A Year in Review

2012 has provided us with one helluva wild ride. Then again, I don’t know that there’s been a single year of our lives—since J and were together, at least—that hasn’t been a wild ride.  That being said, the reason I started this blog nearly three years ago was to reflect on our lives—to find the positive and remember it through the hard times. I lost that once, and I never want to travel through that darkness again.

So, let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights of 2012—as featured on this blog or not—and then I’ll be ready to start thinking about 2013… although, if you caught me on Twitter last night, you know that I’ll only be making resolutions I know I can keep. Like spending more time on Pinterest.

In January, I mentally powered through an minor PA relapse. Writing about it gave me the chance to connect with other individuals who suffer from RA, PA, and Lupus. We traded notes on meds, exercises, shortcuts and foods.  I’ve been med free for quite some time now (since July 2009), and I can attribute most of it to J’s enforcement of a positive attitude and exercising Every. Damn. Day. Which, at first, made me feel like I was going to die. I hate freaking exercise.

In February, J and I took a weekend trip to KC and I started writing for Sprocket Ink! My favorite posts to write in the last year certainly had to be about the Hunger Games Haters and the Zombie Apocalypse. Also, last February, I began to take a stand against the teacher who was making Ant’s life a living hell.

In March, I first starting preaching the benefits of finding your Twitter tribe, and wrote an SI article that started the phrase ‘Hooker Powers’ amongst my friends. It was awesome.

April brought a declaration from J that I need to write about him more often, and Alex from Late Enough and I shared a mutual hatred of birds.  Also? The Bloggess released the funniest book ever.

May marked the one year anniversary of the tornado which devastated my hometown in 2011. Steph from Musings of a Sarcastic Mind  started #OperationPlayMore and I joined in. J was still on me to write more about him.

June brought vacation. Because there’s no better time to go to Disney World than when there’s a tropical storm. No lie! The rain keeps the temperatures down and the lines away. It was fantastic to know that it was 83 degrees in Florida while it was 106 in Missouri. Plus? We totally got to see a rocket launch and Atlantis make its way home. Also, there was the broken shower incident of 2012… I still hold Mike Holmes responsible…

July was hot. And unbearable. And tried to kill me, since June didn’t get the job done.

In August, I spent a week in Chicago sans-guys. Granted, it was for work, but it was awesome. Good food. My first official train ride.  

In September, which is one of the busiest months of the year for me (I know, I know… I say it about almost every month) we openly admitted to K’s OCD diagnosis—which had been a summer-long process, and to make me feel better, the Twitter gave me a vacuum. Again, this is why the Twitter is awesome! Okay, maybe it didn’t exactly happen that way, but close enough. Oh, and I totally copped to believing in ghostesses, and started a group with like-minded women who want to travel to ghosty places, learn to ghost-hunt, and drink. Mostly the traveling and drinking bit, I bet. Then Noa from Oh, Noa told me she wanted to come and investigate my house (she totally was a ghost hunter before) and I didn’t find it creepy at all.

October and November both are kind of a blur. I spent most of my time writing the grant. I also had some funny moments (well, funny for J, not for me) and Jesse took pity on me and sent me some Rock Star Wine! 

  

In December… well, I officially admitted I have let myself go (although I’ve been able to rectify a bit of that over the last week of vacation—I even gave myself a manicure on Saturday—a manicure!) and then… well, I think it was hard for many of us to get in the Christmas spirit this year—especially if we had elementary-aged children.  Each year, the four of us do something or make something to remind us of the Christmas spirit. This year, I’m happy to say we participated in #28ActsofKindness.

Why 28? Because there were 28 victims that day, at least in my mind. I don’t believe in monsters, but I do believe we have a massive gap in mental health care services in our nation today. I also told you that I am (still) waiting in the Common Ground.

And there you have it. Not an exceptional year, per se, but an adventure, nonetheless. Every day with these three guys (and Super-Sophie) is an adventure, to be sure!  I’m looking forward to 2013… but I suppose that’s fodder for a post tomorrow. 

What is(are) the highlight(s) from your 2012? And what are you looking forward to in 2013? 

Guess Where I Am, or Will Be, or Whatever… Nevermind. It’s Too Much Work

That’s right. I’m at Cheesy Bloggers today! Go forth and read (or re-read) my post on the Summer of Non-fiction.

Or you can read the articles I wrote for Sprocket Ink this week. I wrote about Adele saving the life of a child, and also how you can survive when Summer attacks you or the month of June wants you dead.

Given that the month of June seems to want ME dead, I am taking the rest of the month off (with my boss’s blessing. I think she’s afraid it may spill over to my co-workers). That’s right. No work. No writing. No housecleaning, even. Me: parking my butt and enjoying a week of summer, the way it should be; the way it was when I was a kid. I’m sure you understand, right? Or perhaps insanely jealous.

I’ll be reading. Because it’s summer. And there may be some pool time. And I’m sure they’ll be stories and pictures once I return.

In the interim, however (aka, next week) I will have guest posters, thanks to my lovely fellow Sprocket Ink writers! The theme is summer vacation, and I think you’ll like what they have to say. I know I’m looking forward to your responses to their posts!

Three Reasons Why I am Awesome & My Kids are Not

This should come with a subtitle: The Summer Vacation Edition. Because, let’s be honest—we’re cool. Much cooler than our kids think. Much cooler than we may think, from time to time. There are WAY more than three reasons why I’m cooler than my kids. Today, however, I’m only talking about the ways I exceed them in terms of summer vacation.

Photo Source

Yeah. That’s right. I rocked summer vacation when I was a child. I never complained I was bored. I never ran out of things to do. And I never, never, wished the long summer days away for school to start once again! In fact, my birthday (in August) was like the harbinger of death to summer fun. It meant that the following week, we’d have school shopping, and the week after that, I’d be trapped, once again, behind cinder block walls or in stuffy, un-air-conditioned classrooms.

My kids, on the other hand, get moody, whiny, depressed and bored. Trying to keep them entertained or busy is a pain (and it is certainly cutting into my blogging time, sheesh!). Now, the second son is not so bad, because there’s a wonderful summer school program in our school district. He’s rocking science experiments with “real” chemicals (Fourth grade has its perks; baking soda volcanos amongst them) and gunny sack races and frozen grapes for snack and tie-dying his socks (I don’t know, but apparently shirts are no longer in). I’ve got a couple more weeks of sanity from him.

The brooding older one, however... Good God.

Photo Source

So here’s a lesson to anyone (no matter your age) who deigns to complain about the greatest joy of my childhood: summer vacation. Do you know what I would do for summer vacation now? I’d give a lot for summer vacation, people. It was the one place where I could do what I want, be who I want, and surround myself with the things I loved. So, if you have it, stop complaining! I don’t want to hear you whine the word ‘bored’ again! Let me tell you what I used to do. Distribute freely, and implement into your life and the lives of your children.

1)     You wouldn’t find me inside.

Not even when it was raining. That was just a sprinkler party without someone’s parents yelling at you to stop running up their water bill! As a child, summer vacation meant unstructured days full of whatever I wanted to do. I had this thing, called a bike, and I went everywhere on it. Anyone who had a bike automatically became friends and we rode everywhere as a pack, doing nothing in particular, other than exercising our little butts off and ensuring we would collapse into bed by 9:30 each night. There was also a girl—older than me—who had a pool. A POOL. No matter the age difference, or even the difference in interests, everyone went over to her house in the afternoons to swim in that pool. Nights were spent playing games after dinner- until dark. We perfected freeze tag and hide and seek and red rover. You could have a mass of thirty children in your yard by the time the streetlights went on.

2)     I had no problems finding something to do.

There were these things called BOOKS. I read a lot of them. Narnia, Little House, Anne of Green Gables, and then later Stephen King and Frank Miller graphic novels. I liked books. When I was older, I got access to these things called a telephone and MTV. It played music videos! You could look at Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam at least three times a day! And then talk about him with your best friend on the phone! We had pen pals and would write letters. There were chances to spend the day at a friend’s house. And chances to go to the rec center. Or watch the boys play baseball and the girls play softball while eating snow cones. And chances to spend the week with your grandparents, who would let you eat dessert for dinner and would take you places. When we were older, we could go to the mall, and go to movies, and go and eat Taco Gringo for lunch. I took driver’s ed for an entire month. I enrolled in summer dance classes. My friends and I spent one summer watching the Summer Olympics in their entirety and teaching ourselves to cook (we only caught the kitchen on fire once, than you very much!). If I could find this many things to do, so can you!

3)     I made a killing in the summers.

And I didn’t even have a real job. I babysat, on occasion. I cleaned up yards and mowed and helped plant gardens and did chores and even washed cars. I ran errands for people. I did a kick-ass job so they would ask me to do it again. I learned to play poker and pool, and… may have… had a few small wagers. Or something. Nevermind. Twenty bucks to babysit for the entire afternoon? Ten bucks to wash the car or mow a yard? That shit adds up! It supported my pool, movie, and Taco Gringo habit for the entire summer. I would even save some to buy the school clothes I really wanted at the end of summer.

You see? I was cool. You did these same things; I’m sure of it. You were cool, too! So why aren’t our kids as cool as this? What’s stopping them? I say we hand them a water gun, give them a shove out the front door, and lock it behind them. Turn on the water spicket outside. Tell them that it’s for their own coolness. I will make my children awesome, even if it kills my water bill!

Days 2, 3, and 4. And #OperationPlayMore. All In One Post. Because I can.

Okay, I have to be honest. I’m already cheating on this photo a day thing. I end up taking better pictures on days other than the day I intended. That being said, I am counting them because I end up taking them expressly for the purpose of that day’s topic.

Plus? I’ve been playing a lot, lately. And that was a goal, my friends!

Have I confused you yet? Because I’ve confused myself…

Day Two was Empty. And I might add this was taken on the correct day. So, I get extra points for this one. What? You don’t understand the ‘empty’ bit? Well, Ant came home from our fishing expedition empty-handed (the only guy who did—the other two caught five between them), but was so excited for the sportsmanship of fishing and congratulating his brother and dad and the prospect of eating said fish… Well, he didn’t mind a bit. Plus, he was the only one to catch anything the last time they went, and this was just evening the score, in his mind.

Tie-dye socks attract fish.

Day Three was On My Plate. And this was on my plate. Last Friday night. Because I made it (the chicken parmesan, not the plate) so it still counts.

You're jealous.

Day Four was actually taken on day two, but it’s the close up (as best as I could get it, that is) of the little creatures we happened to encounter during our fishing foray. There were two baby raccoons, still small enough to fit in both hands, playing and chattering and exploring away! Thankfully, Mom seemed to be busy elsewhere.

Can you see me?

This exercise has already taught me something about myself: I am not as boring as I think myself to be. I often lament (in my head) on the fact that I’m not as creative, or talkative, or exciting, or even that we don’t do as much with the children as the others (both in real life and online) I’m comparing myself to—But you know what? It’s just not true. There are a thousand little stories each and every day—some small that it can be easy to forget them if you’re not taking pictures, or thinking of how you might relate them to others, or just generally paying attention. I have a thousand little stories. And many of them are pretty damn exciting. I just need to remember to store them in my long-term memory.