Get Shit Done

A new year has somehow found me.  The old one slipped quietly out the back door.  I didn't have the chance to curse it for its woes or thank it for its blessings.  But they were there.  Rather than write copious amounts of words about each of them, I will compile a short list here:

1. Celebrated 5 years of marriage (Blessing)
2. Racked up unwanted debt (Woe)
3. Wrote/directed short film, The Eyes of God (Blessing)
4. Worked in an Autism Spectrum Disorder classroom at an elementary school (Blessing)
5. One-on-one assistant to a student with Autism (Blessing)
6. Road trip to New Orleans to rebirth a stagnant documentary about a Blues musician (Blessing)
7. The wife and I got jobs at a non-profit that we're passionate about (Blessing)
8. Celebrated my wife getting her AA degree (Blessing)
9. Moved to Orlando, FL (Blessing)
10. Enjoyed visits from my parents and my brother and sister (Blessing) 
11. Met other filmmakers with similar goals/passions (Blessing)
12. Helped to shoot an edit a colleague's short film, Diary of a Terrorist (Blessing)
13. Lived with Abigail's great grandmother for a couple of months (Blessing)
14. Met new friends (Blessing)
15. Visited old friends (Blessing)
16. Grilled my first steak (Blessing)
17. Watched my sister go through two brain surgeries (Woe)
18. Watched my wife fulfill a dream of advocating for less fortunate women through Noonday Collection ( Blessing)

There are plenty more that I could list, but I think that's enough.  Needless to say, there are many more blessings than there are woes, and if I am honest with myself, the woes are just cloaked blessings.  The struggles that we face generally help us to grow more than the times of ease and pleasure.  Struggle in life is important.

#3 and #6 mentioned specific personal film projects, of which I'll make mention here:

The Eyes of God is a short film (~13:00) that I wrote/directed back in June, along with the help of many other talented individuals.  A rough cut was completed then, but I'm doing some revisions and I hope to drop the final version in the upcoming weeks.

At the end of December, I took my friends Mark and Darcy and we set out on the road to catch up with Peter Collins in New Orleans.  I started shooting a short documentary about him around 5 years ago, but my vision was shaky at best, and so I decided to go back and reinvigorate the project with some new footage and a stronger sense of direction.  Pete is a musician from New York who has seen a hard stretch of road in his life.  But it has become clear through his music and his lease on life that once again, the struggle is important.  This seems to be a recurring theme in my life lately.  I'm hoping to wrap this project up in the next 3 months.

New Year's with Friends (Blessing)

On New Years Eve, my wife Abigail had a wonderful idea.  We were celebrating with a few friends and she decided to bring over some white balloons and markers and we wrote some of our goals on them and released them into the night sky.  I have several goals, but one that I hope will sum up this year at the close is this:  Get Shit Done.

And I hope to do just that.