As the year begins to slip through the door fastly closing and the light of the new one shining around the one waiting to open. I am not sure where to begin. I mean, you all have been with me over the past year. I am not sure what more I can say than what has already been said. But maybe I’ll try.

This time last year I was awash with worry, fear, and despair over the care of my family, of how I was going to help take care of them. This year, the New Year has almost snuck up on me. I don’t feel so much trepidation at its arrival. There are still things to worry about but so much more to be thankful for and celebrate in.

My husband found a new job, two of them actually, teaching in a new school but also as a preacher for a small country church. I’m so amazingly proud of him for bearing through a very difficult school year last year and then going through all the rigamarole of interviews in order to find a new job. I also am extremely proud of him, even more so because he has gotten back into ministry, to which he has felt a  leading for a long, long while. It is a great amount of work but I cannot express just how proud of him and proud to be with him I am. He is an amazing man with an even more amazing heart and I am proud to call him my husband, my lover, my mate, and my partner.

My baby girl has gone from a tiny, swaddled newborn to a stepping, babbling toddler with bundles of personality.  I am amazed by her every day. Amazed, overjoyed, stressed out, chest puffed out with pride, made a nervous wreck, a sobbing mess, and a woman with stitches in her side from laughing so much at this little girl’s antics. She can now show you that she is one year old (by holding up that little index finger), and we are working on teaching her to sign “tiger” so she can tell us when she would like to watch her favorite cartoon: “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood”.

It has been a whirlwind year of changes and growth. We have been blessed by friends and family beyond words and for that I am grateful beyond measure. Thank you for an amazing year and I look forward to another such one.