Saying Good-bye to 2013

~erica

 

Ocean Shores December 2013

I was so ready for winter break to start this year. Fall quarter was long and very difficult for me, it wasn't the workload but I think it was the depth of thought being required to process all the information and to fit it into the information I had from last year. Border-thinking, coloniality, modernity, and how they fit into a white, Christian, U.S. citizen worldview. I'm looking forward to a tough academic program of linguistics that will allow me to take a breath from evaluating my place in the world at every turn.

I had a list of things I wanted to accomplish but to be honest I was pretty sure that just getting to sleep in a few mornings and do nothing was about all I was capable of accomplishing. The night before my evaluation conference with my professor we spent a couple of hours in the ER with Arin getting a possible concussion checked out (no, just a bang and a bruise but he lost 5 days of wrestling). So thinking that I didn't really do anything the last 3 weeks I made a list....

• spent an evening with Ryan playing Santa for a friend's preschool
• went to our last elementary Christmas concert/ program
• spent an afternoon a the endodontist following up on Tovah's tooth issue
• attended the Middle School Wrestling banquet with Jonah (he will be wrestling in high school!)
• finished up 5th grade basketball with games on 2 Saturdays
• took Tovah to see the Nutcracker
• went on a date with Ryan in the evening (we go out to lunch all the time so I'm not sure why we say we never have time to "date")
• went to the beach for 2 days
• finished the One Ring scarf I've been knitting for 5 months
• knit boot cuffs for a friend's birthday (it was back in November)
• went to lunch 2 different days with 2 friends that I just haven't gotten to see since September (one was in Peru for 10 weeks so that's why, the other one our schedules just haven't meshed)
• read several books just for fun
• started a book on invented languages that I've wanted to read for some time, I hope to finish it this weekend
• dealt with pink eye and other assorted colds
• hung two maps that have been framed for months
• hosted our annual Not a Christmas Party
• restarted a sock that has been stalled since August
• started motorcycle gaiters for my dad

Wow! that's a lot of stuff for 3 weeks that felt like I didn't accomplish anything. Ryan worked on Christmas so it was quiet after we opened presents. The kids played their new games and I knit, read, and napped. He took them to see The Hobbit and Frozen at some point during the last few weeks. We watched Elf and Muppet Treasure Island as a family.

Tomorrow I'm going to Ocean Shores to watch Arin wrestle with my mom and Sharlene. Sunday Tovah has pitching and Awana (but no team practice), Monday school starts back up for the kids and Isaac has Chess Club, then Tuesday I start back to school. The schedule seems easier because only 2 kids have sports and Tovah's only playing one sport this season instead of the 2 or 3 she played in the fall.

I haven't made any real goals for the year except do what it takes to graduate either in June or August (if I need to pick up some math credits and Bible knowledge for Multnomah). I'd like to start running again and do a couple of 5k's with a friend. Arin turns 18 in May so we need to finish his Eagle requirements. We also need to hold Rush's Eagle Ceremony. Those seem like about all I can handle right now. If I was to choose a word for the year I think it would be Purposeful.