Happy new year to all my readers, friends, family, and people who clicked on this accidentally!

Well, guys, we made it. Here we are in 2013. The world didn’t end after all. Which means from here on out, I’m definitely going to take everything the ancient Mayans say with a huge grain of salt.   The whole heart-eating thing? I’m really reconsidering that now.

Anyway.  2012 was a big year for me. In chronological order, the following things happened in my life:

  1. I started a manuscript of a novel
  2. I got married
  3. I quit a terrible, no-good-for-me job
  4. I got typhoid fever (but recovered!)
  5. I moved to South Africa
  6. I finished a manuscript of a novel (huzzah!)
  7. I went to Italy with my parents and Al
  8. The world didn’t end

All in all, not bad.  I know 2012 was sort of a stinker of a year globally. Bad things happened to a lot of people: wars, hurricanes, unexpected celebrity divorces (I’m looking at you, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett), fiscal cliffs, and, most disturbingly, a decision by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West to reproduce. With each other.  God help us all.  But for me, overall, 2012 was great.

I got to go to Capri in 2012.

For example: I got to go to Capri in 2012.  Sigh!

The passage into the new year was rather anti-climactic for me this year.  I spent New Year’s Eve on an 11-hour Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Joburg.  At midnight the flight attendants handed out glasses of sparkling wine and the pilot counted down from ten in German. Which was fun!  And it’s the first New Year’s Day in recent memory where I haven’t woke up hungover, so I feel very adult and responsible.  Right now Al is making bread and later we’re going to get New Year’s “sundowners” at some fancy hotel nearby.  Aren’t we grown-up!

Anyway, instead of boring you with my many New Year’s resolutions, I’ll keep this short and wish everyone a happy, healthy, and non-apocalyptic 2013.  Feliz ano novo, amigos!