Well, I have been very busy over the past year and this blog has just not been a priority.  I can’t really give you some incredibly long list of what in fact has kept me so busy but just trust me…you get to a point of being a wife and a mom and all that goes with those two titles and the daily grind just keeps grinding.   It’s been a good year in a lot of ways and in other ways it has just been a real sea of crap-ola.

The good stuff included me not really looking at my calendar (this also falls into the other side since this often caused me to miss things like orthodontist appointments) so I didn’t allow myself and my time to be dictated by those little squares with numbers in them.  I also started a vegetable garden (there is a whole blog post or two coming on this one later) and I actually had vegetables grow !  (I know, no one was more shocked than yours truly.)  The eldest darling landed her first job and is making some mula so that’s a plus.  The middle darling is dipping her big toe into the world of modeling (hopefully this will also allow her to make some mula at some point as well). And the youngest little darling is cruising along at his new school and enjoying life- just like any nine year old should.

I got a brand new nephew, Moody.  He’s really the cutest baby EVER!  We have a great relationship already and I am his favorite aunt (don’t tell the others).  And even more exciting- there are TWO MORE bambinos on the way for two of my siblings!  I love me some babies especially those I can send home after getting them wired:).

I started a book study/club/bible study/self help group thing that has been meeting at my house at the bright and early hour of eight am on Saturday mornings.  This group of women are changing my life and I cherish our time together.  (Ok, this is all starting to sound like one of those Christmas letters that people send out with their Christmas cards- which, by the way -I DID NOT SEND OUT AGAIN THIS YEAR!!!!! And it felt just as good and liberating as the time before.)

So let me jump to the crappy stuff that has filled some of the past year.  LOML had to have surgery to repair his ACL/Meniscus.   Parenting teens has not always been super fun or easy over the past year- they are good kids so that helps, but they are teenagers.  I think I really shined as the parent of toddlers and I think I continually screw up with teenagers.  Such is life.  The “big crappy” this year was we lost my Aunt Karen suddenly in November.  That sucked something big and still does.  I’ve written about this some but not quite ready to share.  But I miss her, her kids miss her, my dad misses her, we just all miss her.  She was a good parent to teenagers.  Then LOML found our he has some crazy thing in his hips and has to have both replaced.  So we’ve been spending more time going to doctor appointments together and both feeling old.  He is still not down with me just letting my hair go completely grey though so I am trying hard not to look too old.

So there you have it- my year in review if you will.  Or you can call it my unexcused absence from this blog- something that brings me joy.  I miss my writing.  One thing I have learned over the past year is the importance of doing those things that bring you joy.  For me it’s writing.  Right now my family wishes is was going to the grocery store.  That’s what God wants us to do, right?  He wants us to do that thing that makes us happy, brings us joy, the thing that we are good at or… the thing at which we don’t totally stink.

I have a friend and we meet at least once a month to talk about and work on our writing.  We call ourselves the “SPW” – Southern Porch Writers.  (We are also like my Saturday morning group and a semi-therapy group.) I would like to say we are a club or an association but we are just two so I am not sure how you would categorize us.  We are what we are.  We have set new goals for ourselves and our writing – but the biggest goal is to just let go of the fear and write- the good, the bad, the unreadable.  All the stuff.   I hope whatever it is that you enjoy doing and that you don’t totally stink at, that you are doing it.