Review of 2014: Part 4

Just as suddenly as I have come to terms that it is 2014, here I am, wrapping up a review of the entire year. Every year, I hope to take things slower, more simply, but time just continues to race along, regardless of my feelings.


After a stressful spring and a busy summer, I was hoping things would settle down in the fall/winter. They didn't. Both due to outside events and my own doing, things stayed busy.

October

We visited the Field of Dreams - it only took over 5 years of living a hour away for us to do this.





My brother was in a very serious accident. It resulted in a long ICU stay and many many worrisome moments. He is in the process of making a full recovery.

The stress of being far away from family continued to be a strain.

I ran my first 10K.

We celebrated Hubster's birthday.

I started a chess club at Monkey's elementary school. I've loved every moment of it.

We tried to take advantage of everything autumn has to offer in the Midwest. Autumn here never fails to amaze me.  We did hikes, corn mazes, leaf piles, and pumpkin picking.














We celebrated Halloween.





November

I continued my job search. I spent (and continue to spend) a significant time freaking out about it.

It snowed. I worried that this would mean another terrible winter. However, that has been the only snow we received so far.

I had a mother-son date night with Bug and Monkey. We ate out and they just killed me with their cuteness as they ordered their own food without any input from me. We finished the evening at Cirque Du Soleil. I spent a couple days afterwards wondering if Monkey was going to run off with the circus.

Hubster's brother's daughter was born with a severe congenital heart defect and underwent several surgeries. She's home now and doing quite well.

Duck turned 2.

We celebrated Thanksgiving, doing our first one completely on our own without any friends or extended family.

December

I scheduled another job interview (to be done in January) There may be more details depending on how it goes. Hubster started his post-dental school job search. We decided that living in the same state is a high priority for us.

Monkey had a lot of Boy Scout activities - fire safety, and swimming, and bell ringing. 

We continued to have a lot of chess - both at the school club and a few tournaments that Monkey did.

We had our traditional fondue night for winter solstice.

We tried to focus on Christmas. Hubster's school schedule lightened a little, making that easier.

We picked our tree.

We baked a ridiculous amount of cookies.

We had more pajama days than I care to admit.

It didn't snow. 

We had a lovely Christmas.

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I wish I could say that 2014 was a good year. There were plenty of good, even amazingly wonderful parts of it. But overall, it has been a difficult year for us. We've had one family crisis after another. Hubster and I are almost to the point of decided that if our phones ring after 10 pm, we aren't going to answer, because we can't take any more bad news.

I'm continuing to try to focus on the beauty and not be weighed down by the stressful, but it's often very difficult.



As for 2015, I have no idea what it holds. There will most likely be a move, but I don't yet know where. There will most likely be a job change, but I don't know to what. There will be more birthdays, more miles logged, more holidays celebrated. I hope there will be fewer late night phone calls and less hospital visits. But even if that hope doesn't hold up, there will still be us, attempting to take things a day at a time and find enjoyment and quiet where we can.