Mistress Of Mayhem: A Year Of Mayhem

As I was pulling together the photo books this year, I realized something important.

Although its been a tough year with some definite trials, we have had a lot of fun.

This year, we sold a house, bought a house, lived with my parents for 6 months, and moved twice. John's job took him on the road full time when Bennett was a month old, he was promoted twice, and now he is taking a new job. After 4 months of only sleeping in 1 hour naps and screaming the rest of the time, B was FINALLY diagnosed with acid reflux and put on medication, at which point I started to become human again. We made the heartbreaking decision to find our rescue dog, Dodge, a new home when his MRSA resurfaced and we couldn't keep him around the babies. This came after a year of extensive treatment trying to get him healthy, and was much harder than either of us expected. John went to the Emergency Room and then later had his gall bladder removed. After a long time with failing health, my grandpa died. I was hit by a driver while walking and have had constant pain since. And we had the extra added fun of being the victims of identity and IRS fraud. Any idea how difficult it is to get a home loan approved while your records are all frozen from identity theft? Let's just say, it took several years off of John's life.

In short, this year has been a doozy.

Oh yeah, and I started this little blog to process my thoughts and get through some of the mayhem ;-)

Yep, it's been an exhausting, heartbreaking, exasperating, whirlwind of a year and I cannot count the number of times I thought I didn't have the energy for any more turbulence, only to hit another bump.

But in looking through the pictures, I realized something else.

It has been a year filled with laughter and love and happiness. There has been a *bit* of naughty mayhem, true, but for the most part, it's been the fun kind that made us (and you) laugh and shake our heads.

We have been lucky enough to be surrounded by loving and supportive friends and family who have helped us through many of the snags.

I honestly do not know what I would have done without them this year, venting to my girlfriends was sometimes the only thing that stood between me and the great black abyss of insanity.

I won't lie, I'm kind of glad to see this tumultuous, tempestuous year come to a close, but I'm also incredibly excited to see what the next year has in store for us.

Hope your new year is as wonderful as I know ours will be, thank you so much for laughing along with me this year, passing my links on to friends and family, and giving me an outlet to find the humor when I needed it most.

It's been a wonderful year :-)