Bringing in the New Year

We have had a full month of someone being sick in our house. Consequently we entered this Year of Our Lord 2013 mutedly. No parties. No big festivities. Only a few special snacks. We celebrated midnight in the ocean with Jack at 10 p.m. then Google Plused for two hours with our best friends in Ohio and Chicago ringing in the New Year with old jokes and silliness. Robby had to work on New Year’s Day solving some critical problem at work with a handful of other disgruntled coworkers.

It’s dampened any of my usual enthusiasms for “revolutions” or the ilk. My goals this week/month/year is for all of us to be healthy again. Or at least for the coughing to stop. We traveled over Thanksgiving this year and I worried about getting our decorations up for Christmas later than we’d hoped… and then found myself getting to “enjoy” them a great deal since I’ve been somewhat confined to the living room for the last three weeks. Always a plus with the minus…

Still. Last year wasn’t a bad year. With the kindlefire and, after my birthday, the kindle app on the iPad, I’ve read more this year since– well… before Jack came along. The average was nearly a book per week. (With some stockpiling on weekend trips up north, etc.) Two years ago i could n’t fathom reading on a screen instead of a page…

Robby’s unexpected surgery and looooong recovery in the winter this year had unexpected consequences– we spent more time together and as a little family than we might have had all things been normal. We reemerged from the weeks of him edging towards better with a new appreciation for normal and each other.

We traveled some. A few trips to Chicago. A trip to Georgia. Dipped our toes in The Lake. Spent another glorious week at Family Camp with the nieces. Went to the UP with the youth group. 

It was a big year for Jack– he braved a mini-week session at Sleep Away Camp and came away thismuch more independent. He mastered his two-wheel bike. He learned $125 in Amazon gift cards for selling a ridiculous amount of popcorn for the cubscouts. (His technique in sales is entirely his own.)

The anchors in our schedule– work, school, church are weighted. We are grateful to have job that we both love. We’re grateful to have Jack in a school that he loves. And we’re grateful for our church and the family there. The bulk of our time goes to those three things– we’re grateful that we don’t feel as though that time is wasted.

Who knows what this newest year will bring? Hopefully words and travel and food and friends and family. We’ll hope for that.

About these ads