A New Year

The holidays are over, and a new year is here.  I'm sure my optimism will return with the increasing daylight hours.  It makes sense to me that the longest night of the year occurs a few days before Christmas.  Given that Christmas starts in October and requires a month of psychic recovery, this horrible ordeal consumes almost 1/3 of my year.  I wish I could move to a Muslim country from October to February (except for the years that Ramadan falls during that interval).  I've been so stressed I missed December's period, a physical manifestation of my emotional distress (don't panic - two tests have shown I'm not pregnant; sorry if that was too much information).

It was great to have Madison here in Memphis for a week - felt like old times.  She seemed to have fun, in  spite of contracting strep and being quite sick for 3 days and then Andrew and I getting it and being pretty sick for 2 days after that.  All that sickness really impaired all the fun plans we had made, but she seemed quite content mostly sitting around the house.  She did get to do some fun things with her friends:  movies, bowling, and ice skating. The crazy thunderstorms on New Year's Eve required us to cancel our plan for doing the South Main Arts District trolley hop, so we wound up going to our favorite, Three Angels Diner.  Vicki joined us, and both she and Madison said they really liked it too.  Afterwards, Maddie and Vicki went to a party while Andrew and I went to play Trivial Pursuit with our pals, Ben and Nichole, until 11:40pm when we had to leave to pick up Maddie from her party, over promptly at 12:05am.  Now she's back in Indiana, and we hope to go up in February for her birthday (which is actually January 31, but close enough).

I had been planning a trip to see my family, going through Greensboro to visit Aunt Debbie and Uncle Sean, then up to Virginia Beach to see Dad and my brothers, then up to DC to Jamie and my nephews, and then home by way of Kentucky to see Carter, Noah, Grandma, and Aunt Bonnie.  I didn't see any of my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas, so I had really been looking forward to this. But after a rapid succession of expenses, including the Christmas drain, my car dying, a new battery for Andrew's car, and a broken washing machine, our budget just couldn't accommodate a road trip too.  It's only been a year and a half since I've seen Dad, Jesse, and Jadon, but it's been like four years since I've seen Jamie and his gang, and I guess it will  be longer still.  It was good have something to look forward to while I was trying to endure the holidays, so I guess that actually was the important function .  Maybe I can work something out for the summer.