All the Rest

*This post was initially supposed to go up on New Year’s Eve as sort of an “end of the year”/farewell if you will, but due to a corrupt picture file or something, it didn’t. C’est la vie.*

First things first, I’m long overdue for addressing the response to my last post. The emails, comments, kind words – all of it – was such a surprise and a genuine blessing to me. It pains me that so many struggle in much the same ways, but at the same time, knowing we’re all ultimately kindred spirits is comforting. I pray for everyone who revealed so much of themselves to me and hope that knowing that there is someone cares will help in some small way.

And now, the rest. The end of the year. The calm of autumn leading into the ferocity of the holiday season that always seems to take us by surprise, regardless of how prepared we may be. It happens the same every year it seems.

I avoided all of the “hustle and bustle” of shopping by doing all of my shopping online which I feel worked very well, especially since the flu seemed to overtake our small town sometime around Thanksgiving and every day thereafter. Plus, it doesn’t take much of anything to overwhelm me these days, so the simplicity of point and click was nice.

I tried to keep up with doing some fun holiday things with Elly, but much is lost on a 2 year old who doesn’t particularly like to get her hands dirty, literally. So we did a lot of coloring and movie watching and she seemed quite pleased with those choices.

Most of the end of the year for me was spent with a relentless cold that provided plenty of sleepless nights, lots of coughing (which is SO MUCH FUN when you’re 7 months pregnant with your second child who loves to test the strength of your bladder), and loss of my voice for the better part of 2 months, which was quite the inconvenience for leading children’s choir and singing in Christmas productions. But, I tried to stay positive – it wasn’t the flu, and our baby boy seems to be growing and handling everything just fine, so I’ll take it. Thankfully, I’m feeling better for the moment. At least until the weather changes again.

The inevitable end of the year reflections primarily centered around one thing – DAD. I sat one night looking through pictures from last Christmas and couldn’t believe what I was looking at. To put it bluntly, he looked like an upright corpse. We knew at the time that he was sick, yes, but seeing him well now and looking at just how bad off he was really was eye-opening and humbling. We witnessed a miracle this year and it forever changed all of us. Everything takes on a whole new level of appreciation and we could not be more grateful that pictures this year show a healthy man we are all so blessed to have in our lives.

There are so many things I wished I would have documented, be it opinions on new traditions, decorating, life in general, and so on, that I think it’s actually led me to resolve to “do better” this year and actually put the blog app on my phone to use this year. It’s a lofty goal considering 1, I’m terrible at taking the time to put my thoughts into words on a regular basis, 2, I’m going to soon have a newborn in my arms, and 3, resolutions? Yeah. I can basically hear the irony angels laughing. I like a challenge though, and sometimes the busier the better when it comes to me actually getting things done. So. Time will tell.

Until then, enjoy the best part of fall and the holidays – PICTURES!