Happy Holidays!

I have been one lucky girl!  I was off for 9 days straight.  Had a wonderful Christmas.  Spent tons of time with family and friends!

Let's talk vacation.  I actually had off 9 straight days.  At first, I was like, "what will I do with all that time off?"  I managed to fill it with absolutely no problems!  It flew by and here I am, back at work.  Well, at least for half a day.  The days were filled with friends and family.  I think out of those 9, I only had 1 day to myself and that was yesterday, Sunday.  But I have to say, that I actually slept this vacation.  Every night I managed to sleep the entire night through.  For those who know me, you know that I really sleep one night through!  So the best gift this Christmas?  It was the sleep!

My parents, grandparents and Santa went over board on the gifts for me.  I received a ton of kitchen organization things, like containers and shelves, so I can get my kitchen organized.  I received at least a dozen movies from my most wanted list. A much bigger crock pot than I had (I already cooked my first meal in it).  My two younger cousins thought it would be funny to send me a bottle of wine (my sister also got one) and a wine glass to go with it. To them it may have been funny, for me?  It was appreciated.  One can never have enough wine! I also received this super cute LSU watch:

There were numerous dinners to be had with friends.  Two new restaurants were discovered.  One of which was Texas de Brazil.  Yes, it is a chain.  Yes, it serves mostly meat.  But it was good, to my surprise.  Especially since I am not one to eat a lot of meat.  But mostly the company was good!  My mom, my sister, Jenny, her mom and I all had a great meal together. One could simply eat off of the salad bar there are so many things on it!

Very little stitching was done.  I did make some progress on a Snow White I am doing for my youngest niece.  But that was just yesterday since I haven't really had anytime at home.  No stitching gifts were received but I did go to Jo-Ann's yesterday to get some floss for a new project I am going to buy and start in the new year (sale currently going on, 4 skeins for $1.00, plus I had a 15% off my entire purchase coupon, couldn't beat that!).  HAED is currently having a sale and I want to get the following design to do for my bedroom (I've got a peacock theme going on in my bedroom these days, mostly it is the colors!):

I typically do write out my New Year's resolutions and reflect back on the ones that I had chosen for this year.  I'm not going to reflect back this year, because I had many numerous lessons occur that I, hopefully, have finally learned and need not repeat! I will sit down to do resolutions, tomorrow? 

But for now, I need to get some work done, then off to a basketball game, followed by the LSU bowl game, then midnight with some very good friends. 

Happy New Year's!

Reflections

This past year has been a pretty tough one.  It had loads of ups and downs.  All of which has made me a better person. 

I've had some personal defeats; losing friends, losing my mind (lol); but out of all of that, I am a stronger person.  Recently I have been a by stander in my best friends divorce.  That's been a tough one.  I don't want to choose sides but I feel that ultimately I will have to, but I am trying my best to not.  I recently lost a person who I thought was a friend.  Turned out, he wasn't (I can be a very bad judge of character!).

But on the other hand, I have amazing friends who have recently come out of the woodwork, literally, to support me.  My co-worker/team mate in the office has become like a sister to me (as evidenced by the fact that in addition to the 40 hours a week we work together, we typically also do things on the weekend and her kids (ages 4 & 2) can recognize my car in random parking lots if we run into each other).  I've been going to therapy to deal with depression and anxiety issues and am feeling so much better!  My  job is going better than ever.  Even completed my annual review with only a few hiccups and received a raise! 

2013 is already looking to be a good year.  The negative has been removed from my life and, hopefully, there is only good to come!  I will be busy with 6 different conventions next year.  There is Bayou Country Superfest.  Vacations (I hope to make it home to see my grandparents and a trip to Disney???).  Mardi Gras.  And I am sure much, much, much more.  Oh, yikes, my 20th reunion is in 2013.  Hmmm, will have to think about that one!