Farewell, 2013

Look at me, blogging on the last day of the year!  This is my 79th post of the year.  Obviously not spectacular.  Not nearly as good as last year, but on par with 2010 and 2011.  I can't promise 2014 will be a better blogging year, but I will do my best!

It's been a few years since I've come up with New Years resolutions.  Everyone knows those never work anyway.  After getting the idea from a friend, Chet and I made New Years goals in 2011 and 2012.  They were very specific, and every couple of months we would go over them.  It worked beautifully!  Last year, just before ringing in 2013, Chet and I talked about some goals, but were not too specific in writing them down.  However, we did something we hadn't done before, which was come up with a single word that we hoped to focus on all year: deliberate.  Well...let me tell you that our deliberateness didn't last long, because 2013 was full of unexpected twists and turns.

January: Nothing too spectacular happened this month, but it's always full of fun since Chet, Sydney, and I (and soon Baby Boy) all have January birthdays.
February: My sweet P-ma passed away February 26th, but most of February was focused on her waning health.  Thankfully P-ma did not suffer long; she would have hated that, and so would the rest of us.  She is happy in heaven with my Pop.
March: P-ma's funeral was held in early March, which meant a trip to West Texas for us.
April: My dad's mom, Granny Burrous, passed away April 4th.  Her passing was a little more expected than P-ma's, and I am thankful she is also in heaven.  Her early April funeral meant another trip to (East) Texas.
May: Chet left for his field exercise (a several-week long event that prepares the Battalion for deployment); my dad came to visit and accompanied the girls and me to Annapolis, MD for a super fun wedding; I discovered I was expecting Baby #3.

Let me pause here and say this is probably the point where the word "deliberate" flew out the window for me.  2013's word morphed from "deliberate" to "survive."

June: Deployment preparations were in full swing this month; we traveled to TX late in the month for a little pre-deployment vacation.
July: Our TX vacation took up the first few days of July, and then it was back to MS for final deployment preparations.
August: Chet left for deployment August 2nd ("survive" kicks into full gear); Sydney started preschool, which was a fantastic distraction from the early days of deployment.  We also found out Baby Boy was...well, a baby boy!
September: The girls and I drove to Orlando for our niece's birthday party; the girls and I drove to TX less than a week after the Orlando trip, from which Sydney and I flew to Baltimore for another Maryland wedding.  This month I mistook the word "survive" for "overdrive"; I backpedaled considerably after the September traveling and have refused to venture from Mississippi since.
October: Halloween seemed to be in full swing come October 1st -- nuff said.
November: Thanksgiving, nuff said.
December: Christmas, nuff said.

(How annoying is it that I typed "nuff" three times?)

And here we are.  I am not sorry to say goodbye to you, 2013.  You were full of blessings, but I'm ready to put you behind me and move on to 2014, a year of much change for our family.  I'm ready to welcome Chet home, ready to welcome our Baby Boy into the world, ready to move to Washington D.C., and...  Well, let's just start with that.  We'll see what the rest of the year brings.  And, by the way, I do not plan on making New Years goals or coming up with a word for the year...for now I'll hang on to "survive" and perhaps reevaluate come Easter.  Or Mother's Day.  Or Halloween.

Happy New Year!