A New Beginning...

Happy New Year, Everyone!  Today is a day for resolutions, football games, and naps on the couch.  So, how did we spend our day?  Yup.  Watching football and taking naps.  No resolutions for me this year.  I see no reason to set myself up year after year with all the normal resolutions:  lose weight, don't work such long hours, be a better housekeeper, etc.  Either I will or I won't and making a resolution today won't change the results. 

So, reflecting on the past year what do I see?  I think it is a year best put behind us.  Erin graduated from high school, got her first job, moved away, and started college all within the space of 3 months.  That's a bit too much change for me in such a short time.  Not that all those changes weren't good ones.  Erin's move to Tuscaloosa has been a good one for her.  John and I have spent the better part of her life helping her to expand her horizons so she would be comfortable away from us and self-sufficient when the time came.  That's what good parents do, isn't it?  So how come now that she is away from us, taking good care of herself, and doing well does it make me a little sad?  Maybe because she doesn't really need me anymore.  She patronizes me occasionally and lets me mother her, but she really is quite an independent young woman.  I guess I should just be glad she let's us take what part we do.  She is so much happier now than she has been in the months before she went to college.  That makes me happy, too.  I see more life in her eyes now than I have in a long time.  That's a good thing.  High school is hard when your mom teaches where you go to school.

So what's in store for us this next year?  Only good things, I hope.  Erin is starting her second semester and will continue to build her life in Tuscaloosa.  John and I will continue to do what we do here.  In the meantime our lives will march on.  Stuff will happen.  We'll deal with it . . . together.  I can't really say that I hope things get better.  They are pretty good the way they are right now.  My family is happy and healthy.  We have jobs and we can pay our bills.  In this day and age that is saying lots more than so many people can.  We are blessed.  May you be blessed in this new year as well.