Fast Forward to 2014

Welcoming 2014 with a kiss from my Mr.

Guys, I'm still writing checks for 2013.  The other day I actually dated something for 2008.  I'm going to sound a little long-in-tooth, but seriously, where did the time go?  Can it really be 2014, and can I really be in my thirties?  Sheesh.

It's all true of course, and I know it, but I don't feel it.  I swear 1999 was just yesterday, and any thoughts of being married with a family were just a dream.  I feel like it was yesterday I locked myself in my room, listened to Mazzy Star, and wrote poetry in all my teenage angst.   Now I'm closer to having a teenager than being one.  Yeah, in six years, I'll have a teen on my hands.  2020, please don't come too soon.  I'm already having enough troubles wrapping my head around 2014.

2014.  Can it be so?  

Yes, it is so.  I know my sentimental self makes it a bigger deal than it should be.  I know time ticks on, seasons pass, and I age with them, but my 1999 self didn't think time would tick so fast.  I spent a lot of time daydreaming about RIGHT NOW back then.  I have everything I dreamed up; an adorable husband, happy home, beautiful spunky kids, and a pug to wrap it all up nicely.  I don't take anything for granted.  2014 found us in a happy place.  I just feel a bit bewildered that it's here already.  I feel like someone hit fast-forward on my life, and I'm trying desperately to find the rewind button that doesn't exist.  I would even settle for a pause button, but I think we're only allotted a few pauses a year -- moments that seem to stop, so we can take it all in, and sketch a memory inside us that will never fade.  So, in 2014 I'll search for my moments to pause, and spend the rest of my time trying to find my bearings in this swift-moving world.  A world where my babies grow into independent children in a blink of an eye.  It's a happy world, it just moves by a little too rapidly for my nostalgic heart, but it IS happy.

Very happy indeed.

Hunter and me on our first date of 2014

My little stud-muffin, ringing in the New Year with me.

My January birthday girl -- turning another year older with the world.  This was her class party.