Life & Little Things...Kicking off 2015

The holidays came and went and today we're back to our "normal" routines. Back to the grumbling and cursing at the alarm in the morning. Back to hoping for snowdays. Back to forgetting to stuff homework in backpacks. 

We had a great Christmas Vacation though. Lots of r & r. Getting spoiled and loved. Staying up waaaaay past our bedtimes to watch movies and play games. Lots of time spent with family and friends. 

I was loathing the idea of back to school. I thought I was going to have a horrible time trying to get the boys to bed early and back on track. They surprisingly fell asleep at a decent time. I surprisingly fell asleep at a decent time...until 2:30 am rolled around and the winds kicked in and the dog started spazzing out and anything not frozen to the ground outside my bedroom window started blowing around. I spent the better part of the night wanting to murder my dog (relax PETA, I'm only kidding...sort of) and hiding under my covers listening to sounds outside I was sure was some creep waiting to kill me in my sleep. 

sooooooooo...

Extra coffee today! 

crystals charging in the full moon

Waking up early on a cold, dark, winter morning and fumbling around getting backpacks ready and locating missing socks and fantasizing about crawling back into bed...until I pulled out of my driveway and was faced with a HUGE beautiful full moon... and all the complaints were forgotten.

We survived Christmas vacation. We didn't shoot our eye out. We laughed and played. We laid around with sniffles and a few blah days. We battled crowds for last minute gifts. We snuggled by the glowing lights of  only the Christmas tree. We ate lots of great food. And I can honestly say it was the most enjoyable holidays I have had in a LONG time. 

Perfection!

The youngest of the tribe finally got upgraded to a new big boy bed.

The workbench is full of works in progress and finished pieces waiting to get their picture snapped.

2014 was very good to me. A hard year, an emotional year  but a satisfying year. I need to learn to give myself more credit. Turns out, I'm stronger than I think I am. I may be a dreamer but many of these dreams have become a reality so I'll keep forging ahead, making things happen and remind myself to keep following my bliss.