Happy Wednesday!

I really thought January would be a quiet month.  I was very, very wrong.  Both jobs have been busier than I expected and I've piled on extra this month with my work from home job, since I had to prepare tax documents and will now be starting year end journal entries....which haven't been done for the past three or four years.   Busy, busy!  School started last night, just one class this semester due to the almost impossible task of scheduling classes around two jobs and a three year old.

Did I say three year old?  Yup, Ben turns three next week and I'm still in shock at how fast this has happened.  But then when I think about the fact that Jake turned TWENTY last week I can't help but be overwhelmed at how fast time goes.  TWENTY.  Ugh. 

Fortunately twenty year old children don't require elaborate birthday parties.  In fact, this year Jake asked for a pie instead of a cake, so it was a very low key birthday.  Phew.  It gives me time to gear up for what I hope will be a pretty sweet "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" birthday for Ben next weekend.  Spoiler:  I'm planning on making a pirate ship birthday cake.  Because I AM super mom....

Since I've only managed to steal a few minutes this morning to write, I'm going to have to keep this short.  I will share a pretty hilarious Ben story though.

Last week Ben and I were leaving the house, I was going to work in Portland and he was off to daycare.  As we were walking out the door he turned to me a said, "Mom!  You forgot your work cape!"  And I said, "My work cape?"  "Yeah Mom, you're work cape."  So I looked over at the counter and saw the apron I wear to waitress laying on the counter.  "My apron?"  "Yeah mom!  You're work cape."


I had to giggle at that one....

New Year: New Resolutions...sorta...

Happy New Year!

Ok, I know, I'm a bit late, my resolution this year should probably be to be a bit more timely, but oh well.

Last year I spent a lot of time thinking about my resolutions.  I set some goals for myself, things I wanted to do, milestones I wanted to reach...and I'm proud to say I met none of them.

Am I disappointed?  Nope.  Because 2012 brought a lot of unexpected things with it that I am just as pleased with!

My first goal for 2012 was to read 100 books, including 5 Jane Austen and 5 non-fiction.  If you count text books, I think I reached the non-fiction goal.  As for Austen, I read three.  Which I don't think is bad at all!  It's Jane Austen for Pete's sake!  As for reaching 100 books, I didn't quite make it.  I read 65 books.  It's still a pretty impressive number!  Especially when you consider that once school started in September I completely gave up reading for pleasure!

My other goal for 2012 was to write more.  Definite fail on that one.  I think I wrote less.  And I really wanted to force myself to do some more creative writing, which did not happen at all.  Oops.  I really have no excuses for that.  I could have done more writing, I just didn't. 

Despite not meeting any of my 2012 goals, it was still an excellent year!  When the year started I was a stay at home mom, home everyday with Ben, working a couple evenings a week.  A couple months into the year I started working during the day one day a week and I put Ben in daycare.  I am so glad I did!  Ben has learned so much from daycare.  He gets along well with others, he communicates well and he's learned to be caring and compassionate towards his friends.  I can tell because he likes to tell me about how much he likes them all and how he loves his best friends.  His current best friend is a one year old little girl, so I'm pretty sure he's a gentle and caring friend.

When the year began we were struggling financially and still had the IRS repercussions of the short sale we did with our house in Limerick hanging over our heads.  What a relief it was to get that taken care of and discover that we had enough money saved up to pay our taxes!  Financially, that was a turning point for us. 

2012 also brought with it my decision to go back to school and work on an Associates in Accounting.  After doing basic bookkeeping for years, I decided that I wanted to increase my knowledge so I could maybe someday start a job in that field.  At about the same time I decided I wanted to go back to school, I was offered an entry level position in an accounting department.  It was a pretty good sign that I was on the right path and I started my new job at the beginning of the summer and have enjoyed being back in the work place, even on a part time basis.  School started in September and while it was definitely more challenging than I anticipated, I survived, with a 4.0 GPA to boot!

2012 also brought an awesome visit with my sister who came home for Utah for a week, and (almost) monthly visits to the island to visit my dad and stepmother. 

As you can see, 2012 was busy and filled with changes, which is likely why I didn't meet any of my goals for 2012.  But I'm really quite ok with that.

So, since 2013 is here now I should be setting new goals for myself, but unlike last year, I'm not going to set goals in terms of numbers or even specific things I want to do.  My goal for 2013 is to go with the flow.  I want to challenge myself to keep going with school, keep working at both of my jobs, keep reading and keep start writing.  But I also want to keep making time for my family and making memories with my son.  So my goal for 2013 will simply be to do the best I can at doing everything.  And I think that's a pretty good goal.

Bring It On 2013!!