How did it get to the end of the year?!

I had a post called "nearly Christmas" that I've now binned because I'd not had time to sit and just put down everything I wanted in a coherrent manner and now it's New Year's Eve Eve!  My life seems to fly by faster as I get older and, frankly, I don't like it!  I didn't really ever feel old enough to turn 30 and I'm now nearer 40 than 30, and I really, really don't feel old enough to be there.

On more pleasant note, Christmas was lovely, really, really lovely.  My very nice man and I had been to see my parents the weekend before - always stressful, my sister more than my parents, she operates on the reverse Gallileo principle (of the opinion that the world revolves around her).  I finished work on 22 December and then, after battling with Tesco's, we shut ourselves away for a few days.  We cuddled on the sofa, we watched tv, listened to music, sung carols around the piano and had a blissfully quiet time.  The year flying by has certainly taken its toll in the last few months and there were early nights and long sleeps which helped both of us.

This didn't all last very long as he then had his kids for Christmas Mark II from 27-29 December.  I was invited to "Christmas Day", quite a big deal as I've not been along before, and indeed hadn't even met one of his daughters.  In my humble opinion (which isn't expressed very often, unless I've had a few vinos), he takes a LOT from his ex and this results in many things that don't make his life easy, including never having his kids at Christmas but now always having responsibility at New Year so we can't go out!  The day was nice, dinner for 9 is always challenging (3 kids, 1 cousin, 1 boyfriend and 2 grandparents as well as the two of us) but we all managed to bumble along together.

And now it's the weird in between time.  I took the whole period off work - I wanted a break from the miserable-ness of the public sector, with constant difficulty about spending money and even keeping our jobs.  I need to make a good list of resolutions to sort out a few things in my life - from the mess that is the spare room, to changing my bank account (my bank and I have fallen out over the last year), through to sorting out work, what I want to do and how I can be happier with it.  Well, it's nice to have ideas like that!  Let's go get the pad of paper out.