Happy New Year

Happy 2012!
The past couple days have been an opportunity for reflection, anticipation, and hope. The more I read from friends of bad experiences from the past year, of hoping for better in the next 300-some-odd days and putting the past behind in lieu of starting anew, I can't help but wonder: am I the only one sad to see 2011 go? I saw my share of crises. Our orders changed several times, we didn't know if Jason was going to get to start OCS at all, if we'd find a house. The move itself was complete chaos. When we did get moved, he had to report in right away and I had to get us settled alone. The school-recycling situation had us worried about when he would graduate, if he would graduate, if he'd have to go back to Drum without us, if he'd be here when the baby is born. What was supposed to be a 12 week school became 7 months long. There seemed to be a thousand unexpected hurdles thrown at us.
This was also the year we moved Georgia--which I love! This year, I've met so many wonderful friends who got me through 7 months of being on my own. This year, we found out we're going to be completing our family with our third, our daughter, our OCS baby. This year we learned how to ballroom dance, I tried skiing (and hated it), started running again, and I started learning sign language with the kids. This year I played bunco with girlfriends, took the kids to the beach, attended my sister's college graduation, saw two of my friends get married, drove 7 1/2 hours each way to Tennessee about a thousand times, fixed the dishwasher, threw birthday parties, and chaperoned a field trip. This year my oldest baby boy started pre-school, I cooked another Thanksgiving dinner, my family from all over the country visited. This year, my husband's hard work paid off and he graduated a Second Lieutenant.
This year I learned to be more independent, more prepared, more flexible. I learned that the unexpected happens, often, usually to deliberately conflict with whatever plans you've already made, and when it does life doesn't stop. Life goes on and so do you. And even though it might not be what you had in mind or had your heart set on, it ends up being way better.

So 2011 wasn't so bad.

And 2012 is looking pretty promising.