Dave and I just rang in the New Year this year in tradition with a trip to Charleston with friends.  It’s nice to have tradition to look forward to each year.  To gather and be with people.  To celebrate the passing of a year and reflecting on it and ringing in the new year.  This year was a first for Dave and I.  We attended a gala and we danced in the new year.  We are not dancers and in almost 12 years of marriage we’ve never danced in a new year. I told him before we headed out for the night, “I know we are not really the dancing type of people but I hope you and I never leave the dance floor and we go have a blast.” And we did, we had so much fun. I hope we dance in many more years together.  The past four or five months we have been having family dance parties with the girls before bed.  I think that helped us feel like we could attempt to actually try and have fun and dance with our peers.  There really is something stress relieving about dancing especially when you get the black eyed peas playing and let it rip.

So Chapter Two.  It’s been a long time coming.  Riding home today I was looking through the latest Tweets and Erwin Mcmannus had for his tweet for the day…”Day 1 of New Year and the future is filled with new 
beginnings and new adventures. Some years you turn the page; this year a new chapter.” And that is all it took. He summed up exactly what my heart has been trying to articulate. I don’t really have any new years resolutions. I’ve had people ask what mine are and I just could not think of any. I think it’s because I’m at a point in life where I am not turning the page this year but I’m starting a new chapter.

Chapter Two – I’ve started many books but I’ve not finished many of them.  It’s because it takes a while to get into the story.  But if you stick with it long enough and get to Chapter Two you notice at times that the story grabs you and you start to not be able to put the book down.  I pray that for my life.  For the journey that Dave and I and our family are on.  That this Chapter that has started will be yet another amazing ride in this wonderful thing of life.  I have many personal dreams for our my life and things I would love to accomplish before my days are done.  I hope I  get to see those things happen.  I know there is a good chance that we won’t but regardless it’s still worth trying.  And it’s hard.  I wish life was easy and made perfect sense.  And most of the time it does not.  In fact I often find it messy, confusing, contradicting, and many things make no sense to me at all.  Oh but life, life was meant to be lived. 

Thanks for following my journey.  I can’t wait to see how Chapter Two is going to unfold.