So, guess what one of my resolutions was?

I seriously would like to kick 2012 in the nuts.  Man, do I love writing, and I missed it so, but for a long time there, there was just not ONE POSITIVE THING going on in my life. I mean: my marriage is good. Paleo eating could have been better- also a heck of a lot worse, but it's always a positive. But man oh man, that feeling: it was kind of like starring in my own personal Hunger Games/Truman show. "How much can one woman take? Tune in next week for the plague of locusts!

And I am glad I am through it. My husband got out of a horrible business situation, we moved, a lot of loose ends got tied up, a lot of decisions got made. The end result is that things are better, and we are moving forward.

The bad news is that there was an extended period of time where both SG and I were in what we call "survival mode". It took everything we had just to get up and face our hellish, every day reality. Time spend with each other was on auto pilot- there was a lot of mindless time on the TV. If we were computers, as soon as we got done with whatever tasks we had, we would have basically been on screensaver mode.  

I decided that 2013 would be my "lucky 13"- a year of change and the fruition of goals we have been working on for years now. A lot of pain and sacrifice has gone into getting here. Considering that the last day of 2012 involved two big poop sandwiches: one was a health scare with someone dear to me (everyone is OK, it was just terrifying at the time!) and then the news that the renters had moved out of our house early.

Initially, we were thrilled, and then we saw it. I wasn't really a fan of the place, but we put a lot of TLC and love into it- landscaping, stripping wallpaper, painting.  We knew we would need to replace the cheap carpets and paint before we moved back into it. The property management company had given us some forewarning, but still: it was FILTHY. It smells like mildew and grease in there, and there's splatters all over the kitchen, and kid scribblings on every flat surface everywhere else. Our feet stuck to the kitchen floor, and tiles are missing in spots. The cabinets are warped, drawers are broken. Water damage in both bathrooms. I tried to open the fireplace surround, it was filled with cobwebs, and the door came off in my hand. The stove and range we paid top dollar to replace a year ago has all the enamel scraped off the top of it, around the burners. The dishwasher has a vertical crack in the door.  It is, to put it bluntly, a mess.

So we are making lemons out of lemonade: fixing what can be fixed, replacing what can't be, and moving forward.