2013 in Review

2013.  Some people say Twenty-Thirteen; others say Two-Thousand-Thirteen.  However you say it, though, it's nearly over.  It has been a year of… I guess I could almost say stagnation.  I had the best of intentions with regards to writing a novel and/or working through my list of 100 classics and must-read books and/or learning German, but those ideas all seemed to get shoved to the side somehow or other.  I planted a few things in the garden, but nothing really grew very well.  I have educated the kids, but there has been little passion on either side. We didn't take any family vacations.  I took my one-woman road trip in early November, but that was the extent of travel this year.  The kids are more or less burned out on local museums, so I think we only visited the zoo three or four times and the aquarium once, and other museums not at all.  I took a photography class.  We bought a new-to-us car.  We put in a fire pit.  I painted the school room and the kids' bathroom.  Those were the biggies.

Like I said, stagnation.

Still, even with stagnation, it can be nice to look back.  Something I've done throughout the year is step out the back door (nearly) each morning and take a snapshot of the back yard.  I've put all the photos - all 258 of them - into a slideshow.  It's amazing how quickly time can slip by.  This is a year, compressed into a little more than six minutes.  It doesn't seem like much has happened, but that's my fault.  Things have happened around me this year; I haven't made anything happen at all.  I think 2014 will be very different, a trip to Australia and kids going to public school notwithstanding.  And that's a good thing.  It's time to step back and take charge of my life.

Happy New Year, everyone!