O' Eleven

It is now officially 2011 and only one year, 354 days, 0 hours and 26 minutes until the Mayan calendar comes to an end.  Okay, that doesn't really mean anything to me, but it's still an interesting little countdown...sort of like when we were all holding our breath for Y2K, waiting for worldwide power outages and all hell to break loose.

Our New Year's Eve was incredibly nice, considering the last minute changes that were made to our normal holiday routine.  For a variety of reasons (about two-thirds of them caused by me), Shan and Jer cancelled their annual get-together.  Instead, they came to our house, along with Sarah, Matt, and Alana.  I talked the girls into trying out Just Dance, and after that all the adults played Wii Pictionary.  We played two games; the second game being particularly fun because it required you to do all of these crazy things, such as drawing with your eyes closed, drawing with your non-dominate hand, or drawing as the board rotates.  Some of the drawings had us laughing hysterically.  The ones that stand out in my mind the most are Shannon's depiction of He-Man, which looked like some kind of deformed body-builder who didn't even have a sword, and Alana's drawing of a trampoline, which looked like an enormous black hole or a rising black moon.  Matt and Jeremy kept making me laugh too--Matt, because he started off so inordinately bad at the game, and Jeremy, because I'm pretty sure toward the end of the game he was peeking at the clues.  He was on my team too, but we still lost.
  
After Pictionary, it was time for the countdown.  I gave all of the kids pots and pans, and once the final countdown began, we all ran outside.  We shouted "10!...9!...8!....", and of course, once we reached "1", the kids made a huge racket.  While all the clanking was going on, my mind drifted nostalgically to a time exactly one year before, when I was surrounded by excitement and clanking, but there were tall pine trees looming over me, and my breath was coming out in icy puffs, and there was a beautiful non-blue moon.  Time is going by so fast; sometimes it feels like it's all starting to merge together into one nebulous blur.

Matt and Alana left shortly after the countdown to get their boys to bed, and Sarah left about a half hour after that.  It was our first time entering the new year with Matt and Alana, and I was really glad to be able to spend that time with them.  I did feel prickles of concern for Sarah throughout the night, because she seemed a little glum.  I think it may have been hard for her to see everyone there with their respective spouses.  I think the holidays highlight her feelings of loneliness, and I wish there was something I could do to make her realize that she doesn't need a "significant other" to be cared about and loved. 

Shan, Jeremy, and the kids decided to spend the night, so similar to last year, we decided to watch a movie.  We watched "Spies Like Us" on Netflix, which was pretty cute, although we were all starting to fall asleep toward the end.  At about 3:00 a.m., we all went to bed.  Trinity and Cass slept in Trin's room, Jeremy collapsed on the twin sized bed in the office, Elijah, Dylan, and Samantha slept in Elijah's room, and Shannon and Shelby slept on the couch.  Overall there were ten bodies sleeping in our house, but for some reason it didn't feel crowded.  Maybe because most of the kids conveniently stuffed themselves into the kids' rooms.

Clint and I slept in until almost 11:00 this morning, not waking up until Trin came into our room and announced it was time to make breakfast.  Clint made everyone eggs and tater tots, and Trin made Shan and me some hot tea.  We all hung out and chatted for the rest of the morning and afternoon.  At about 3:00, we all decided to go out to La Casita for lunch--a very late lunch.  Amazingly, despite the fact that we had six kids in tow, our lunch was awesome.  We were able to talk uninterrupted, and we were all feeling very lazy and reluctant to leave.

It was a great New Year, but I still have this lingering feeling of...I don't know, loss, I suppose.  I can't even muster up any New Year's resolutions.  I feel like I have too many recent regrets to overcome before I can focus on creating new goals.  I will say that tonight, regardless of my past actions and the friendships I have compromised, I do recognize how incredibly blessed I am.  I just hope this little sense of mourning will go away soon.