It's a new year thankfully

If life is a bit like seasons, this past year felt mostly like a damn cold winter. Yep, I said it. And dammit, we live in Houston. It's not supposed to feel like that! It's supposed to feel like this (and yes, this is one of the main reasons I tolerate living here):

I wrote a really really long post about all the crap that was a part of last year but I did that while I was feeling a high level of self-pity and decided it was mostly junk.

Wikipedia defines self-pity as "the psychological state of mind of an individual in perceived adverse situations who has not accepted the situation and does not have the confidence nor competence to cope with it." I would describe my self-pity as being tired, really freaking tired. Exhaustion does not lend well to coping.

Somewhat ironically, I had a wonderful conversation with a woman at work yesterday about self-pity. Her husband committed suicide sometime ago. We discussed how self-pity can be and is often a very helpful process but it can easily suck you in such a way that you are left in an unhealthy place. Thankfully, my self-pitying experience is over for now and left me with no permanent scars!

This past year was trying. Admittedly I like to see the bright side of things and be positive and I tried that for awhile. Sometime during the year a very dear friend told me that I don't always have to see the bright side of everything. She was right of course and I gave myself permission to work on owning the not-so-great feelings. Which meant that for a lot of the fall and winter I wasn't exactly happy. Naturally, I didn't really feel like writing about recipes or house decorating or what not. Hence the sparse blog updating.

While I struggled with (and continue to struggle with) some life things like purpose, career, etc, the primary theme of 2013 centered around medical issues. I have been more than lucky in my life as it relates to my health so this past year was a huge deviation from my normal. Suffice it to say, I can confidently recommend a good number of specialists if you ever find yourself in Houston and in need of some sort of physician-specialist. But as of right now, things are pretty good, so no worries on that front.

That's a brief update. My plan is to actually blog more - I even have another post in the works. I'm also hoping to have some photos of the bathroom to share next week. We're in the process of finishing things like molding and other finishing stuff that honestly really sucks. Here's to hopefully completing this thing for good this weekend!!! :)  I cannot express to you how much I would like to walk through my bathroom and not see a hammer, a drill, various small construction items, a shop vac, etc littering the path and counter.

And because the post has a lot of words, here are some fun photos (to me at least).

The only decorating we did for the holidays and I might leave them up all year.

This is what happens when the husband is out of town.

Keeping me company while I was sick.

The didn't sit perfectly for long.

She wanted to join us up front during the drive to North Carolina.