What’s Going on Here?

Decembers are always tough, even if the holiday expectations aren’t as intense as there were in the past. I have lots of people in my life — a good thing, of course. But as the Chief Maintainer of All Traditions for so many people, I get tired out. A lot of labor goes into shopping for presents, organizing parties, arranging decorations, menu writing, cooking, cleaning, and entertaining everyone from ages 86 to 3 with one autistic/epileptic person in the mix.

I declare January as the Month of Me, as much as that is possible. Today, I ran a 5K race. I’m sitting at my desk for the first time in two weeks. I made a healthy quinoa salad for three days of lunches. I’m wavering on the whole Dry January thing. I have three or four big work projects on my desk that need to be organized and prioritized. Steve and I are planning a summer vacation that will not involve our young men.

How burned out am I? Well, I’ve been having fantasies about being a hermitic cat lady. At the same time, I know that I’m lucky. While December was exhausting, it was certainly full of great moments.

We took my folks to Florida, so my mom could see her sister.

We saw the New Jersey Symphony play the Messiah at Newark’s Cathedral.

We did all the Christmas stuff.

We went to Boston for a few days with a stopover at a CT cemetery with lots of Steve’s dead ancestors, two more state capitals under our belt, and a trip to a beautiful museum.