The Year Of New...

Christmas eve 2015 was a bit of a mess for me.  Not so much a nightmare, but more of a day of irritations and disappointments.  The days started out as routine as any, my getting ready for work, the last day of my eleven day stretch.  Showered, check. Dressed, check. I was standing in the bathroom, hair pulled back into the perfect pony tail when , snap... the elastic goes flying and lands in the toilet.  And for some ungodly reason, decent hair elastics are like searching for the pot of gold in this house.

After about 15 minutes of destroying the bathroom closet I come up with one, hastily throw my hair back up, and head out the door.  Getting in the car I can see something is.... off.... like everything is out of where it usually is.... off.  Apparently, not just 10 feet away from our bedroom window someone had decided to break into my car and look for some last minute Christmas goodies. *sigh*

They took nothing, of course, because I keep nothing of real value in my car, but it was hugely violating, on Christmas Eve no less.  Undeterred, I went to work, swinging by the Police Station on the way.  Apparently my neighbor's car had also been broken into for some stocking stuffers of cash and 2 packs of smokes.

Work dragged through the day, customers coming to the counter over and over wanting to know why their package wasn't there.  None of them seeing or even acknowledging that I had done 3 package runs the day before to ensure every over priced, last minute, after thought purchase of theirs was available for pick up. Whatever.  Nearing the tail end of my day, I started having sharp pains in my back and discovered that my Dear Aunt Flo was indeed showing up right on time for the holidays.

I hate her.

Onward to my mother's to retrieve the boys, drove 40 minutes home, nearly hit the neighborhood coyote who clearly has seen better days, squared away the kids, and waited for Tony to arrive home with Bonus Brother so we could all go to my sister's (3 miles from where I just came from) as a family.  Of course, by the time he picked him up, dropped off the gifts for his nieces and nephews's empty house, the two of them had found better plans.  His texts to his family went unanswered, as did his calls, and he was left to celebrate his mother's birthday alone.  Trying to salvage his day,  the two of them called to say they were going to see Star Wars, and I trucked the boys back to my sister's house alone, where we exchanged gifts and smiled pretty as the chaos insured, fielding questions of why my husband was not there.

Exhausted, I headed home around 730, to find, Dory, the female of my mated pair of clown fish, that we have watched and loved for five years, dead. The male, Hunky, died later on Christmas morning, finishing off the tank.  I had started the tank with them, and they just couldn't survive this new strain of bacteria that took over the community.

It was a sad, sad night.  Made even sadder by the fact that I couldn't even stay awake until midnight to open gifts. Around 9 pm Tony arrived home, and at 10:30 we decided to just open everything.  Fifteen minutes later, I was passed out in bed ready to put Christmas and all things December, behind me.

Christmas was uneventful but nice.  We visited my brother's and I caught up on laundry.  The rest of the week slid into the next.  I have often found that awkward week between Christmas and New Years difficult, having lost all sense of what day it is and where I am supposed to be. None the less, we rang the New Year in as we usually do....

...completely asleep by 9 pm.

2016

A year for new things.

Things like, locking the car every night, and enjoying the new roof that doesn't leak, or the trim that will not rot.

Or, like deleting the Face Book app off my phone in an effort to make more actual face time this year and setting up the Chrome Cast to try and cut the "cable" cord.

Even opening a new deodorant seemed appropriate considering the year we'd had.  Never let them see you sweat, right?

And accepting that I do not have the time for salt water fish anymore....

 Freshwater cichlids this time.  We've started out the tank with some yellow labs and some blue striped guys that I can't remember the name of. I am enjoying them more than I thought I would, watching them make caves in the sand, collecting their food pellets, hoarding them in their new homes.  The best part my be that they are a fraction of the cost of salt water fish, are decently hardy, and the tank set up cost us nearly nothing.  The stone you see in the background is extra flag stone we had in the back yard, stacked into caves.

It's a new year...

...and time to make the old new again.