2014 Wrap-Up

Ah, my poor neglected blog! I have mostly migrated over to other social channels for regular updates. But I have returned for the Dad by Dawn tradition of an annual summary, a sort of digital family newsletter for my internet friends.

So what's new? The major change for me this year was a job shift; after nearly 7 years at the same company, I left to pursue a career in event planning. Starting a podcast about local events was a logical extension of that move and hands-down my biggest project in 2014. And of course Jenna and I celebrated our ten-year wedding anniversary. Let's break it down:

Events Ahoy
2014 in a nutshell was the year I turned my passion for event management into a full-time gig at Greenspring Media. If you count the Food & Wine Experience, where I worked three days as a volunteer, I did a total of nine events this year. Which is the total number of Craftstravaganzas we've produced in as many years. Pretty crazy! So far, I'm loving it.

Business School Dropout
I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man. I don't need an MBA to do what I'm doing or what I'm planning to do in the future. Besides that, my employer isn't footing the bill any more, which changes the equation. I've been successfully running my own business for coming up on a decade now, and I felt like my time and money could be better spent elsewhere, so I kind of unceremoniously dropped out by just stopping going. Which leads us to the...

Weekly Planner Podcast
A year ago I started doing two things: talking with other event planners and being on podcasts. I enjoyed participating in other peoples' shows and I didn't want to stop networking just because I found a job, so it was only natural to combine both pursuits and start my own podcast. Interviewing guests, recording and producing the episodes has been a fun challenge. My resolution for the year was "to keep making connections and exploring new possibilities," and I nailed both with this one.

Mushroom Hunter 
Spring through fall found me heading to the forest any chance I got, to search for edible mushrooms. I cooked a ton of Shaggy Manes and found a huge Chicken-of-the-Woods mushroom right at the end of the season (I ate that too). My forays in the woods (and other miscellaneous adventures) are documented on Instagram, which was made possible by me getting an iPhone this year, finally. I don't know how I lived without it.

Art Projects
I resolved to draw a bunch of comics this year and started strong, but only made it through February. The Pokemon sugar cookies I decorated for Natalie's 6th birthday were a hit. I also illustrated the posters for two of our craft events this year. My primary creative outlet has been cross-stitch, which I still enjoy a lot. Everything's on Tumblr!

The Children
I guess I should write more about my daughters since the original purpose of this blog was to talk about parenthood. So here's the deal: Natalie and Paisley are the best daughters a dad could have. They have been my mushroom hunting assistants, sous chefs, artist collaborators, co-conspirators, and video game apprentices. I love being their father and I love them more than anything in the world.