Well, we’ve wrapped up the old year. The holidays have passed, and i’m feeling reflective.
I spent this New Year’s Eve (and the week before it) curled up with a box of tissues, a bottle of NyQuil, and a bad attitude. Brad had this week off work, so we had lots of adventures planned for this last week of 2011. Unfortunately, my stupid cold made us miss out on most of them. It was a bummer. I hate being sick, and I hate missing out on quality adventure time. But adventures aside, Brad caught up on some painting projects at home (goodbye ugly flesh colored accent walls!), and I caught up on a lot of rest and television.
I’ve always loved New Year’s Eve. It’s such an ideal time to draw lines in the sand – to look back on the year before and make plans for the year to come. It’s a reboot, a clean slate. It’s always fresh and ripe with all the things that are possible in a new year. And it’s a sweet time to look back at the joys and lessons of the last year. In honor of that, here’s a bit of both.
On Christmas Day of 2011, Brad and I decided that it was time to take the leap and open our own print shop. It was a dream that felt impossible, but we knew it was time and we were ready to see it happen. We moved into our little studio at 619 Western the first week of January. We purchased and moved our first full size press on January 10th, and finally had it in place (funny story) on January 14th. It was an insane, mind-boggling amount of stress and coordination to pull it off in that time frame – but it was the leap that we needed to take to move things forward.
It really blows my mind thinking about how all of that was just one year ago. So much has happened since then. We’ve seen so much growth and so much to be thankful for. A year ago, there was so much doubt and fear for the unknown to come. But this year, i’m just so excited to see what’s coming around the bend. There is so much more clarity about what we want, what we need, and what we’ll be doing. It’s a really nice change.
This year, we anticipate just as much change, and are really looking forward to it! After lots of thought, conversation and planning, we’re heading in a new direction. We’ll be rolling out major tweaks to the website and our client processes. We’ll be debuting a full wholesale catalog with a new line of greeting cards. We’ll be doing less of certain types of work and more of others. The big idea: do more of what we love, do it more efficiently, and do it for more people. Hang with us as we work hard to bring these changes to fruition – I think you’re going to like what we’ve got brewing! In the meantime, I’m going to try to stop being sick so that I can get back to work.
I hope your holidays were truly delightful, and send you the best wishes for this brand new year!