It’s official: Christmas has come and
gone. Even New Year’s is already
over. Sniff sniff. I have to say – without exaggeration – that this
holiday season was the best one I’ve ever had.
On Christmas morning, I’d set my alarm for 7:15 so that I could get up,
start coffee, start breakfast and be ‘in place’ for the children’s appearance
at the top of the stairs at 8am. Well, I
was so eager and excited, I woke up before the arlarm and hopped out of
bed. The kids actually managed to sleep
until about 8:15 which was surprising considering the amount of happy
anticipation filling their heads. And as
rarely happens with me, my expectations were surprisingly exceeded by
reality. So often I have such lofty
dreams of what a certain event or day will be like that there’s no way that
reality can live up to it. But not this
time, friends. Christmas was
magical. I was moved on many occasions
with the overwhelming knowledge of how blessed we are. We really could’ve had nothing under the
Christmas tree and I still would’ve been happy.
But, let’s face it: the stuff under the tree was pretty great too. I’m proud of us though as I don’t feel like
we go crazy overboard. The kids did a
couple of the bigger items they wanted (for Zachary: a castle-thingy and a
Playmobil pirate ship; for Matthew: a Star Wars lego; for Kayliana: a backpack –
that she now wears when we take the boys to and from the bus stop – she also
got a few other great toys that she loves).
Santa also brought us a sled which is genius seeing as we live on the top
of a pretty friggin’ ginormous hill now.
Yay! Santa’s SO clever (AND shops for things second hand on Craigslist).
So, Christmas was wonderful and the remaining
few days of winter vacation were mostly relaxing and quiet…until our best
friends moved in for “Camp Christmas.” Then
the days were just crazy-awesome. They
came: Jason, Rebecca, Jason’s 15 year old daughter Adrienne, their two boys
Joshua and Noah, their 1 ½ year old daughter Veronica and their Australian
Shepherd puppy Kahlua; it was a full house and we loved every single fun-packed
minute of it. From Saturday afternoon
until Tuesday afternoon we ate, we drank, we played games; we never got enough
of each other. Sunday evening we went to
“Celebration Lane” – the fun-stivities at the local mall where over 100
drummers dressed as toy soldiers parade out every evening and rock out. There’s fake snow. There are noise makers. We brought hot buttered rum. I think we may have actually had more fun
than the kids! Monday night was New Year’s
Eve and that was one for the books. Adrienne
babysat the kiddos so that the grown-ups could go out. Rebecca’s parents had rented a party bus to
take 25 of us around downtown Seattle for the night. It. Was. SO. Much. Fun. We danced on the bus. We took over a bar near Pike Place Market. We went to Kerry Park (with hundreds of
others with the same idea) and watched the Space Needle lit up in fireworks as
we counted down to midnight. After that
we partied our way to Dick’s Drive In for delicious greasy fries, burgers and
shakes. Mike’s butt accidentally dialed
my parents at 1am – waking them from their slumber – ruh roh! We fell into our beds exhausted, elated and
not too drunk, thank you very much, sometime after 3.
It all came to an end way too soon. But now we’re here, several days of 2013
already behind us. It’s clean slate
time. Christmas got packed up and put
away yesterday (I’m still working through the grieving process). But I’ll admit it’s nice to get the house
cleaned up. It’s actually pretty exciting as we packed up yesterday as LAST
year, post-Christmas we were starting to pack the house for staging, selling
and moving. So, a lot of our framed
photos and decorative stuff just got packed up with Christmas and stayed
there. I haven’t seen some of it in
nearly a year, so it was fun to get it back out again.
Anyway, New Year’s Resolution time. As someone who LOVES goal-setting, calendars
and list-making, resolutions are more of a few-times a year thing for me, but
it’s refreshing at New Year’s since everybody is on board the let’s-better-ourselves
train. I’m pretty pumped with my list. I
feel like it’s do-able and I’m well on my way to making them a permanent part
of my life.
In no particular order:
1. NO GUILT. I’m pretty excited about this. I came up with it a couple of months ago when
I was feeling guilty about something totally stupid that I needn’t have felt
guilty about and yet GUILTY has kinda just been a permament part of my vibe. I ALWAYS feel (FELT) guilty about something,
and I suffer from a variety of forms of guilt: mom’s guilt (not playing enough
with the kids, general sucky in my job at raising humanoids); Catholic guilt
(since Day 1 this has been a part of my existence. Without murdering anyone or becoming a
terrible person I plan on continuing the Catholic part but ditching the
guilt). Blogger’s guilt (I don’t do it
nearly as much as I’d like to. It
started out daily – easy when you consider that I was trapped in a hospital on
bedrest, but eventually went to twice a week and now is, on average every 7-12
days or so. I’d LOVE to blog more; I’d
LOVE to write more, but I need to not feel guilty when it doesn’t happen
because instead of writing about my life, I’m busy livin’ it). Recycler’s guilt (Yup, we live in
Seattle. It’s not easy being
Green). Runner’s guilt (if I don’t run
three times a week, the guilt starts to add up). Anyway, you could see the list is
endless. But not anymore, friends, 2013,
I am 100% GUILT FREE!
2. HEALTH. Yeah, yeah, everyone puts “lose x amount of
pounds” down for a New Year’s resolution.
And I hate to be cliché, but as someone who has always struggled with my
weight (despite the occasional Marathon, Half Marathon and weekly spin classes
at the gym), I’ve realized that my health/weight goals need to be more about
the lifestyle change and self-acceptance than about the number on the
scale. I’m going to continue my 3
morning a week runs with my neighbors from the old ‘hood. (Unless it’s icey up here and I can’t make
it). I’ll continue my Tuesday morning
indoor cycling class (my weekly Spin class is a sacred space that I RARELY let anything
get in the way of). We – Mike and I –
are also going to start the p90X DVD workout series. So, yeah, we’re pretty much going to be
completely ripped and out of control buff…BUT the general goal is overall
health. We’re beginning to eat cleaner –
more ‘whole’ foods (like how they were in nature, not all processed with
ingredients that can’t be pronounced) and continuing to make sure that the kids
eat this way (and LOVE it, darn it)! As
for the kids, I’ve been taking the boys out for walk/jogs with me. It’s amazing how the second we’re outside,
they just open their mouths and talk the whole time. It’s such a great bonding time and obviously
a healthy habit to form. We have tons of
trails that we can access from our house, so it’s silly not to take advantage
of them. The boys have been in swim
lessons; in a few weeks that’ll wrap up and Zachary will do basketball for a
couple months followed by Matthew’s baseball season. Kayli gets daily exercise walking to and from
the boys’ bus stop (that adds up to over a half mile every day). Plus, she’s nonstop ripping around the house,
running up and down the stairs, trying to climb most objects, doing chin-ups
and swinging under the kitchen counter, etc.
I feel good about where we’re at with health, and more importantly about
where we’re headed!
3. MY TIME: I’m going
to be smarter with it. Less pointless
time on the internet, screens (TV, computer) will be turned off by 10pm every
night so I get to sleep earlier, AND I will have more time for reading. I’ve been reading a a couple of really good
books lately, so I’m definitely on the right track with that.
4. MY FAVE: I’m going
to have bubble baths!!! Like ideally once a week! This is the best New Year’s Resolution
EVER.
Here’s to 2013!
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