Reflections on this and that...

Hello!!  No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, despite my marked disappearance (you did notice I wasn't around, didn't you?).

But with moving and Christmas falling one right after the other I was more than a little busy.  I had assumed that being off for almost two weeks that I would get plenty done; both with the house and blogging.  Well, we all knows what happens when one assumes....

Needless to say, during the move and it's immediate aftermath absolutely NO Christmas shopping took place, so once I was free from the normal work day that became my main focus pretty much right up until Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas was very nice.  Beginning with dinner with friends on Christmas Eve.  It was a lovely evening punctuated with peals of laughter from their small ones.  Made me a tad nostalgic for Man-Child's "small" phase, which seems so far away now.

Christmas Day was a quiet one for us.  All the gifts - those that actually arrived on time - were oohed and aahed over and much appreciated.

The "one" gift...the one that was "the" gift for Man-Child has yet to arrive.  I'm not sure whether to blame the supplier or the delivery service.  I'm leaning toward the supplier since Hubby ordered it on December 10th and it didn't ship until much later.  Luckily Man-Child is old enough to understand that sometimes even Santa has issues with his suppliers.

Unexpectedly, our Christmas Eve guests called us late in the day to reciprocate - I can only assume that they needed to see different faces as much as we did by that point.  So once again, we ate, drank and made merry.  It was wonderful.

Although our Christmas festivities were fabulous - there was a pall hanging over them, as we had received the news that a friend from our old neighborhood had passed away the day before Christmas Eve.  Tonight we attended the memorial service as a family.  It was tough.  Man-Child had absolutely adored this woman when he was small.  Despite the fact, that on our first Halloween there she scared the boy half out of his mind by sitting so still, dressed as a witch, that she looked like a decoration.  Until he walked up next to her to ring the bell...when she yelled out BOO!!  And had that small, little guy running down the stairs, screaming for his life.

The realization that this was the first memorial service I have attended for one of our social circle is sobering.  It made me realize that I need to pull my friends closer and make the time to see them more often.  Life is short.  All too short.

Now that we have lived in this much smaller place for almost a month(!) I have to say we are adjusting.  The furniture might be a little tight but we are finding life is a LOT easier in smaller place; although Hubby still has dreams that we will eventually somehow squeeze both cars into the garage (just typing that makes me giggle because of the amount of STUFF that is currently residing in there.  He's a dreamer, that Hubby of mine).  It's not quite the pain to put things away since their are no stairs to navigate.  Cleaning is certainly a lot easier.  And, we are finding that instead of hiding away in our separate areas doing our own thing we are interacting more (which may explain the lack of blogging despite being home for so long).  Eventually, I hope to do a house "tour" but we still aren't quite there yet as there are still boxes to be unpacked (or repacked for the attic), pictures to be hung and things to be sent to the local Goodwill.  We are still tweaking things here and there as we settle in but the important thing is that we are comfortable and happy.  We really can't ask for anything more than that, now can we?

As the holiday season comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to let you know how much you all mean to me.  This blogging thing started out as a lark, never meant to be taken seriously.  And while I still don't take the stats, number of comments, etc. seriously, I do take the friendships and connections that I've made very seriously.  And I wish you much peace, joy and love in the new year.

2014?  Somehow I have a good feeling about it.