The year 2011 definitely had its ups and downs, but overall it was a good year. To reminisce, here is the first paragraph of my favorite post from each month.
January, from I’m Back, Sort Of
My blog completely fell apart last year. I had so many things to say about my amazing son and the baby girl who was about to join our family that I felt overwhelmed by the task. I also had a lot to do: work to finish up before maternity leave and a guest bedroom to prepare for my parents. So December passed with nothing more than the Weekly Poirot. In January, even that ceased, and on the 12th, everything else in my universe came to a screeching halt, because the baby, my beautiful Livia, arrived on the winds of a snowy winter storm.
This was only non-Poirot post for January!
February, from One Stormy Night
It was a dark and stormy night….
Livia’s birth was the landmark moment for the year. This post tells the story of her arrival.
March, from A Buffet of Books
Dear Marshall, When you were very young, we kept all of your books on a shelf in your room. We wanted them to be close at hand for spontaneous reading. After you learned to stand, you were able to reach them yourself and, as we had hoped, you started bringing the books to us to be read.
March was a decent month for the blog, so there were many posts from which to choose. I chose this one because it is one of my favorite Dear Marshall posts. There is nothing I enjoy more than reading to my children!
April, from Deathbed Confessions
It was a cold, winter night one Christmastime when I got the call. My grandfather was in the hospital and the doctors did not think he would make it through the night. I met up with my parents, and we all took the long drive north. It was near midnight when we arrived at the hospital.
I had been waiting a long time for my Muse to bring me a story about that night, so it was a great relief to finally get this post out, and that’s why it’s still a favorite.
May, from SITY: Memories of Violets
I recently wrote about ticks and how much they were ticking me off. If you read my comment on the post, you’ll see that just a quick walk in the yard garnered me another tick crawling on my leg. Yuck! I haven’t been out in the yard since, sad though that is.
It really was sad how the ticks kept us indoors for so much of the summer, and I really hope 2012 is a less ticky year. The reason I picked this post as my favorite, though, is because it has pictures of violets. I love taking and posting pictures of the beautiful things I see outside!
June, from My Moment
In Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, Amy said, PURPLE FLOWER…
This is just a post about me being silly. Gotta have one of those every once in a while.
July, from Sugar High
Dear Marshall, At your birthday party, you ate cake. You’re not used to so much sugar, and later you were acting crazy. You even kicked your sister a couple of times and we said, “He usually doesn’t act like that!” Your grandfather said, under his breath, “In sucrose veritas.” I turned to him and said, “Hey, I speak pseudo-Latin and I know what that means!” He just laughed. For the record, it means, “In sugar there is truth.” Or, to put it another way, “Sugar makes you act the way you really feel.”
Ah, the complicated relationships of siblings…
August, from Thanks
I was working in my office yesterday when my husband brought Marshall in to play for a while. I was concentrating on my work and so I didn’t pay much attention to what either of them was doing. Occasionally Marshall would grab a candle or a picture or something else that he wasn’t supposed to have. Eventually this wore down his dad’s patience, so they left. As my husband carried the boy out of the room, he said, “Sorry about the mess.”
This post is a nice little snapshot of a typical day.
September, from Wise-Bits
Trying to read (but unable to stomach) a book called Ella Mental and the Good Sense Guide convinced me that I ought to pay more attention to my own bits of hard-won wisdom. Here are three wise-bits that I learned through my own experience.
I really do hope that I’m getting wiser as I get older.
October, from Tiny Gardens
I went for a walk in our woods yesterday. The clouds swept across the hill just before I left, darkening the sky and threatening rain. The woods were dim and damp. Mushrooms abounded. A white fungus or mold blotched the trail in spots. Branches and twigs littered the path, suggesting that no one had been walking these woods since before Irene.
Here is another post with (I think) interesting pictures of the outside world. The cold weather should be keeping the ticks inactive right now, so soon I’ll be walking up in the woods again. I can’t wait to see how the tiny garden looks now!
November, from Good-Bye, October
It was a strange October. I’m not sure I will miss it. I’m going to say why, and then “Good-bye!”
Yeah, October was a bad month, but worth remembering as a learning experience.
December, from Quick Like Lightning
Dear Livia, You’re our second child, so a lot of your stuff is second-hand. Even some of your songs are. For example, I borrowed “Who’s the Cutest Baby?” from Marshall and changed it to “Who’s the Sweetest Baby?” for you.
Last but not least, a Dear Livia post. She is a beauty. So much of our attention was devoted to her this year, so it seems fitting that the last favorite post of the year be about her.
To Marshall, Livia, and Faithful Reader: thanks for making my 2011 a memorable one. I love you all so much and I’m looking forward to spending another year with you!
To the World: wishing everyone a happy, peaceful, successful 2012!