New Year, New You.

Well, a new me anyway. I've been on vacation since the Friday before Christmas and one of the rules of my vacation was no computer. It was hard, but I managed. It helps that I have dial-up at home and it takes FOREVER to open any webpage. I missed a lot of good blog stuff. And played mad catch-up yesterday while I should have been catching up on a week and a half's worth of actual what-I-do-for-a-living work. But the blogging was much, much more interesting.

Christmas was different for me this year. For the first time in my life, I missed Christmas at my parents house. Mr. Sparky and I decided that it was just too much to shuffle from one family to the other and then drive two hours home in time for him to start his first shift Christmas night, so we had our own family Christmas. We went to church Christmas Eve and came home and watched movies, staying up late so he could get his internal clock set for working nights. We spent Christmas day not doing much of anything. In fact, I can't really remember what we did so it couldn't have been too exciting! We did not get gifts for each other this year and I thought I would be ok with that. Gifts are not what the season is about for us, it's about the birth of Christ. But for some reason, when there was nothing to unwrap Christmas Eve or the next morning, there was a twinge of sadness. I really wanted something to unwrap, Mr. Sparky usually gets me something little even when we say we aren't doing gifts. Even though we just spent $750 removing four tons of concrete from our back yard and that really broke Santa's spending account, I guess after 27 years of opening gifts on Christmas Eve I've been conditioned to want that. Hmm.

Mr. Sparky has been working nights since Christmas night and it really isn't that bad. He goes to work around 7:30 p.m. and gets home around 6:00 a.m. What's nice is that he can check on from our drive way since we live only 30 minutes from where his area is right now instead of having to leave at 7:00 to check in on time. So far he loves his new job! He has had several arrests and lots of great learning opportunities. The only downside is that it has been COLD here at night - somewhere between 11-20 degrees. I know that's not too cold to some of you, but man, doing traffic stops at 3:00 in the morning, wind blowing and it's only 11 degrees outside is cold. And I haven't been sleeping very well with him gone. I hear every noise the stupid house makes, and of course it's an intruder every time. Except that the dogs never seem to think so, and I'm more inclined to trust their instincts than my own. In fact, I've been up since 2:30 this morning. Did you know that Little House on the Prairie is really quite interesting at 3:00 a.m? Neither did I.

So I really have nothing of substance to write about today. Except that we sat down the other night and wrote out our goals for 2008. Neither of us really believe in New Year's Resolutions, we break them by my birthday (January 13, for those who are interested). We did make one gigantic stride - we picked a date to turn in our adoption application. We originally had decided that the first of the year, once he was out of the academy, would be the perfect time. But of course we barely have the $50.00 application fee saved let alone the $1500.00 we need for the home study and classes. So on June 30 (or July 31, I can't remember right now, I've been up for 8 hours already and it's only 9:30) we are turning in our application. The reason we chose that date was we are giving ourselves six cycles on Cl*mid and that will be the end of the last cycle. We really hope the Cl*mid works, but of course there must be a plan B. I guess though, that this would be plan C or D at this point. Funny how things don't work out the way you want them to.

I can feel my brain turning to mush and I still have 7 hours of actual work to get done, so hopefully I will post more this year, and be a little more cheerier. I'm starting to hate hanging out with myself so I can't imagine how I must sound to those who aren't able to hear the justifications going on in my head. Have a wonderful Wednesday. Wait, no, it's Thursday (so confused with the holidays and all).