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maybe this year will be better than the last.

because i am an eternal optimist, i can't leave that title hanging.
it was a good year.
ish.
december i could have done without.
and some other stuff in between.
but I have a job and beautiful kids and a fabulous husband and a home and friends and food.
and i can't believe it but i am going to quote my sister.
"even my problems are good problems"
i'd list a few but they seem pretty trivial.
just in the last few weeks, Shaun has gotten a phone call 3 times about the passing of a family member.
first his MeMe.
then an uncle, and barely after he got out of his funeral clothes on New Year's Eve, the phone rang again. His aunt.
3 funerals, 3 ear infections and one giant hole in the bathroom wall ( thanks to a slow leak and rotten drywall).
Let's just say it's been a long December.

Yesterday I told Owen, "Happy New Year".
He was puzzled and asked why I said that. I tried to explain that it was the first day of a new year. Still blank stares....
then I told him that this will be the year that he goes to Kindergarden, that his team finally wins a soccer game, that this is the year he will learn to read, this will be the year that he turns 5,etc. And his face started to light up with hope for what is in store.
I didn't write a long list of resolutions.
But I do like to "reset" a bit for the new year.
I hope that I finally get it together and do all the things that I was supposed to do all along.
Lose weight, organize my closet, publish something, start serving in some kind of significant way,I could go on but won't.
There is something in us that wants to be better.
That hopes that there is more.
That hopes that this is our year.
That we can be a little bit closer to who we were meant to be.
To who God created us to be.

What I love about New Years is that we remember that hope.
That for atleast a little while we believe it.
We go to the gym.
We go to church.
We believe that we can be better.

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