I took December by the throat and really shook it. I did my final uni exams and assignments in the last days of November and waited the two weeks for results before really marking the study as done and dusted.

The results were good and I now hold a Master of Business Administration, or MBA. What was left of December was a jam-packed social calendar and last night, as we all slid into 2019, my partner and I made no plans, ordered take out and flopped onto the couch for a lazy night in.

It's been a mixed bag this year and as I scan through the posts of friends and others I follow on Instagram or on my blog feed, I can see most had the same. I wrote, some posts back, that this year had been one "of shifting priorities and goal posts". In a letter to a friend I wrote: "so much change and upheaval, a splitting open of things, a shaking out of things, a re-ordering, if you like". I feel those tectonic shifts have stopped now and what's left is a settling, of sorts, and I, like so many others, are stepping into 2019, blinking and messy but still moving forward, one day at a time.

I hope you are wide awake, stretching those limbs and ready to grab hold of the good that comes your way and bat back the bad to wherever it came from. A happy new year to you and yours.

IN NOVEMBER:

I WENT TO... Sydney for a night in the city with family just before Christmas and, later, a weekend in Bundanoon, again with family. Other than that, I was happy to be at home, sans study and with plenty of friends stopping for a morning, an afternoon, an overnight or a weekend while they travelled through with their own busy lives.

I ATE... I met friends for a glorious catch-up in the city. One was moving to Melbourne. One was between stints of work in the Pacific. One was recovering from a bout of pneumonia. One was looking forward to putting her feet up after a long and tiring year, and I was happy to be out with no study to rush back to. We had wine, cheese, delicious sharing plates and holed up inside while Sydney delivered a shocker of a summer storm. 

A day earlier, I'd met my folks and sister - all gathered from our semi-far flung corners - at Mamak, in Chinatown, for spicy curries, buttery roti and peanut sauce drenched skewers. My sister and Mum are not fans of a hot curry, but my Dad is and I think he was chuffed with my dining choice.

Dad's choice wasn't too bad either. In a month of catching up with family and friends, my partner and I spent a weekend with my folks and, aside from my mother's always excellent spreads, enjoyed a simple but delicious seafood pizza at Bundanoon's Primula Cafe. The cafe doesn't have a website, or social media, but if you're looking for a standout pizza in the Southern Highlands of NSW, the Primula, in the village's main street is your go-to.

I OP SHOPPED... Not a thing. There was more going in than coming out of the op shops this month.

I MADE... I booked into a pottery class scheduled for the last weeks of the academic year. A crazy notion but I felt the year had slipped by with very little creative making to show for it. The result was a small thrown, turned and glazed bowl and a desire to do more in 2019. I also knocked out a small basket sampler to remind my hands how to to weave and to test a stash of ponytail palm, cut and saved when I had to remove a very large palm from where it was pushing up a gutter.

I READ... This was a true delight. To down tools and pick up reading for pleasure again. I ripped through Jane Harper's The Lost Man and have just finished Susan Swingler's The House of Fiction: Leonard, Susan and Elizabeth Jolley. I picked the "who done it" of Harper's The Lost Man. I won't spoil it other than to say I understood the killer's motive all too well. The House of Fiction was an op shop purchase that sat on my shelves for some time but will have me hunting down unread works by Elizabeth Jolley to read with a new appreciation for the woman and how she did, or did not, examine her life through her characters.