I feel like the blogs I read are full of looking back at the past year, and looking forward to the next, and part of me wants to do that, but part of me... well, let's just say that there was a lot of crap that went down over the past year that doesn't bear looking back on -- partly because I didn't really share a lot of it with many people, and so it would require too much backstory, and I refuse to infodump on my blog, but mostly because I'm afraid if I bring it all back up again, it'll just upset me and mess up the things that are going right right now.
Which is a most awkward sentence, I'm aware.
I have a couple of things I want to write about, like VelcroBoy's social studies project (we made a wattle-and-daub roundhouse with a thatched roof and I have a TON of pictures) and Christmas presents, and things like that. And I don't really *do* New Year's resolutions -- I have a tendency to kind of overdo and then completely fail before the end of January. So let's just say we're counting a promise to the DH as one (we've got a 3-times-a-week lunch date at the gym for the ellipticals, God help me...) and I really want to make more of an effort to have people over for dinner every once in a while. We had our neighbor and her 18-month old son over the Friday before Christmas for pizza night. I gave kidlet a box of jingle bells to play with and he spent the better part of the evening hanging them off the ears of this cat statue I have, while singing "Jingie bews, jingie bews!" to himself. We cracked up, and I have pictures of the statue on my phone. And later this week, we're having a guy from DH's old unit & his wife & 2YO son over. They're getting the boys' Thomas the Tank Engine stuff that I finally talked DinoBoy & VelcroBoy into getting rid of. I may keep a piece or two around just for old-time's sake, and I like to have a few things around for when we have guests with kids littler than my own, but we don't have space for a LOT of stuff like that, so the trains get to find a new home.
Also, I have some bloggy-ness percolating in my brain on two topics -- both of them are sort-of book reviews, but one is also, and more largely, on the general topic of teacher/student relationships, and all the ways they can go wrong. I'm pretty passionate about this one, since my mom is a professor, and there are plenty of pitfalls in that type of relationship, but there are (surprisingly enough, or not-so-surprisingly, depending on how much attention you pay to little details) other issues that get completely overlooked. Like, for instance, relative ages of the two parties involved. The other one is just mostly about little details that really make a story *work* or not -- even when they're mostly peripheral details (for example, describing a house as "modest" and "average" but then filling the living room with enough furniture for three or four normal living rooms -- or a good-sized furniture showroom -- can really mess with an "average" reader's head. Just sayin'.)
Also, I have NO IDEA when my Christmas stuff is going to get packed away. I need to get one more storage container this year, and before I do anything else I want to work on the boys' bedroom (which will probably require *several* new storage containers) and honestly, I would *LOVE* to keep my houses out year-round. I just don't think that the hearth is the best place for that. Maybe I'll keep the Victorian house out; it's not all snowy or Dickensian, and kind of looks like it was made for year-round admiration. I'll have to do some furniture juggling and/or get a console table for my record player. Oh, and after 2 years, I'm finally going to break down and see about getting my dishwasher either fixed or replaced. Either one works for me, I'm not really all in to "features" or whatever. I'm just a little overwhelmed by the volume of dishes that generally need washing, and I want to wash my pretties but can't because day-to-day dishes take up so much room in my sink and on my counter.
And I love my Mommy and my Daddy. They are the absolute BEST. *blows kisses in their direction*
