My word for 2013 was Compose, and the story behind that choice is here.  I am sorry to say that the spare room is still a mess, I haven’t written anything except for blog posts, and I go to the gym so sporadically that it doesn’t even count.  Mostly I think it was a ridiculous choice of focus for the year, because short of a complete personality transplant I don’t know how I thought I would get all those projects done.  Also?  this year went by in a blink of an eye.  Mostly I don’t mind getting older, but this whole time-passes-more-quickly-now phenomena is really unsettling.  My nephew was born just yesterday and yet now he is somehow 15 years old and 5’10” and wielding a hockey stick.  This cannot be possible – and yet, it is very real and very disconcerting.

And then, I had to have an organ removed.  On the one hand, it took 42  years for anything remotely bad to happen to me physically, and that’s something.  On the other hand, now I’m worried about what part of me is the next to go.

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 I took a lot of pictures, though.

In fact, I filled up an 8 gig SD card worth of photos.  Most were crap, frankly, but between the VEB’s tutoring, joining an informal photography group, and taking lots and lots of pictures, I have a few that make me happy.  They are not technically perfect, mind you, but I feel like they are a big step in the right direction, especially since I’m still using a point-and-shoot camera and not a DSLR.  I’m also doing virtually no post-processing (ie, not using PhotoShop or Lightroom), just cropping and some occasional brightness/contrast fiddling.  Most of my favorites have been used on the blog in prior posts, but here’s a round-up of my “Top Ten” pictures for the year:

The VEB’s favorite surprised me (#5 – the bird in the nest), and so I’d love to hear if you have a favorite.  Or, if you know anything about photography (particularly nature photography), what suggestions for improvement would you give me?