The first 30 days of 2011.

I've been gone along time. Thanks for being patient with me. I know that blogs usually focus on the good stuff, and life has been good, but it's been a hard 30 days of the new year! So, here's my real-life disclosure of what's happened in the past 30 days. I hope to expand on some of these issues more over the next week.

1. We rung in the New Year with our dear, dear friends! It was heart warming to see them, hang out with them, stay up late chit-chatting! The kids LOVED being together as much as we did!

2. We said goodbye to these same people as they boarded the plane to head back home. Our old home. It was hard and made me homesick and lonesome. I don't like that the majority of my dearest friends don't live next door to me...some as far away as France.

3. There was a medical emergency at my daughter's school. I was the parent who was right there and acted. I'm proud to say I wouldn't handle anything differently - I was calm, asked the right questions, got help, etc. However, it was so nerve rattling to hold someone else's child when they stopped breathing - even just for an instant.

4. I got a stomach bug which wiped me out. My whole body went out of balance, and my hormones went basserk. I have a history of problems with my hormones. Thankfully, I had seen a documentary which gave me some new ideas to fix the problem. I'm happy to report they worked!

5. We bought a car! We returned a car. The dealership didn't have to accept the return, but they did! Thankfully, they hadn't gotten rid of our old cars yet. I'd never been so excited to drive my 1998 Ford! We got all our money back!

6. We introduced a new food to my daughter. It was bad. She had a huge allergic reaction, which you can imagine was immensely stressful. I'll share more about this later, too, but it's been a hard road back to recovery.

7. We bought a car! No this isn't a typo. We found a car for my husband and bought it! So far, he really likes it! There's lots of things to share about this purchase experience....you'll learn about some of my anal-retentive tendencies when I share the details!

8. We found out we have to move houses again. Yes. Again.

9. I'm on my second set of new glasses frames and third set of new lenses trying to find good vision. Currently, I still can't see well. I ordered my new glasses October 29th-ish.

So far, 2011 has been a rough one, but I'm happy to say, we're still ticking over here! And...I've got lots of topics to write about!