Now that the holiday madness is behind us, I have something to get off my chest. I've always hated New Year's Day. I'm serious.  New year's day is the worst. It marks the absolute end of the holiday season. There's no easing back in to the swing of things. You clean the dishes, you say 'goodbye' to dinner guests, pack up the remnants of the black-eyed peas and its over. You wake up on January 2nd to find yourself in the bitter cold alley behind the year that's past, trying to find your way to front door of the new one. It's commonly the start of the"new year, new fill-in-the-blank" tag lines and "I'm going to quit doing ____ this year" promises. 

Good People of the Internet, I offer to you today that I'm going in the opposite direction:

New year, Same me.   

Same attention to detail. Same other-centered disposition. Same witty, if slightly silly sense of humor. Same desire to offer clients the best product I can. 

Join me! Why abandon all we've become and the experiences we've garnered because we've hung a new calendar on the wall? Who's with me?!

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not against change nor am I saying I refuse to adapt. I'm only saying that we shouldn't be forced into completely reinventing who we are because the the calendar now reads 2015. Let's embrace our strengths and our weaknesses. Let's celebrate places where we've improved and identify those where we can grow. 

If you can't get away from the need to start fresh, opt for a "firmware upgrade." A firmware upgrade adds new features and fixes known issues while maintaining the characteristics and attributes of the original device. In other words, be you, version 2.0!

Let's hold our heads high as we venture boldly into this (still) new year and let's be better, together. Let's be better leaders, better followers, better neighbors. Let's be better craftspeople,  better consumers. Let's be better educated, better communicators, better lovers, better friends. 

I realize that these things may seem like lofty goals but that's the beauty of a firmware upgrade. When we buy a phone, a camera, a tablet, we do so based on what it does when we buy it. We have little if any knowledge of what that same device can become. A firmware upgrade can take a piece of hardware that you know and even take for granted and breathe new life into it.  

Good People, now that the ball has dropped, the christmas lights have come down and we're bundling up in reality that it's just a cold January day, what version will you be?

Thanks for reading.

Just to remind us of the happy-go-lucky days of spring and summer, check out these fun images from a shoot with our friends, Danielle & Jude Gavin!

Benchwarmers