Reflections – January 2010
Our family welcomed 2010 with big dreams, and a great desire to see where the year and decade will take us. January wasted no time in bringing us challenges and opportunities. After a few final relaxing days of our Holiday Break, we hit the ground running.
We spent New Year’s Day having a late Christmas with my family. We spent the evening playing with Evan’s new Wii, exchanging gifts and eating. Because we were burnt out on Holiday food, we had fish tacos, and Jai made homemade mango salsa. My Grandma gave us a painting of Steve, Mo and I on our wedding day. It takes a jack hammer to put nails in our walls, so it sits on top of a table propped against the wall.
After a final weekend of relaxing at home, I returned to work and Steve flew to Dallas, Texas for a business planning meeting. Since then, we have both been running hard with work. We’ve been so busy that we barely see each other, and Moanna is a long for the ride. Our hope is that pushing hard this year will pay off, and we will have more time together in the long run.
In January we released a new section of My, Myself and Mommy called Me, Myself and Money. In this section of the website, we are discussing personal finances, and everything it implies. By beginning this adventure, we have faced how much debt we have, set spending limits, and stopped eating out (minus one date a month) – all in the first month. The plan is to have our consumer debt (credit cards) paid off by the end of 2010. It’s going to be a crazy ride, but will be so worth it. I think I’m going to need a Dramamine.
On the evening of January 12th, my Mom called to tell us that there had been a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti. Our hearts immediately turned to Steve’s best friend, Andy, who is from Haiti. Much of our focus remained on Haiti throughout the month, and what we can do to help. We are working with Andy on long term projects that will help the people of Haiti now, and that will continue to help Haiti in the months and years to come.
The weekend of January 23rd, Steve and I went down to Charlotte, North Carolina (Moanna stayed in Virginia). Steve had a sales conference and awards banquet to attend. Some of Steve’s closest friends are the people he works with, so it was great to spend time with these people, and celebrate every one’s successes at the banquet. While Steve was in his sales meetings, I spent time with Erin, my maid-of-honor who lives just north of Charlotte. It was nice to decompress away from home for the weekend.
Moanna had a good January. She was busy with anything she could get into – cooking, climbing, dumping clothes out of baskets, playing in the snow, all kinds of toddler fun. She is really starting to grasp bigger ideas and concepts. I don’t have a good example for you which is a shame. She will say or do something, and Steve and I will look at each other and say, “How does she know to do that?” Moanna sings her her ABC’s every night – minus J. Every time, she leaves out the J.
For about three days, three whole days, the ground was free from snow. Just as soon as the snow had finally melted from the December Blizzard, another snow storm came to town the last weekend in January. Steve was out of town for a trade show, leaving Moanna and I to fend for ourselves. It was a rough weekend. She and I drove each other crazy. I would clean a room up, she would tear it apart. She would want to watch a movie, I would want to take a nap. Don’t get me wrong, we had our fun in the snow and played around the house, but the cabin fever got to both us after awhile.
I can usually look back at a month and say “overall it was a good month” or “overall it was a challenging month.” For January, I can’t do that. The first month of 2010, a new decade, was all over the place. One day it was great, and we were spending time with family and friends, and we were dreaming big dreams for our future. The next day, we were aching for the people of Haiti and trying to make it through our ever growing to-do list without having an emotional breakdown. If January was a preview of what 2010 will bring, then boy, what a doozy.
With all of the ups and downs and running around, I had no time to really think and reflect about what I was doing and what was going on in my life. I felt robotic at times just trying to get through it all. In many ways I am thankful for the robotic behaviors I took on because it allowed to me to push through some sticky stuff without allowing the stress of it all to paralyze me. Every night I was able to push myself for a few minutes every night to complete at least one small project in the house. I am far from a fan of it, but sometimes auto pilot is what gets us through a bitter winter without loosing our sanity.
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