reflections for the new year

 

December is winding down as is 2022. I always enjoy the beginning of a new year because it's one more chance for a fresh start.

I've been reflecting on this past year - it was quite a roller coaster. It was the year of the wedding and the year I went broke, two things that do not go together.

It was a year I tried hard to help people and ended up feeling taken advantage of more than once. A year when my family had my back and Chris's family was a disappointment. 

All of this has me reflecting on changes that need to be made in 2023. I've decided on 2 words for 2023 - balance and boundaries. 

I've never been very good at setting boundaries and I blame my early childhood for that. My dad's job required us to socialize with people from the association that employed him and my mother taught me that their wants came first and that mine should be last (to be honest, I don't think it ever occurred to my mother that I had the right to have any wants of my own) and I've been putting that lesson to use ever since. I always go to the back of the line, so to speak, and try to make everyone else happy usually at my own expense. I do this unconsciously but sometimes I also do it deliberately, knowing that I'm hurting myself just so that someone else won't be inconvenienced. Because of my training, it's hard to know someone is upset with me but I have to learn that "friends" that have no problem inconveniencing me so that THEY won't be inconvenienced aren't friends at all, they are just users and I am DONE with being used.

So this next year, while I'm trying to re-engage with things that bring me joy, I'm going to also be working on maintaining boundaries with people that are all take and no give because I can't continue to put everyone else first at my own expense. I want to be a generous, helpful person but I'm going to be judicious with that help and not hurt myself in the process.

What are some of the things I've already planned on reintroducing into my life? Definitely more time for reading. I love to read and haven't really done much of it the past couple of years but that's going to change. I'm going to give myself permission to make my room off limits for the kids from time to time so that I can lose myself in a good book because that's so essential to my well-being. I fell in love with reading in first grade and used to come home from the library every week with a huge stack of books and read every one. My mother used to go back to that first grade teacher every year at back to school night and thank her for teaching me to read and instilling the LOVE of reading in me. 

I'm also going to start singing again with my chorus from the old neighborhood. They practice on Monday nights and Mondays are one of the days I drive into Orlando to work. The rehearsal spot is on my way home so there's no reason not to go there...except Monday night is also basketball practice for James and I stopped going to rehearsal to be there for his practice but as long as I'm there for his games, I think I can skip practice a few times.

This one may seem a little weird but I'm going to indulge my little girl side and play with dolls. These are not just any dolls but Disney Nuimos which are little Disney characters (mine is Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas) that you can buy clothes for and pose them. I don't want to collect the dolls, I'm happy with just Sally, but I am giddy about all the cute clothes! They are all the rage on Instagram and I've already gained new followers by posting just a couple of pictures over the Christmas holiday. It's a silly thing but buying the clothes, setting Sally up in scenes and taking pictures makes me happy for now.

Speaking of pictures, I got this sweet retro looking camera last year when I still had money. It's all the newest technology but it looks old and I love it. However I have barely used it because I am a little intimidated by what it can do so I vow to teach myself to use it this next year and take it everywhere.

I took a digital camera class 3 years ago with Taz's camera but, unfortunately, it was old technology (he bought the camera in 2005) and the instructor told me I'd be better off getting a new camera. I didn't want to hear that in 2019 but eventually I realized I really needed to upgrade and that's when I bought my retro beauty. Now I think I need to take another course and watch a ton of You Tube tutorials and just start taking pictures and see if I have any talent for this. I think I have a good eye but I need to work at it.

And of course I want to write. I have 3 book projects in various stages of development - a book about the WASP female pilots in WWII which is based on a lovely woman I knew in Carmel; a book/memoir about my life since Taz died; and a book about the building in the picture - The Tuck Box of Carmel. It was built in 1926 to be a shop but instead it became a restaurant and has been in business ever since. Its 100th anniversary is coming up soon so I have just 3 years to do a book about its history, a project I have been dreaming about since 2012. I had done a lot of research when we lived in California but I think I lost all of it when I couldn't make the payments on our storage unit and lost everything so I have to start all over again. Luckily the Carmel newspaper's back issues are all online so I just have to buckle down, find some time to myself without distractions and get that research going all over again. Then I have to budget for at least one trip to Carmel to take pictures (where that previous idea to learn to use my camera comes into play) to supplement the ones that I already have from Taz. The Tuck Box was our favorite place and he took lots of pictures for me over the years. I would love to do the book and also work with the City Council of Carmel to have a day to honor the 100th anniversary of this special place. I've had this idea for over 10 years but now is definitely the time to start working on it because I'm pretty sure I would never forgive myself if I missed that anniversary.

This one is going to be hard - travel. I love to travel, I crave it but I just don't see it in my future again and that makes me sad. I was blessed during my years with Taz that we traveled all over and we both loved it so much. I have lovely memories but I would really like more. I don't need to travel around the world (although I would love that - getting to Kenya is still at the top of my bucket list) but I would at least like road trips in the US. Chris doesn't crave travel the way I do and there's never any money so this is probably only a dream but I'm never going to stop trying to make it a reality. The above picture is a sticker I got for my bedroom wall so that I never forget how much I love Paris and travel.

There are many more things I'd like to do this year but those are the top ones I'm going to work on as we enter a new year. I want this to be a year of growth and change for me, I want to look back at the end of 2023 and see how I've taken control of my story and guided it in the direction of a strong, happy, healthy, creative me.

balance

 

Only a few more days until Christmas! We're all ready with the kids' presents but I actually haven't gotten things for Chris. He got an early present, something he wanted for basketball, and I have made surprise plans for all 4 of us to go see a favorite singing person at a county fair in January but I'd like to get a couple more little things for him. I haven't been able to get out by myself this week because of the kids so I'm hoping I can have a little time to myself on Saturday, just an hour should do it.

I'll have all the time in the world to myself on New Years Eve during the day. I had this great idea that Chris and I (the kids will be with their mother) would get a bunch of snacks in the house and do a movie marathon all day with each of us picking our favorite movies but yesterday Chris informed me that his best friend and business partner was coming over that day to work on the shed that was just delivered and that they are turning into an office. I know they need to work on it but it irks me that he made plans for NYE and didn't even bother to ask if I had anything planned for the 2 of us. We so rarely get time together and our last 2 New Years Eves have been less than romantic so, yeah, I had plans and I'm not thrilled he didn't even think about it.

But I'm nothing if not flexible so I'm already on to Plan B - something just for me. It fits in with my new mantra of balance. I'm going to spend the day doing the things I used to do, things I love. I think I'll drive to a cute little town just an hour away and visit the Saturday market there, have lunch at my favorite French bakery and shop in the vintage store next door which is my absolute favorite place. The town is adorable and they have these big swings in the middle of the street so you can swing and people watch.

It's the sort of thing Taz and I used to do all the time and I went there several times by myself after Taz passed but I haven't been there in over 2 years now because it's not the sort of thing Chris would ever think of doing. So that's where the balance comes in - I need to do the things I love from time to time even if I have to do it by myself.

Yesterday I wrote down a list of all the things I love and that I haven't been doing lately. I'm going to figure out a way to do something from that list once a month whether it's with the kids, just Chris and me, or just me.

1. Travel

2. Read

3. Visit cute towns like Mount Dora and Winter Garden

4. Explore new cute towns

5. Flea Markets

6. Vintage Fairs

7. Movie Theaters

8. Fun restaurants - definitely don’t have to be expensive

9. Festivals and Fairs

10. Food Trucks

11. Historic Research

12. Visit Historic Sites

13. Adventureland stuff

14. Beach

15. Zoos

16. Sing

What I’d like to start doing:

1. Learn to use my new camera

2. Take photos

3. Vlog

4. Bake

5. Jewelry crafting

6. Sew

7. Write a book or two

8. Make hats

9. Learn to fly

10. Develop an Adventure Character

I wanted to put it all down here so that I can refer to it from time to time to remind myself; it's so easy to lose myself in all the day to day tasks and I don't want to let that happen again. I'm not getting any younger and I don't want to turn around and realize all I've done for 10 years is take care of kids and the house and I've forgotten to take care of me.

One fun thing I did recently was drive to Alabama to see my brother in his 40th anniversary performance in The Nutcracker ballet. He's been playing Herr Drosselmeyer since the first performance in 1982 and he's kind of a legend in his little town.

Chris, the kids and I went to see it last year and we all loved it. Chris talked all year about how we were going to see it again this year but in November he suddenly realized he had a basketball game to coach at the Y that day. He's been coaching James's team since June and this past season he also coached the older kids. Basketball takes up every Saturday but I had hoped he'd realize that spending time with my family and seeing Eric in the Nutcracker was more important and he could miss one game. Apparently I was wrong, as soon as he realized there was a conflict with basketball he never even considered going to Alabama. I was hurt, disappointed and angry because my family has done so much for us and was there at our wedding when his family couldn't be bothered but he made a choice to make basketball his priority.

I wasn't going to miss my brother's anniversary performance so I made plans to go by myself. Chris has to give 30 days notice if he's taking the kids out of the state so I asked him to go ahead and give the notice just in case he changed his mind but he never did so even when he realized he probably made the wrong decision, there was nothing he could do about it.

I was angry the day I left, at 6am, for Alabama and I cried for the first 2 hours of the drive but then, as I got closer, I decided to get over it because I was on a road trip - my most favoritest of things to do! I entered into the spirit of travel and completely enjoyed being out on the open road by myself.

Taz and I made this trip several times to visit my family so I stopped at our favorite gas station because it's familiar and also because they have the most amazing leather purses there. I found one I just had to have and I was definitely in the mood to give myself a little treat.

I left early in the morning so that I could make it to town by lunch time to meet up with my brother and his new wife along with my nephew and his wife. We had a fabulous time at lunch, lots of laughs and great food. I was so glad I'd made the effort to get there early enough.

Afterwards I left all of them to spend a little time shopping in town where I found a perfect UGLY sweater for the contest we were having at work. I went back to the motel and enjoyed having the whole space to myself for a few hours before the performance. I watched some Netflix and then took a nap before getting ready and heading to the performance at 7.

I was up for breakfast with my brother and his wife the next morning and then I headed home. It's a 7 hour trip so I didn't make it home until dinner time but, once again, it was fun being out on the road and it reminded me how important it is to do things that bring me joy. I would have loved to have my kids and Chris with me but being by myself is fun too.

By the way - I won the Ugly Sweater Contest at work the next week!

preparations

 

That's me in all my glory sans makeup because I'm working from home this week while the kids are out of school on break.

We get them this week then they go back to their mother next week until school starts up again in the new year. I love having them here but trying to do accounting work while they are in and out of my office/bedroom to tell me about the latest video they just watched or how they are doing at their newest game is challenging to say the least.

I think my problem is that I'm a pretty quiet and solitary person and when I'm working I don't really like to be disturbed so working with them in the house is difficult at best. Some days aren't so bad and some days I end up with a raging headache and a desire to yell...but I don't.

That wasn't really what I'd planned on talking about - I wanted to talk about getting ready for Christmas. We've been out and about getting excited about the upcoming holiday. We have around 15 inflatable blowups in our yard, although I don't have any pictures of them, and our tree is up although it doesn't have any ornaments yet.

Chris and I finished our Christmas shopping this past weekend and he wrapped all the presents while I wrote out the names. He muttered a few times about how he didn't like wrapping presents until I finally muttered that I don't like doing laundry, folding clothes or washing dishes but I do it several times a week. He was quiet after that and just kept wrapping. 

I think we're going to wait until Christmas Eve to put the presents under the tree because we have a cat that would probably love to unwrap everything just out of curiosity. We call him Satan or Demon Child and he's the only one of Willow's kittens that we kept. He, ingeniously, kept his true personality under wraps until he knew he was staying and then he unleashed his inner wild child. Our other 2 cats could care less about the tree or presents and Charlie is always good but Satan is...well, Satan.

We didn't have a lot of extra money for Christmas this year so we did most of our shopping at Five Below (everything in the store is $5) and Dollar Tree (everything in the store is $1.25) and I hope the kids aren't too disappointed. I think we got some nice stuff but it's not the things they are always pointing out when we're in Walmart. Last year I still had savings and we let the kids loose in Walmart so that they could point out what they wanted and we went back to buy some of it. This year we didn't even want to raise expectations so we haven't asked what they wanted. They are getting what they get and they'd better be happy with it.

One thing we are going to do this Christmas is let them be Santa for other kids and go pick out presents for 2 very small children we know who won't have much of a Christmas if they don't get some help. I think buying things for other children will do my children some good. I spoke to them about all of this a few minutes ago and they seemed excited about the idea of being Santa.

I hope being Santa will help me a little too. I have felt a little taken advantage of for the past couple of years - people took advantage of me while living in my house, I've loaned money to family who apparently have no intention of paying it back or even being grateful and seem to think we exist only to help them out of the problems that they keep creating for themselves, other people ask for a little help and when that is willingly given they ask for more and more help without trying to do anything for themselves. I want to be a generous, giving person but I don't like it when my generally helpful nature is abused and then I just don't feel like helping at all. So playing Santa to two toddlers should help give me balance.

I think BALANCE will be my word for 2023. I need to find balance between my new life as a stepmom and doing some of the things that bring me joy. I feel like I've lost a little bit of myself over the past few years. First I was just figuring out how to survive after loss and then I became part of a new family with more responsibility than ever and I'm still just trying to survive. More on this another day but basically I really don't do all the things I used to - the things that I love, the things that make me ME and I miss it. I feel like all I do is take care of kids, cook, laundry and dishes along with trying to fit a full-time job around all of that. Oh yeah, and basketball which is devouring our lives. All the little things that I like to do like travel, vintage fairs, flea markets, Christmas festivals and singing just seem to fall by the wayside because there's no time left after doing all the other stuff. I need to find balance between everybody else and me before it becomes more of a problem than it already is.