January

So I feel like I am finally getting over the play. October was the play, November Thomas wrote a novel, December was Christmas, January was being sick and catching up, and now it is almost February. I feel old because I keep saying, "Where does the time go?"

Now we are halfway through the year, coming up on the 100th day, beginning speech meet things and the cold of winter has come. Days are far from monotonous, but there are times when I wish I could just stop long enough to enjoy the moment I have. But it seems whenever I do that, I end up getting behind on everything else.

I also realized that Carrie Joy may not have any new hobbies. I have music, dress designing, and sewing. I also have photography, stationary, and water colors. I also write and play my flute. However, I don't have the time to really pursue any of them. Whenever I start working on something, I get behind on my housework or schoolwork or church work. Right now, I have a large stack of correcting and grading, piles of laundry, and two baby showers to plan.

One of the nice parts of my life is that Thomas reads to me every night when I do the dishes. This keeps me caught up on dishes and we get to read together. He is such a wonderful guy. And I really do have a happy life. It is just when I think about all the stuff I have to do that I get a little overwhelmed and sometimes a little bummed.

Saturday we visited my extended family on my mother's side. It was so good to see my cousins. I really have a wonderful family. I had fun talking about school and basketball and photography and books and Paraguay with them. We actually had more time to just talk this time than we did at Thanksgiving. I think it was partly because we didn't have to do all that catching up from all year long. Now we have to plan every other monthly get-togethers so we can keep in touch. We are all rather bad at emailing and "facebooking" each other, though we all can. Maybe we will get better now. I love my family.

We haven't taken down our Christmas tree yet. It is shedding a little and is very dry, but it still is so pretty and makes our living room look so much happier. I decorated my office and the attic a little over last weekend. It makes the house look more like a home. I still have a lot of clutter about, but that is because I have grand intentions of filing things, but have got a filing cabinet, and probably wouldn't use it very well even if I did. All the same, I am trying to get more organized and I finally put away all my play stuff from this year.

Now I just have to clean off my desk...