Back to Normal?

I want to say things are getting back to normal after the insanity that was 2012, except I'm not sure that would be entirely accurate. We are still adjusting to many of the changes from 2012, and some things won't ever really be the same. In that vein, it isn't possible to get "back" to the way things were. Things are going to be different. Still, I can say that things are stabilizing to some extent.

We moved into a new house in 2012. We still aren't 100% settled, but the garage is probably 75% cleaned out (meaning we can actually use it for a car instead of just an attached storage unit). I won't go into the state of my craft room. It's not nearly as clean as it was when I blogged about it last year. XD I need to get up there and sort through the post-AWA-Halloween-AUSA mess so that it can be usable again--I'm hoping this will happen in the next week or so because I really hate working from the kitchen table, but I'm sure I've already said that somewhere around here before (probably several times before).

We added kid #4 to our family in 2012. She has been an amazing addition, but she has also been a very needy one. She is settling into a routine, so I'm starting to get consistent windows of free time. This is good because there were days in 2012 where I wondered if I really was going crazy and might just be the next big news story (Mom goes nuts and blows up house or something like that--I'd like to imagine that if I went crazy it'd involve something like a dragon slave along the lines of Lina Inverse from Slayers). I'll be the first to say I've had mixed feelings about having #4. She was not planned, but I'd like to highlight the "she" pronoun. She is my only girl; our family has been all boy all the time. The only chances I thought I had of balancing out some of that testosterone was by adding a couple of girl cats. We were so convinced that Sophie was going to be another boy that we didn't have a girl middle name picked out when she was born--we don't find out what gender beforehand--and we only had the first name because it was something we'd talked about before (like if we ever did have a girl we'd like to name her Sophie because it was a name my husband and I both liked kind of thing).

On the subject of kids, we also picked a different curriculum set to use for the 2012-2013 school year with the kids (I homeschool for those who don't already know this--maybe I should put up a blog post about this sometime since it make up a large part of my life right now even if it isn't directly related to my art). Anyways, that curriculum was not working for us. This leads to a 2013 change (yes, we've already managed to work a major change into the first week of 2013). I think one of the benefits of homeschooling is that if something is not working, I am free to change it. We are starting a new curriculum (yesterday was our first day back to school from the holidays), and so far, so good. It's still an adjustment because this meant throwing everything I had prepared out the door (but I am glad that it is working better so far--kind of hard to judge after just one day).

Back on the subject of the new move, this meant finding a new scout pack for the boys. We also joined a new Homeschool Coop group, and signed the boys up for some coop classes with the idea they might get exposed to some subjects I was disinclined to teach. That plus the new house plus the new baby plus a lot of other things (like my husband having to teach a night class the same night as scouts) ended up being a bit more than I could handle. For 2013 we have dropped the coop classes--they were fun, but they weren't anything exceptional, so no more of that. We're keeping with scouts because they pack they're in now does some really awesome things, so I think the boys are getting more out of it (plus they have a group for girls so Sophie can join in with all the same activities the boys are doing when she gets a little older). It also helps that my husband will not have a night class conflicting with scouts this semester.

Finally, one thing that is 100% improved from 2012 is my health. My husband and I both caught bronchitis and spent the last month of 2012 obscenely sick and in survival mode. It would have been nice for life to have taken a break so we could have taken some time to actually get better instead of dragging it out so much. Yeah...it never happens that way. However, I am happy to say I am better now, just in time for 2013 (maybe this is a sign of more good things to come or at least a better year?).

TLDR? The jist of this post is that I'm really working hard to get to a place where I can post on my blog regularly, where I can get consistent time to draw, and where I can follow up on all the fun projects and ideas (many of which I've mentioned here, but not all--I've still got a few surprises up my sleeve). It's getting there. Things may still be a little hit or miss as we go through 2013. No matter what though, I'm still going to be here, and I'm going to keep working on my art and craft projects. Here's to an awesome 2013.