where's ann richards when I need her?

Dear Lex,

I can’t, as they say, believe it is already February. Ugh. What with our week plus of the family flu, having my bank card number stolen even though I had the card in my possession (how they do that, I’ll never understand), having the waiter lose my credit card while we were at a restaurant celebrating Jeff’s birthday (Amanda and her new beau came for the weekend, and it was great fun!), daycare holidays, the baby spiking a fever, and, as my mother would say, other things too numerous to mention, suddenly our post office box is full of tax forms and January is over. And there with it went all of my good intentions to start off the New Year completely on top of my life—diet, meal planning, exercise, budget, correspondence, blogging, reading lists, writing exercises, etc. I mean, January is over, the apartment is a mess of piles to be done, and I still haven’t sent out our holiday cards. So I’m calling do-over and beginning the year anew again. Tomorrow.

In other random news and since we missed catching up with you at Christmas, the living room floor is covered in Thomas the Train sets. The baby is finally, finally taking a nap. I think I’ve lost my appetite for what had become my new favorite lunch—turkey wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla with avocado hummus spread, cucumber, and cheddar cheese. I still dislike Zumba, but I’m still going. Jeff hurt his knee running, but, thankfully, we found out this morning, he won’t need knee surgery. The weather here in January is completely unpredictable, one day it’s nearly 85 and the next it’s 35. Of course there’s no snow or ice with which to contend so this mostly means that I have to keep both summer and winter wardrobes in the kids’ dressers, which is a pain. As in, you try telling my three stubborn and contentious children they can’t wear shorts and sandals to school when it is only 40 degrees out. But mostly, we are okay. I’m glad clementines are back in season. I’m sickened by what the NRA is doing to this country, can barely stand to listen to the news. The kids are growing and growing. They’re rather relentless about it. I miss my mom a lot these days, can’t help but think about how sorry she’d be sorry to be missing each of the kids’ new phases. I’m glad, however, that when I dream about her now she is her vibrant old self, and still telling me what to do. I’m sorry we couldn’t see you while we were in Minneapolis and hope that you’ve fully recovered from that monster flu. I miss you. I never look at pear without thinking about you. I bought myself some oil paint sticks (have you used them before? I love them) for my birthday, but haven’t even taken them out of the packaging. Maybe this weekend. We’re planning to be out on Long Island again this summer. If you’re in Philly by then we will try and make arrangements to see you there. Had we been able to see you in December what I would probably would have said to you is that this fall was sort of blissfully boring for us—work, research, writing, teaching, the kids’ various activities, school, etc. all happily unpunctuated by any trauma. And that’s my wish for 2013, a blissfully boring life unpunctuated by any trauma. May your New Year be the same.

Lots of love,

xoxoA