Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012

Another busy year has passed us by.  Hard to imagine all that has come to pass.  My dad and his mom are no longer with us.  He died at 68 and she went at 97.  We had Miss Amelia join our little family this year as well.  What a character!  She is what I will call an instigator.  She thinks it will be funny to have her brother or someone else do something and they do it to get her to laugh not realizing that they will soon be in trouble.  Poor Bear sometimes.  He is usually just trying to get his little sister to laugh.  They make a great pair.

Let's see... Tom is almost done with his Master's.  Yay!!  Getting your masters with two little kids at home and a wife that works full time cannot be easy.  He does well though.  Good grades and one more semester to go. 

My work seems to be getting better.  I seem to have found my niche for now.  I'm enjoying what I do and I am hoping to keep that up.  I'm still torn between working and being at home with my kids.  I don't think there is a mother that doesn't have that dilemma.  No matter which side of it your on it seems society pressures you toward the other.  Oh well.  At least everyone has a roof over their heads and we have food on our plates.  And above all we have each other.

I'm trying to think what else has gone on this year that is worth telling.  We've been busy but haven't seemed to really accomplish loads.  Oh, we did get the porch painted this year.  I still have lots of projects on the house.  We have window trim to paint, windows to replace, insulation to install, floors to refinish, an attic to finish, and doors to replace.  That's just the big stuff too.  Not all the little hum-drum day to day stuff.  I guess we'll see what happens with jobs after Tom graduates.  That will help dictate what we do with the house.

We both would love to get outside of town and be able to have more critters.  For now though we'll fix up our little house in town and enjoy the garden space and the development to the yard and fruit bearing bushes and trees we've added over the last couple of years.  I've gotten some nice currents the last couple years.  Now if I can just get my grapes established.

I have a feeling 2012 will be a year of change for us here.  Hopefully all for the better.  Not that we've had a bad year but I'm looking forward to attending a few weddings as opposed to funerals.  Here's to the past year and here's hoping for the new year.

Happy New Year!