Linking up with Kellie from Good, Bad, Unnecessary for 2011′s last TIK and Lee from Mummy Issues for her 2011 Discoveries linky.

2011 has been mostly good to me.

When I started my blog in June, I’d intended it to be a place I could write about writing, build up my network of fellow writers and share my journey through Year of the Novel, the course I undertook with the Queensland Writers Centre. I was going to write, edit and search for an agent in 2012.

I’m so far away from that original plan right now and that’s ok. After four decades of life as a perfectionist and control-freak, not following the plan and being ok with that is a good thing.

Instead, blogging took on a life of its own. I joined linkies. The first, InkPaperPen’s Write on Wednesday writing prompts forced me to stop agonising over every little word and just write without editing. The support and positive comments from other participants have been invaluable. Long may it continue.

More linkies; IBOT, Thankful Thursday and TIK meant stepping up and blogging with regularity. The giving and receiving of comment love on those days rocks and spills over into the rest of the week as I’ve gradually come to know some of my fellow bloggers.

I wrote my first sponsored post and discovered I’m not the purist I thought I was when it comes to profiting from my blog. The tagline was always ‘write without pay until somebody offers to pay you’. Next year, I’ll need to assess where I draw the line.

I shared my RUOK Day story, one that would unravel me if I let it.

I worried and prayed for the Big Un. We’re still waiting for that specialist appointment.

My girls made me laugh a lot and allowed me to share some of their stories and achievements. I’m glad I have a place to document them so that I never forget, and I hope in sharing, the girls can see how awesome I think they are, even when I want to throttle them both.

I started retraining part-time in an office environment and no longer work in a classroom with my beloved children with disabilities, which has presented its own set of challenges even though the work isn’t hard. Office work bores me though, and I realised it wasn’t enough for me. I discovered I work better when I’m busy with deadlines and structure and so I went back to uni.

I discovered I’m no longer the organised person I was in my 20s and 30s. My time management skills are rusty and as a result I was forced to juggle this year. And with juggling there’s the possibility of dropping something. I dropped a few balls. Luckily for me, my husband walks beside me, picks them up off the ground and carries them for a while.

Next year will be all about striving for balance. Not tight-rope-walking-might-fall-off balance, but the good old-fashioned kitchen scales kind, weighing things up, adding bits and pieces and lessening anything that tips the scales too far in one direction.

Here’s to 2012.

*clink*