I brought in 2017 bundled up next to my man, getting fireworks ash in our eyes, in Reykjavik, Iceland; I ended it huddled up under my new soft blankie (thanks to Aaron’s girlfriend), alone on my couch in Mons, Belgium.  That sounds sad, but it’s exactly where I wanted to be.  Of course I’d have preferred celebrating New Years with family and friends, but work begins again tomorrow, and my best flight option meant being back in Belgium on the 31st.

After two weeks of rushing around to get things done in Arizona, and a return journey that included three flights, a hot bath, some wine, and lots of shut eye is all I wanted.  I slept until noon today!  And it felt great.  It’s been raining since I returned, so hibernating inside my warm, cozy apartment is what this weekend is all about.

My trip home went by way, way, way too quickly.  My only 2017 regret is that both my trips back home were too rushed because there was so much to do, BUT the doing is done.  My house is pretty much sold (signed all the papers; buyers sign on Jan 4), Badger and Joe are all set for their big move (the hound is chipped and immunised; the man is stressed and tackling his list of to-dos), and my kids are moving along in their versions of happy.

We spent Christmas at Kelly and Kaylene’s, where I finally got to meet Kelly’s mom (we had fun embarrassing our kids with our stories — hopefully something we’ll do many times more!).  We feasted, we drank, we laughed, we watched movies, we played Game of Thrones monopoly, we familied it up!  I sure do love my people.

I cherished my time with Joe and the kids, and I’m so glad we got to spend Christmas together.  Again, I’m proud of all of them and love being witness to the adults they’ve become.  I didn’t get to spend much time with friends, but the little bit of time some of us got together was awesome.  Summer 2019 I’ll be back for a much longer visit, so lots of whooping it up time is in our future.

Party time with friends included a pub bicycle crawl to celebrate a friend’s 50th.  LOL after all my years in Phoenix I can finally claim I hit the downtown Scottsdale bars.  I also got to fit some patio bar time in, something I can no longer do during the winter where I now live.  Sadly not pictured is my outing with Julie and Sushi with Tiffany and Joe.  There are so many others I didn’t get to see, but we’ll catch up some where some time and it’ll be great.

As for 2018 resolutions, I have none.  I’m a lucky, stable, healthy soul who is cool with her extra lumps and wrinkles.  No need to promise to lose weight or save or whatever (but you know I’ll try).  My only goal is to continue embracing all that comes my way.  Good or bad it usually works out toward something great, so Happy New Everything that comes our way — and good riddance to the bad that usually, eventually melts away.

All of my kids adopted puppies, so our holidays also included a lot of pooch love.  Not pictured are Kyle and Kendra’s two dogs, Piper and her puppy Penny.  Kaylene and Kelly’s two white lab puppies are also Piper’s babies, and Aaron and Stacy’s pups are rescues.  Dexter, the brown cutie (um, the dog who wanted to eat my unicorn slippers) won me over with his snores and snuggles.  Okay, the others did too.  Badger has learned to cope with all the whipper snappers.

And that’s all that I have for you right now.  My jet lagged self needs to figure out what she’s torturing her students with tomorrow.

Happy New Year Everyone!