A New Year

Welcome to 2011.

It's going to be the biggest year of changes I've ever experienced. This is the year that I'll graduate from high school. This is the year my family will move to Louisiana. This is the year I'll start living away from home, hopefully at college. This is the year Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will come out. This is the year, that on July 24th, the government will start considering me an adult. This is the year that I'll leave almost everything I know behind.

So this year is kind of a big deal for me.

It hasn't started too interestingly, though. Last night, my sister and I made a paper chain to count down the days until she's finished with her freshman year. This year is the last one that either of us will spend at the school we've attended since 2nd grade for me and Kindergarten for her. I'm graduating in June. She won't spend anymore time there, since the family is moving to Louisiana. On each link, we wrote something we won't miss about the school. It was fun to write down all our gripes and staple them together. After that, I watched Inception with my family. We toasted the new year at midnight and then collapsed into bed.

Today, I've slept in a good deal, read TVTropes with my sister, and participated in the Hippen Holiday Tradition of remodeling. We've spent more holidays remodeling than not, and today, it's my parents' bedroom. We've been preparing to paint the trim, baseboards and crown molding all day. It'd be rather dull work alone, but with the company an iPod on shuffle playing through large speakers and family who spend a good time discussing how to best estimate lengths of tape (I still maintain that Subway sandwiches is a very valid measurement), it's been entertaining.

I'm excited for a new year. I'm excited for all the new starts this year in particular will bring. And I'm excited to keep track of them all here.