategies that will help me thrive, not just survive in 2012. I’m looking forward to visits with family and friends, listening to good music and having Xander make me a meal from what he learns in his food and fashion class. I have a lot of great books to read, movies to watch and music to enjoy.  And I can’t wait to see what “the first” is going to turn out to be. Any ideas?