HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Dan, April, Raine, Leah

Raine and Noah

We welcomed the New Year with April, Jason, and the kids. We hadn't been to visit for 9 months so we had a lot of catching up to do! The girls are growing up too fast. I keep telling them, STOP GROWING. Allyson is taller than me! Raine had so much fun with Nathan and Noah, running around and playing cars and trucks, jumping on the mini trampoline and watching "Turbo." April is a new consultant for LuLaRoe, which is a super awesome brand of maxi skirts, dresses, and leggings. Once you try on those skirts, trust me, you will never want to take them off! I didn't have time to shop but I'm sure I will next visit!

Our NYE was quiet and nice. I closed shop early at 4 pm and Dan and Raine met me for dinner at McMenamins. That evening, Raine played with his new baby-sitters, Isaiah and Becky, while Dan and I snuck away to the movie theater and finally saw Catching Fire. We were home by 11 and popped a bottle of champagne and tried our best to stay awake 1 more hour. It was rough! LOL. I finished up Christmas cards and spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get digital copies of movies that Raine got for Christmas downloaded to our computer and portable devices. Trying to get stuff like that to work makes me feel old and cranky. I am so NOT tech savvy. I think I was in 1999 for a split second?

One of my goals this year is to figure out iTunes. I still don't know how to use it, and "sync" and the "cloud," etc. I haven't been able to listen to music for months or enjoy anything I listen to. I've just lost the love. I don't play much at home. We use Pandora at work and I hardly pay attention to it. And after the tornado, honestly, I preferred to drive in silence. I am confident if I can organize my old library (make sure all of our CDs are digitalized) and get it all in iTunes properly and then sync our devices, I can teach myself to love music again. We will see.

Any other goals for 2014? I asked Dan during our road trip yesterday and he just said "NO." We used to have "Family Goals" and every year he usually came up with something for himself personally, but I think we are just both so tired and exhausted from all of the change this year....It is hard to think about tackling anything new. 

If I had all of the time I wanted, I would clean up this blog. I'd fix the links and photos from the year that it resided at Typepad and certainly begin to show it more love and affection than I did in 2013. What a lowly post record of 17 posts! Yikes! I should have been writing and chronicling the mayhem of 2013 but maybe it was just too wild and crazy to digest and put into words for readers. I have a sneaking suspicion 2014 will continue to be a bit of a roller coaster, at least in terms of dealing with health issues and making some repairs from financial surprises we encountered since our move. I also continue to agonize on a daily basis about how to find the perfect work/life/parenting/spouse/friend/daughter/sister/artist/writer/spiritual being combination. IT IS ELUSIVE! LOL. I will just do my best.  

Much love to you and yours in the New Year!