Six sixes. Four nines. Three twelves. Two eighteens. One thirty-six.

The past year started out with my baby girl turning one. It’s hard to think she’s approaching two so quickly now. We threw her a big bash to ring in the whole year. Two months later she started walking and has been getting fast and faster each day. Some day, I’ll bet she’s faster than her old man.

I’m beyond pleased that we made it through the year without any major illnesses. I still have scars inside of me from when we ended up in the emergency room twice in a week due to her illness. Sure, there have been coughs and runny noses but nothing that I wouldn’t expect from a kid in daycare.

We took her on vacation hours from home, again. It went much better this time as far as the vacation aspect went. The car ride left much to be desired. She wasn’t having it so Mom and Dad weren’t having it. There’s only so many times you can sing the wheels on the bus in a row to soothe your child who insists on screaming even though you told her that there’s only fifteen minutes left until we get there as long as this truck in front of us starts going the speed limit. But she enjoyed the beach, but not the pool. She loved continental breakfast, but hated the mosquitoes on the hike. She loved the lake views and the breeze and fish boil and animals at the farm and all the time spent with mom and dad.

I lost track of the time we spent at the park this past year. Eventually, our girl was big and daring enough to do more than just swing for an hour on end, so she started exploring the slides and the climbing options. Eventually, just about any night of the week she could be found at the park with Mom or Dad while the other was cooking dinner. I’m amazed at how much she tries to do and push her limits. Amazed, of course, and terrified. Every playground looks like a deathtrap to the parent of an 18-month old. We made it through the year only falling off of a single bridge (which was a slippery sheet of rubber, by the way).

Now my baby is no longer a baby but really a full blown toddler. She tries new foods, and lets us know what she doesn’t like. She sits for mom and dad to read her book after book after book. She talks, oh how she talks. It amazes me how much this kid of mine can communicate. She is a sponge to all of the world around her. She hears and repeats and speaks. She sees, identifies, and remembers everything she encounters. She understands more complex and abstract ideas than I expect of her. She is silly and laughs and plays and enjoys life (unless she’s hungry).

All in, it was a fantastic year for me and my girl.

Some point after my daughter was born, I started to take up film photography again. I wanted something physical to remember the moments with her. Since this time last year, I’ve spent a lot of time and effort expanding my knowledge of the art form. Ask my wife, I talk about it a lot. Throughout this post, I’ve done what I can to make sure all of the photos are from film.

Part of the process of expanding photography for me has meant trying out new cameras and new formats. It has been fun, daunting, and addicting. I went from having two to three 35mm cameras to adding a couple more 35mm cameras as well as five medium format cameras and a large format camera. Plus, I have a small handful of cameras with odd-size film or obsolete film. This coming year, I plan to downsize my collection as much as I can because I don’t want it to be about collecting gear as much as it is about using the gear to capture photos.

The biggest win for me in terms of getting a camera this year was winning an auction for a Hasselblad 501CM for a stellar price. I can still feel my heart pounding from the final moments of the auction. I enjoyed the drive three hours north to pick it up, practically racing to get there so no one has a chance to impersonate me and pick it up instead of me. I spent the afternoon walking through a sculpture park just trying the camera. When I came home and developed the photos, I was absolutely giddy with delight at how crisp and beautiful the negatives were. Since then, I’ve taken many great photos, a bunch of mediocre ones, and a smattering of just ‘meh’ photos. This camera has single-handedly reignited a passion in me for photography.

I also tried finding and shooting the more recent comet on film, but it proved to be a lot trickier. We went out looking for it for several days and we couldn’t see it with the naked eye, except one night I was out by myself and I saw it. I thought to myself, there’s no way I’m going to see that faint smear in my viewfinder with a fixed f11 aperture but lo and behold, there it was. Since you’re unable to practice on anything equivalent to a comet, I really had no idea what settings to use to capture it. I guess and bracketed a bunch of shots. Unfortunately, none of them came out. Next time, maybe I’ll catch it on film.

Cameras aside, we had a fairly eventful year around the house. For a while, leading up to and following the birth of our daughter, we were looking for a bigger house to move into. Apparently we had outrageous home requirements (modestly bigger than our current house and something we can actually afford) and were not able to find one that met our needs. So we looked into making our current house fit our needs better. We ended up talking to a few contractors and signed on with one to add an addition to the back of our house. Granted, this wasn’t cheap but it was still less than buying a new home in the inflated market.

In late May, once all of the plans had been drawn, the ground dried up, and the permits were finally secured they broke ground on our home. We had them tear off the unsightly and useless sun-porch on the back of our house and in place we now have a small room off our kitchen (four seasons) and a deck off of that. It wasn’t until late last month did they finish up the final details, so I’m still adjusting to the changes in our house, but it was worth the time, inconvenience and money spent to get it done. The room is only an additional ~200 sq ft, but its full of windows and fixes the tight quarters of our kitchen. Plus, an added bonus, we now have a crawlspace beneath it which we’re using for all of our storage needs. It is surprisingly one of my favorite parts of the whole addition. Our house felt like it was bursting at the seams with our occasional stuff.

While we’re glad we added on to the house and we’re happy the work is completed, it did make the year go by faster and slower than it felt like it would have. Just having things in process was frustrating. Having people show up at our house at seven in the morning was frustrating. Having people in our home throughout the day was intrusive. Stella was not having it, she didn’t like anyone in her space making noise when it was nap time (which is pretty much all day). Her anxiety meds were upped. She wore her comfort shirts in the summer, and more than once I took her into the office to escape the noise. Same Stella, same.

Now we have a space and we get to figure out what that space is for us. We’ll use it as dining space but only just a portion. I know for certain I have a few projects I’ll need to complete to get it across the finish line (refinish a dining table, refinish a Hoosier cabinet, build a new shoe bench, and a new set of coat hooks).

On the flip side of all of that excitement from the past year, I had work to keep me balanced. It started out seeming like it was going to be one of the best years because my best friend was hired to the same position I am in. To no fault of his, he ended up getting a better offer elsewhere and left after a few months. What a fantastic few months it was though.

In September, I missed my wedding anniversary to travel for work to a conference in Idaho. The conference itself wasn’t much of anything that pertained to me so I spent most of my time exploring Boise which was nice, though it was right near an active wildfire so the air quality wasn’t good. I brought my 35mm camera with me to shoot while I explored. The highlight of the trip was the field trip with the conference to go whitewater rafting down the Payette River. It was so serene floating down the river high in the mountains with an occasional rapid here and there. I wanted to spend the whole time on that raft staring up at the mountains and the trees and breathing the mountain air. For a brief moment, I considered moving my family out there and taking up a career of river guide. Quickly I decided it wasn’t the personality fit for me.

The rest of work this past year has been a steady increase in meeting that fill my day and prevent me from getting anything done. Increasing in frequency are meetings where I’m having to sit through disparaging remarks from out clients. We cannot defend ourselves in any meaningful way, lest we damage the relationship for good. It’s slowly eating away at my mental health.

As a result, I’ve been on the hunt for something new. I really love the output of the work I currently do and the impact it has on those around me, but I’ve been in dark places this year as a result of work. In particular, I was on the verge of a panic attack for an entire Friday a couple months back. Nothing really has improved since. The trouble, I’m learning, is that finding another job that will please my soul is hard to come by. I don’t particularly like the type of work I do but I do not know what else I can do, and here’s the real kicker, without taking a pay cut. I feel backed into a corner. I’ll figure it out, hopefully soon.

As a result of all of the increased work and pressure throughout the day, I had to make modifications to my daily routine and ended up making the tough decision to conduct all of my training runs during the week before I started my day. This meant I was getting up at 5:30AM every day to go on long runs. Normally, I’d do these during lunch but the time I had blocked off for my lunches frequently gets booked over (4 out of 5 days a week). I couldn’t rely on it anymore.

My days became longer, my sleep decreased and every little change just piled on. Come a month before the marathon, I was just completely exhausted and not getting the same joy out of running that I used to. I just wanted the marathon to be over with. I ran the marathon, worst time yet, and haven’t thought about running since. Next year, I’m planning to only run a half marathon. Lighter training will be easier to fit into my schedule as well as the fact that my body seems to just shut off after 21 miles of continuous running.

So, all in, there were a lot of great things that happened this year but they feel overshadowed by all of the negative things from work. I usually like to set myself some goals for the coming year of my life, but right now I’m not sure I can muster much more than to improve my happiness. Stick around and I’ll let you know how it goes.