As nostalgic as I tend to be, these posts are generally kind of pointless for me, since my years don’t tend to be that exciting. But 2013 was kind of unusually packed full of somewhat life-altering events.

January

I turned 38.

George broke his ankle. At the time, this seemed like such a huge big deal, and it was, requiring surgery and stuff. George was off his foot for 6 weeks, and that was tough on all of us. But in retrospect, it went by pretty quickly and he’s all healed up now and back on his bike.

February

The boys got their new bunk beds!

March

I had my surgery. I am so, so pleased I decided to go through with it. Seriously, if affects me every day, and I’m just really happy about it.

April

Healed from surgery. Went to a friend’s memorial service.

May

Had my 20th high school reunion.

June

The boys played t-ball, and we swam a lot.

July

Flew to Virginia to surprise Kiki.  Spent some time with Emily and Andrew.

August

I decided, kind of on a whim, to apply for my dream job. I was encouraged by a friend who worked for the company already and thought I’d be a great fit. I am obviously forever in her debt.

September

Started my seven week trial of employment with Automattic. While working my regular full-time job at the Archdiocese, I was working hours every evening and weekend as a Trial Happiness Engineer.

We got our house painted! What an amazing improvement.

October

I got an offer to be a Happiness Engineer at Automattic. Spoiler: I said yes.

November

Had my last day at the Archdiocese. Sad to say goodbye to my colleagues and friends after nine years.

December

The boys turned 6!

Christmas, holidays, Kristina and Mike came to visit, fun!

While 2013 had some big highlights, there were also some terribly sad events. The death of a friend, another’s cancer diagnosis, and the tragic and sudden loss of a friend’s husband. All due to cancer.

So, what’s up for 2014?

Getting more settled with my job, including organizing my home office and getting used to working from home.

Traveling more for my job (going to San Francisco this month!)

Hopefully going to the beach again this summer with the boys and Kiki while George hibernates in a dark cave.

The boys will start 1st grade (what?) and turn 7 at the end of the year.

I will try to enjoy the last year of my thirties. Gulp.

I am going to attempt a fourth 365 project after skipping 2013. I kind of missed it!

Okay, look, you know how I am. I get very nostalgic, but at least I only started it today, not weeks ago.

To be honest, the memories of “six years ago today” are getting a little fuzzy. (Good thing I have a blog. Ha!) I do remember being…itchy. Exhausted. Swollen. Uncomfortable (to put it mildly.) But ecstatic that I only had, you know, 24 hours left. And end in sight. In retrospect, I wish they hadn’t had an opening in the OR on December 4. I wish they’d forced me to wait a few more days, even a week. I just needed a goal. Anyway, I’m rambling. The boys were healthy and even though they were born nearly 7 weeks early, I hardly considered them preemies.

No one wants to see pictures from that day, they’re really not pretty. I mean, look. I took no pictures that day, and in fact the only picture I took in the days before the delivery was this comically bad selfie in the hospital bathroom.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the point of this post is. Today is the last day of my little boys being 5. I thought 5 seemed old, but 6 is like…really old. I’m pretty sure I feel like that every year, but for real this time. Six. Six. SIX. Oops. Shouldn’t say it like that.

…this time, you can pin this one to your “Beauty” board.

I call it the “run to Ulta on your lunchbreak to return the pink and blue sparkly nail polish that your 5 year old son picked out, but that you wouldn’t even wear on your toes in the winter” manicure.

Here’s how you do it.

Step 1. Go to Ulta, buy a sparkly pink and blue nail polish because Miles likes it.
Step 2. Get home, realize it’s hideous and you’ll never, ever wear it.
Step 3. Wait a few weeks, then run into Ulta on your lunch break when you’re in the area for something else.
Step 4. Try on the navy polish you were lusting after, but then realize there are so many other colors, so start working your way from thumb to pinky.
Step 5. When you run out of fingers, start at thumb again.
Step 6. Pick a damn color already.
Step 7. Wander around store for a few minutes before going to the cash register, so you don’t ruin your new manicure!

And that’s really it! If you really want to be like me, leave the nail polish on for a few days, possibly weeks. And then remember that you’re 38 years old, dammit, not 7, and you should really have more mature looking fingernails.

Pin it!

PS I picked the one on my thumb. I’m not sure I made the right decision, so I will probably end up repeating steps 4-7 a few times.

Halloween is over, but the boys are still obsessed with costumes. Miles has told me approximately 3,654,339 times since Thursday what he’s going to be next year. (Red Samurai Power Ranger WITH the red disk but not the black disk and the helmet, not the mask, and don’t forget the boots and the gloves. And the sword. And the Samuraizer.) (And yeah, right, kid.)

We went to Target and I got them some $5 costumes in the post-Halloween sale, but that did not quench their costume search. Linus, in particular, became fixated on making a costume. A pumpkin costume, to be specific. Just to wear around, maybe to Mardi Gras, he said. So I said we’d work on that over the weekend. I found some $5 orange pillowcases at Walmart, so I got those (no chance anyone will ever be able to sleep with them on their pillow, they’re seriously orange safety cone colored.) But when I got home, plans had changed, and the pumpkin was discarded in favor of a new Power Ranger he invented. Love their imagination, but beware if you ever stay over at our house. Orange pillowcases.

We took a trip to Michael’s, where I got some plain t-shirts, fabric paint, and foam sheets. We got a good start on the costumes, but there is SO MUCH MORE. Swords, sword-holders, black square shoulder thingies, pants, robotic arms, etc. But I am pretty proud of our creations…

(couldn’t find Linus’s picture to take a pic)
translates into:

So, yeah, man, I totally expect this awesome DIY costume post will be posted all around Pinterest and re-pinned a jillion times. Right? Look, here’s a pinnable graphic. You are WELCOME!