End of the Year Wrap-up

Well, I must admit I haven’t done my best in writing on this blog for 2012. Hopefully that will change in the upcoming year.

Yesterday, Hubby & I met up for a late night dinner with one of our good friends. All of us talked about how 2013 was around the corner and how 2012 seemed to fly on by. There was so many things that we all wanted to do more of, but just didn’t have the time. For Hubby & our friend, it was drawing more. For me, it was writing more. So then and there, we made our New Year’s resolution to do the things we wanted to do more of. This, of course, is my lame attempt at trying to write again.

I guess I could start off by telling you what has happened in the last year.

In May, I started a new job that has me grounded in Detroit. No more traveling, no more working at home. While I sometimes miss the traveling part and the “work in my pajamas”-part, I know that being based in an office-setting is much better for my mental health. I realized I needed the constant connection with co-workers that you just don’t get when being an independent worker as I was in the previous position. At least I can say that I tried the “consultant” role and it just wasn’t for me … at least at this time in my life.

This new job is a challenging one. I’m back in a leadership role, this time as a manager of over 4 different areas. There are days that I feel that I’ve got my role down pat. Then there are the days where I feel I’ve lost my grip on reality. It’s at those times that I turn to Hubby to help ground me and keep me from flying off the deep end. He’s good to me like that.

In July, I turned 40 years old. As expected, nothing really changed overnight, except now I’m more acutely aware that I’m just not as spry as I used to be. My SIL (whose birthday is 4 days before mine) and I did celebrate our 40th by throwing ourselves a picnic. Lot’s of family and friends showed up, so it was a great time full of laughter and fun.

At the end of October, I traveled to New York to be a part of my cousin’s “Halloweekend” wedding. She had some pretty cool details that made the wedding goth-like. It also helped that the wedding wasn’t that far from the town of Sleepy Hollow! The highlight of the wedding for me was being able to spend time with my Mom’s side of the family. That, and spending time with my niece, Emilia, whose whole family made it to the wedding so that “Mia” could be a flower girl.

Getting out of New York actually proved to be quite exciting as well. Superstorm Sandy threatened to ruin the bride’s day, but it held off until the next night. However, that did cause a lot of flight cancellations, including ours. This meant we had to drive all the way back to Detroit in a rental car in order to make it to work the next day. Luckily, Delta refunded us our return trip, so we didn’t lose out on too much.

The rest of the year went by pretty fast; Thanksgiving, Dad’s anniversary, Christmas. Mom spent Christmas out in Dallas with Dr. Bro, Dr. SIL and Mia (jealous!). The weekend before Christmas, Bobby & I got to spend time with Dad’s side of the family, especially one of my cousins and her family from London, Ontario. It was a fun Saturday night full of playing with the kids, poker and beer pong with our Uncle.

Yes, you read that right. Beer pong with our Uncle. All I have to say is that, even though the girls lost against the guys … that was probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time! (But, boy did I pay for it the next day … )

And now it’s almost New Year’s Day. I can’t believe the year has gone by so quickly. As I said, my New Year’s resolution is to write more, and I’m hoping that the weekends give me enough time to write what I want to write. And not sound as lame as I do right now. Practice makes perfect, right?