Resolutely me

Hey. It's been a while. I missed blogging, but I needed a break too.

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas (however you chose to or chose not to celebrate it), and a safe and fun New Year's.


The kids and I took off for North Carolina the Wednesday before Christmas. R wasn't able to work it out so he could come, and frankly, often the kids are better with one parent rather than two in situations such as those. And by 'situations such as those' I mean 12 straight hours in a car. There and back. Plus, it was all my family we were heading to see. R loves my family, but I think that sometimes the way my family is confuses him to the point of frustration. He grew up in a very different environment and we'll just leave it at that. Well, okay, we'll leave it at that after I say that when we are visiting his family I can clearly see his perspective on things. And let's just file that under "The joys of having in-laws".

The trip went really well and it was great to be able to see so much family in such a short amount of time. Home for me will always be where R is, but I still feel so comfortable and familiar in NC. I miss it. And then it started to snow and I was ready to leave. Props to the DOT, though, because the highways were clear, and it was snowing all the way from North Carolina into Kentucky. I got lucky that the southeast didn't get hit like the northeast did, because I'm not sure I would have risked driving through that with the kids. Oh, and I have to mention that my car? Got 482 miles on one tank of gas. Wooty woot woot!

Once back in Illinois, T quickly tired of not being in school. By Wednesday, he said, "No school again today? UGH!" when he got up. S, not to be outdone, started to cry and announced she missed her friends and teacher. I thought that was sweet.

On Thursday, we took the kids to see TRON, which was awesome for several reasons - shows before noon are $4 during the week, the movie rocks (you know that's true if it's a non cartoon and the kids still pay attention), and R somehow got off for the day so we could all go together.

On Friday, I was out doing some running around and all hell broke loose weather wise here. I ended up being directed to the commissary to take shelter because the base got locked down since tornadoes were spotted in the area. I would also like to mention that the security forces staff still had to stand out in that mess to make sure the rest of us were safe, so my apologies for being one of the the idiots that required such protection.

We spent New Year's Eve with our friends the Smiths and their neighbors. It was a low key but fun evening and the first New Years that we've spent with others that I can remember. Oh lordy, are we actually becoming social?!??! Shut the front door!

As for resolutions, I only resolved to declutter the house this year. That will be a challenge for both R and I because we keep things, but we keep different types of things, so it can be a little difficult during the decluttering experience. We made good progress this weekend, consolidating all our Christmas stuff and I'm going to take it one room at a time. The really hard part will be in not letting it recollect. I'm a sentimental collector, and R is more of a hobby/interest collector.

Other than that, I only resolve to stay resolutely me. Flaws and all. I think I spent too much time trying to turn into what I thought people expected rather than what I expected. Maybe at the end of the house decluttering, I'll have more insight about that. Maybe not. But I really like that at 40, I'm finally cool with who I am (which does not mean for one second that I will stop trying to be a better person). But just in case there isn't a whole lot of improvement with that? I can deal.

What were/are your resolutions for this year?