Happy New Year!!!
I hope that your new year is off to a good start. We
had a fun New Year’s Eve, going out for dinner with my sister and
brother-in-law, and then coming back home for drinks and a midnight toast. Not
even twenty-four hours after that nice celebration, I came down with that
lovely flu that many are lamenting. Blood shot eyes, wheezing, sneezing, etc… Yay!
Woo Hoo! What a way to kick off 2015! (Rolls eyes) It wasn’t my first choice of
how to spend this weekend, but since I’m a writer, there’s always something
constructive I can do, right here at home. I decided to put my stay-at-home
time to good use and write a blog post.
One of the gifts I receive for Christmas each year
is a calendar. Depending on what’s going on with our life at the time, I’ve been
gifted a variety of themes: kittens, vacation destinations, our hometown of Milwaukee,
and my all-time favorite creature – penguins!
I gathered up our old calendar from last year so
that I could accurately transfer birthdays and anniversaries to our new year. I
also had a number of other ‘save the date’ types of notices that I accurately
wrote into our 2015 life.
And then it hit me…
Do you have any idea how large this calendar project
used to be? I remember when I’d sit down in early January with pages of
activities to add to our life. Sports (practice nights and game times for two
children), church commitments, band and choir concerts, marching band
competitions and parades, college move-in dates… the list would go on and on.
Sometimes, just sitting in my home on that early
January day, I’d see conflicts arise between activities, and feel that shot of
adrenaline surge through me. Surely we’ll
be able to work through this scheduling problem, right? RIGHT? Surely this
wedding date can be changed to accommodate the state marching band competition,
right? WRONG! Sometimes choices needed to be made. But there’s nothing like
worrying about June in January – and yet I definitely did.
But it was fun too! Our home was so alive then – a boy,
a girl, dogs and cats, school breaks, soccer, basketball, baton, confirmation
classes, trumpets, flutes, marching, friends… And somehow everything got done.
It all worked out. Despite the inevitable conflicts, everything worked out as
it should, because here we are! We came out the other side.
Todd and I are still busy folk. We’re no longer in
charge of coordinating all of those activities for our kids – obviously! They’re
on their own now with all of that. But we do stay busy with our own lives - work,
clubs and meetings, classes, and organizations.
As I sat at my dining room table today, I couldn’t
help but think back to those crazy good old days of soccer practices and candy
sales, our family attending both the Macy’s Parade in NYC and the Tournament of
Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.
In some ways it’s been a crazy life – one I wouldn’t
trade for anything.
But I do believe there was a time for some of that
insanity, and overall, I’m okay with where we are now. And who even knows what
lies ahead to fill up those calendar dates in our future??? It will be fun to
see what the future holds.
Here’s to a great year in 2015!
Katie
Kolberg Memmel is the author of “Five Fingers, Ten Toes – A Mother’s Story of
Raising a Child Born with a Limb Difference.” For more information, visit her
website at www.katiekolbergmemmel.com
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