I love how this photo of a candle turned out. Looking at it reminded me again of Carols by Candlelight (although this photo is taken inside). I’m not sure if it’s only an Australian tradition (I don’t think it is), but the idea is a city-wide gathering, usually outdoors in a park, to sing carols on Christmas Eve by candlelight. Quite fun, but then again Australia’s December weather is much more enjoyable than that here.

Before I do my New Year’s resolutions post, I thought I’d take a moment to step back and take a look at how I did with my resolutions from last year. 

1. Work out more, be healthier.

Kind of “check”? I did start running this year, but I can’t really say I kept to a weekly schedule. Food wise though, I do feel as if I started eating better. Let’s put it this way: I worked out more and was healthier in 2008 than I was in 2007. Overall, I still think I could improve a whole lot, but it’s a nice little start.

2. Work more organized and more regularly.

Again kind of “check”. I am much more organized than last year, but there is still room for major improvements on the “more regularly” part.

3. Stress less.

Check! If there’s is one thing I’ve improved in this year, is the amount of stressing I do. I used to get really worked up about all kinds of things, stressing out about stuff in my life that wasn’t going completely to plan (the plan in my neurotic-slightly-overachiever mind that wants to do everything perfect). This year I realized and accepted not everything goes the way you want it to, so there’s no reason to stress out about those things. 

4. Start organizing events.

Check! Since February I’ve been involved with organizing the London Geek Dinners and have created some spin-offs like the London Geek Meet and the London Girl Geek Coffees. I still don’t put as much time into each of those events as I wish I could (haven’t organized a Girl Geek Coffee since June), but I hope I can do more of these events next year.

5. Finish my degree and get a job.

Ehm. Pretty much “Fail”? I’ve made some progress with my research thesis this year, but I still haven’t finished it yet. There have been some serious issues which caused the delay (like my wisdom tooth removal), but it’s no excuse: my main priority of 2009 should be finally getting my degree.

6. Get a “real” camera and learn more about photography.

Check! Since Cristiano got a second DSLR, I’ve been playing more and more with his old one (although I like the lens on the new camera too). One of my resolutions of this year though is to actually process the photos I take and not keep them lying around untouched for ages.

I’ll be writing about this year’s resolutions some time later this week. So how did you guys fair with your resolutions from last year?

It’s still the Christmas Holidays, so I’m still allowed an attempt to finish my 12 Posts of Christmas series (this is post #6, do you still think I can finish it all on time?). To celebrate the holiday season, I’ll be giving a couple of cool books away in the next couple of days here on my blog.

The first one is Night Play from Sherrilyn Kenyon. It’s from one of my favourite romance series, the Dark-Hunters, and I’ve been meaning to write a blog post about it. In short, it’s a vampire and shapeshifter world, but with Greek mythology and it’s gods thrown into the mix. 

All you have to do to win this book, is leave a comment behind here with what your favourite book is. Entries must be left behind before next week Monday (so deadline is 23:59 Sunday 4th) and is open to all countries.

Happy New Year, everyone!

One of my New Years resolutions is to upload more photos, and much more quicker after I’ve taken them (instead of a couple of weeks later; I still have photos from half a year ago which I still haven’t processed yet). So to start off this new year right, here are some of the photos of the fireworks yesterday night in Almere: