Looking Forward, Looking Back
The middle of winter is actually not a great time for starting a new year. It's too cold and dark for me to feel like I have energy to do anything new. On the other hand, we've just passed the solstice and the days are starting to get a bit longer. Plus we just had Christmas and all its decadence, so perhaps the time is right for change after all. We're two weeks into January and I'm not sure yet if I want to make any resolutions. I'm a bit behind, as evidenced by my recent attempts to catch up on book reviews.
Christmas was quite lovely this year. My parents came to town and we had a nice dinner on Christmas Eve with my brother and his family. I woke up the next morning to fluffy white snow everywhere, and a quiet house filled with sleeping children. Unfortunately I also woke up with a sore throat and headache that only got worse as the day went on. The kids had a great morning and loved their new presents. I was actually grateful that Mr. Fob came to pick them up for more celebrating so I could rest and be miserable in quiet peace. Our New Year celebration was low-key and I put the kids to bed early after we celebrated live with New York at ten o'clock our local time.
During the past two weeks I've been reflecting on how the past year went. I kept up our monthly meal planning and felt like that worked well for us. We also implemented a simple rotation for evening jobs and that has worked really well for everyone too. In general, I feel like last year was a good year for us as a family. My parenting is far from perfect, but right now we are working well together and I enjoy most of the time I get to have with the kids. They are also at a really fun stage right now where they are all old enough to still be kids, but not too physically dependent any more. I feel a lot more relaxed living in a house full of people who can all take care of themselves, and it makes a big difference to feel like we really can work together instead of me doing everything all the time.
School and work were both generally good last year too. I'm glad I decided to cut back on classes because I had a lot less stress in my life and was able to enjoy the classes I did take. Now that I'm looking at just one more year until graduation, it really doesn't seem like that much longer at all. In May I'm also going to be earning some credits by spending two weeks on a study-abroad seminar in London. It's taking a lot of my funds and all my vacation time, so at this point I'm still a little hesitant about whether I made the right decision or not. I don't think I will regret it. I had an interesting year at work because my job duties got changed quite a bit as we reorganized my department. It's been an adjustment for everyone and I've struggled with a few things. In general, though, the new things I'm learning are great and I've been happy.
One thing that did not work last year was dating. In May I decided to pay the money to sign up for Match.com for a six month period and really give it a chance. There were a lot of great guys on there and I messaged a lot of different people. No one ever wrote back. A few guys I had not written to contacted me, but none of them seemed legitimate. One guy did actually get in touch with me and we exchanged a few messages. We had tentatively set up a lunch date, but there was some miscommunication and while I was trying to sort it out he stopped responding to me. I decided not to renew my membership in November since I'm saving money for my big trip and because I just felt tired of the rejection. I had the exact same issue with dating (or rather lack thereof) in high school and college, so I'm not surprised that I'm still undateable. I might try again later this year if I feel like I can handle it, but for now I'm just going to take a break and focus on other things.
The other thing that really didn't work last year was self-care (as evidenced by my many posts on this blog). I filled out an annual health evaluation for my health insurance, and one question asked about how many times I'd been sick enough to miss work last year. I realized that I had been pretty sick three different times, which is somewhat unusual for me. Getting more sleep and getting more exercise would probably help me avoid that this year. I also didn't go to the temple or read my scriptures as much as I wanted to. I'm going to try harder to do both those things this year.
At the beginning of this post I said that I was unsure about making resolutions this year. However, I did make one small goal that I have been working on. I made a goal of writing something every day, either in my journal, on the blog, or somewhere else (the other day I wrote a lengthy email to a friend). So far I have done it nearly every day and it feels good. It might be a baby step, but at least I'm doing something a bit productive. I have a feeling this year is going to be interesting and I hope it's a good one.
Christmas was quite lovely this year. My parents came to town and we had a nice dinner on Christmas Eve with my brother and his family. I woke up the next morning to fluffy white snow everywhere, and a quiet house filled with sleeping children. Unfortunately I also woke up with a sore throat and headache that only got worse as the day went on. The kids had a great morning and loved their new presents. I was actually grateful that Mr. Fob came to pick them up for more celebrating so I could rest and be miserable in quiet peace. Our New Year celebration was low-key and I put the kids to bed early after we celebrated live with New York at ten o'clock our local time.
During the past two weeks I've been reflecting on how the past year went. I kept up our monthly meal planning and felt like that worked well for us. We also implemented a simple rotation for evening jobs and that has worked really well for everyone too. In general, I feel like last year was a good year for us as a family. My parenting is far from perfect, but right now we are working well together and I enjoy most of the time I get to have with the kids. They are also at a really fun stage right now where they are all old enough to still be kids, but not too physically dependent any more. I feel a lot more relaxed living in a house full of people who can all take care of themselves, and it makes a big difference to feel like we really can work together instead of me doing everything all the time.
School and work were both generally good last year too. I'm glad I decided to cut back on classes because I had a lot less stress in my life and was able to enjoy the classes I did take. Now that I'm looking at just one more year until graduation, it really doesn't seem like that much longer at all. In May I'm also going to be earning some credits by spending two weeks on a study-abroad seminar in London. It's taking a lot of my funds and all my vacation time, so at this point I'm still a little hesitant about whether I made the right decision or not. I don't think I will regret it. I had an interesting year at work because my job duties got changed quite a bit as we reorganized my department. It's been an adjustment for everyone and I've struggled with a few things. In general, though, the new things I'm learning are great and I've been happy.
One thing that did not work last year was dating. In May I decided to pay the money to sign up for Match.com for a six month period and really give it a chance. There were a lot of great guys on there and I messaged a lot of different people. No one ever wrote back. A few guys I had not written to contacted me, but none of them seemed legitimate. One guy did actually get in touch with me and we exchanged a few messages. We had tentatively set up a lunch date, but there was some miscommunication and while I was trying to sort it out he stopped responding to me. I decided not to renew my membership in November since I'm saving money for my big trip and because I just felt tired of the rejection. I had the exact same issue with dating (or rather lack thereof) in high school and college, so I'm not surprised that I'm still undateable. I might try again later this year if I feel like I can handle it, but for now I'm just going to take a break and focus on other things.
The other thing that really didn't work last year was self-care (as evidenced by my many posts on this blog). I filled out an annual health evaluation for my health insurance, and one question asked about how many times I'd been sick enough to miss work last year. I realized that I had been pretty sick three different times, which is somewhat unusual for me. Getting more sleep and getting more exercise would probably help me avoid that this year. I also didn't go to the temple or read my scriptures as much as I wanted to. I'm going to try harder to do both those things this year.
At the beginning of this post I said that I was unsure about making resolutions this year. However, I did make one small goal that I have been working on. I made a goal of writing something every day, either in my journal, on the blog, or somewhere else (the other day I wrote a lengthy email to a friend). So far I have done it nearly every day and it feels good. It might be a baby step, but at least I'm doing something a bit productive. I have a feeling this year is going to be interesting and I hope it's a good one.
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