I haven’t posted in a long time.  I assume it’s because I have had too much going on in my little brain to try to put it all down in a meaningful way.  This past year has been an interesting one… we’ve had a few friends pass as well as friend’s parents.  And all of that has put a damper on what has been a pretty mellow year––aside from a few tornadoes of course.  I  miss them,  my friends,  not the tornadoes;  and I can’t help but to think of their families this time of year and how difficult it must be to see joy in any of the festivities.  Yet even while I think of my friends and their families,  I tend to mire in my own b.s.,  which makes me feel sort of pathetic because I don’t have much to complain about.  I really don’t.  Anything I am dealing with pales in comparison to those of you who are dealing with sick children or parents… so I won’t use this forum as a platform to complain about anything as mundane as my own life.  Well,  maybe just a little.

Craig continues to do well in the army and now we’re awaiting word as to what we’ll be doing next summer, which always brings an uncomfortable amount of anxiety my way.  Unlike the majority of our friends,  my kids won’t grow up in the same house they were born in.  Instead,  we’ll be moving to and fro,  like a ship in an unrelenting sea.  Some days I’m okay with this lot,  while there are others where I’m less secure about that fact.  You see,  when we married,  14 years ago,  he was merely a Reservist with a “regular” job.  But eight years ago,  when the war in Iraq started,  he began to get deployed,  something that was very new to me… not to him certainly,  but to me.  Now it seems to be old hat.  And I’m,  for lack of better words, used to it.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  Or does it?  My army wife friends would tell me to “suck it up,”  and rightly so, as that’s what I’d tell them to do as well.  But my non army wife friends always feel sorry for me,  and say things like,  ”I don’t know how you do it,”  which is just an annoying way of saying,  ”I’d NEVER do that.”  Oddly enough, neither one of these sentiments is going to work for me.  I think I am looking at something in the middle.  I don’t know what that saying is,  but something in the middle.

This next year I am going to focus on looking at things less in the middle.  Words like  ”decisive”  and  ”definitive”  will be incorporated into my vocabulary.  This goes against my better judgment as I tend to be a little dramatic about all things.  But I will do my best to more  ”kick-ass”  and less  ”ass-kicked”  in my near future.  Until then,  I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  May the remainder of your winter months be filled with adventure or enlightenment… whichever life has set out for you.  Sometimes both.  But I hope for your sake,  it’s somewhere in the middle.