Wrapping Up 2012!

I can't complain about 2012. It's been a wonderful year for me. I've had the chance to grow and learn and watch my daughter, who turned two this year, do the same. I got my dream job (how you going to top that, 2013?) I laughed a lot, made great friends, and generally enjoyed my life.

I also hit some pretty big milestones on this blog, including getting 20,000 page views in a single month, which is something I would not have believed could happen when I first started writing. I know that I've gotten a lot of new readers since the beginning of the year (Hi and thank you!), so I wanted to give a little year-end wrap-up of some of my favorite posts and share a few pictures from the year.

Music

I love music, and it's probably the entertainment media that I consume the most. That led to several posts about it:

• I wrote about why I think LMFAO's "I'm Sexy and I Know It" is a feminist video.
• Then I speculated on what I think Kanye West was (maybe?) trying to do with that disturbing "Monster" video. (Warning: This post contains disturbing images of violence.)
• I compared "punk rock girls" to "manic pixie dream girls."
• Then I wrote an entire series on songs that demonstrate women tearing each other down over men.

Parenting

This year my little baby grew into a verbal, independent toddler, and my parenting skills definitely had to grow right along with her. I had some posts that reflected on those changes:

• I began to think about how to teach a child bodily autonomy while still keeping her safe.
• I fought off the "just you waits" of people who want to make parenting sound miserable all the time. 
• I got frustrated and wondered why discussions of the intersection of feminism and parenting often neglect to remember that children are people, too. 
• I didn't let my kid watch TV, but I realized (rightly) that wouldn't last and that I shouldn't get smug about it.

Fitness/Body Image

I went through some pretty radical self-care adjustments, finally finding a space where I could separate fitness from an unhealthy body image and enjoying being healthy for health's sake. I wrote several posts as I went through that journey:

• Early in the year, I compared my previous way of looking at fitness to my new one. 
• I mused over the difference between thinspo and fitspo. 
• All of that led me to think more about the media we consume, how it gets in our brains, and why we have to demand better for ourselves. 

Misc. 

I also wrote a few things that didn't really fit in anywhere else but that I wanted to share again.

• I wrote a five-part series about money and the American Dream. 
• I also shared my reflections on how being on food stamps as a child shaped my adult work ethic. 

I hope that you had a wonderful 2012 and that your 2013 is full of love and joy. (And to my blogging friends, if you do a end-of-year link wrap-up, feel free to share the link in the comments. I'd love to catch up on anything I missed from you!)