Seen something you like on Awesomeville?  It may be available for purchase.   Check out the brand new Print Shop page (permalink in the menu at the top) and have a browse of some of my selected photos which I’m selling, available on any medium and up to 20″ x 30″ in size (for most).

Whilst I’ve come to the conclusion I’m no longer interested in taking photos of strangers as a business venture, I DO like the prospect of selling art for art’s sake.  I didn’t want to open an Etsy shop or anything I had to maintain regularly, so I went with a far more casual approach of simply having a page on my site.  And hey, it’s a great way of showing off some of my shots as well!

Please contact me with any questions regarding prints, or to query a photo you may have liked but isn’t on the print page.

So each month last year I did these round-up posts as a means of keeping track of and staying motivated on goals I set out to achieve as well as mention little things that may not have made it into a blog entry.  This year I’m doing the same, as it was (and still is!) a great way to track my progress for my resolutions.

I’m surprised I got as much completed as I did to be honest, as things around the Doodle household have been busy since… well since… I don’t know, Thanksgiving last year? Ha!  With the holidays having been a blur and family coming in and out of town (Mark’s mum and my dad have both stayed with us this month) schedules and routines have been out the window, and I’ve resigned myself to rolling with the punches and getting everything back on track in February when things settle down again… or will they?  My new course, Biological Psychology, starts this week and will run alongside my existing Human Biology course.  I’ve dropped Insanity this month in favor of starting over again on Day 1 in February as I was missing too many days in the schedule due to the busy holiday season, but luckily I’ve been watching my weight in the meantime and still losing (despite many a binge on delicious holiday treats).  I am DETERMINED to hit that goal weight and body this year, all the hard work put in since August 2010 is paying off, and I’m in the home stretch.

Also, Awesomeville is just 9 “likes” away from 100!  Have you “liked” Awesomeville yet?  If not, you’re missing out on getting Awesomeville updates direct to your Facebook feed! The “like” box is just over there, on the right.

Resolutions 2012:

• -Pictures taken:  1,797 (1,797 / 15,000)
• -Books read:  4  (4 / 30) 
  • A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  • Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
  • Life and Laughing: My Story by Michael McIntyre
  • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• -Pounds lost:  2.6 lbs ( 2.6 / 30)
• -Home improvements: 1 (1 /6)
  • Living room decor.
• -Register for a spring course: DONE!  Biological Psychology starts this week and I am very excited to explore the material, just hoping two courses won’t be the death of me.

More awesomeness from January:

Shepherd’s delight.

Linking with Show {off} Your Shot - Sweet Shot Tuesday - Communal Global – Tuesday Tips and Pics - Photography Link Up

- Kindle + coffee + naptime = bliss.  Reading The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene.

- I’m beginning to see that wooden toys are far superior to their plastic one-hit-wonder counterparts.

- With the holidays over I finally picked up where I left off with Preacher, a comic series by Garth Ennis.

- Found my hubby’s old saxophone this week, polished it up and put it in the living room ^_^

- Pasta shells. I love making Moo’s lunches up in big batches. This week: chicken and broccoli pasta in a white Alfredo sauce.

- Got Milk?  Moo discovered a love for cow’s milk this week… finally!

- Red sky at night …. sunset over sheep.

Linking up:  http://naptimemomtog.com/ -  http://www.theboyandme.co.uk/ - http://www.betweenthelinesblog.net/

My husband used to play the saxophone, did I ever tell you that?  He picked it up as a teen thinking he’d learn to play sexy tunes so all the girls he fancied would dance provocatively around him (joke a la Eddie Izzard).  This didn’t happen.  Instead, fifteen years on his wife digs it out of storage, polishes it, and puts it on the shelf in the living room.   I love its beautiful contours and intricate parts, and I love how it fits in with the canvas art I made a few weeks ago.  I myself never learned an instrument, after being told at nine that my recorder playing was “wrong” and that I “probably wasn’t cut out for music.”   I had a wild idea that I would LEARN how to play this sax that lasted for about 24 hours before I came to my senses and realized I do not have that kind of free time. At least, not without giving up games or reading or something.

Much like the creep of holidays into earlier and earlier territory each year, so follows the so called “spring” cleaning.   This year I started with my laptop: clearing off programs, deleting copies of copies of copies I seem to build up out of nowhere, and organizing all of my photos into a more comprehensive system.  I even deleted a 30GB sized folder full of nothing but funny images I found online.  What?

(via)

I didn’t even look in it, just threw it out.   Ran the disk defragmenter, opened the laptop itself and gave it a good cleaning with the can of compressed air.  Runs beautifully again, and I’ve never had it this organized. I also rolled out a new blog layout.  Spiffy, huh?

I’m excited that spring-cleaning-in-winter this year includes painting and decorating the bedroom, as it’s been completely neglected as we slowly improve upon the other rooms in the flat.  The bedroom still looks as it did when we moved in, right down to the bare bulb dangling unceremoniously from the ceiling.   I’ve got a lot of ideas, and it’s going to be fun.  I’m feeling productive at the moment, inspired, and I’m ready to begin: home improvements, my next course, the rest of the year.

 Perhaps winter is a better time for our cleaning anyways, spring is for fun.