Each December I choose a new word for the coming year that I hope will reflect some of the things I’d like to achieve in the months ahead. I find it so much simpler to have one concept to focus on, rather than a big list of “goals” that I painstakingly write out… …and forget about three weeks later. My words in past years have been Brave, Strengthen and Do It. As I reflected on this past year a word kept coming to my mind over and over. At first it didn’t really make sense to me, but he more I thought about it as it continued to pop into…

We are finally through this round of the plague. I somehow managed to get through unscathed. Exhausted and completely worn out, but unscathed. Today was the first day where everyone went back to their normal routines–P went back to daycare, S & H went back to school, and M went back to work. And me? I had a day just for me and it was everything that I needed. After I herded everyone out the door, I collapsed on the couch and I just… sat. I sat and did nothing for a good 30 minutes and it felt SO GOOD. Then I turned on my early 00’s club beats and…

I should probably be napping, but enjoying a few moments of quiet solitude is too tempting. Everyone but me is asleep, so I wanted to steal a few minutes to write beside the peaceful glow of my Christmas tree. It was a long night. It’s been a long few days, honestly. H threw up all over our van while we tried to deliver Christmas parcels last Thursday, and everyone has been falling like dominoes ever since. Just as he started to feel better P got sick. Then last night I was up with M first and then S as they succumbed to this round of the flu, too. I am…

So, the “write often” was a bit of a fail. I’ve been really unmotivated with my writing lately… I need to get our Christmas poem / letter written and I’m really struggling to find the words. I know part of it is simply that this year was a really difficult one for me, and I don’t know how to pour that into a “happy” poem. I’m still mulling over it, but I know I’ll figure it out. I’ve been writing them for 12 years, I can’t stop now! I was doing really well with my eating habits, then Auntie Della passed and I went a bit off the rails again.…

I don’t really have a reason or excuse, I just found that as I was dealing with everything last spring, I needed to write often… and it was just easier to do that right in my Facebook group. I think I desperately needed the connections and support, and “micro-blogging” and sharing memes helped somehow. Lately I’ve been feeling a pull to come back here–to buckle down and get serious about a few things again. I feel a little like a meme I saw once: my brain feels like an internet browser with too many tabs open, random pop-ups everywhere (some of which are frozen) and there is annoying music playing…