2012

Usually, on the last day of every year, I blog about the resolutions I have no intention of keeping. This year, however, I got paid to do it ( I know! Soon they will be sorry they hired me, and I'll be back at home, eating bonbons like the good Lord intended), and I don't want to repeat myself for that one reader who reads both this blog and our embassy blog, so there will be no ridiculous resolutions this year on Pulling Stakes.

However, I don't want to ignore the passage of another year. Okay, I lied, I would love to ignore the passage of 2012, because it was an asshole.  I lost my mom and my children's first home (my uterus, get it?), and spent most of the year in pain of one kind or another. But! Whenever things didn't go my mom's way, she didn't mope around like I enjoy doing.  She would be happy and grateful for the tiniest, most insignificant thing she had going for her.  "Well, yes, my house caught on fire, but I was so lucky that it was a cold night and I could warm my toes by the embers!"  That was how my mom rolled.  And so, I am going to list a few of the things I was grateful for in 2012, and dedicate it to my badass mom, who I miss every day. Obviously, the good health and love of my family are number one, but these are just a few of the things that helped me get through the year:

1. Friends and family in the States, who dropped everything and were there to help us through the worst parts of the year.  Seeing your faces or hearing your words of love at such a low time in my life was a huge gift. My Dad even had the joy of listening to the details of my lady surgery from my gynocologist. 
2. Friends in Brasilia, who helped with dog sitting and childcare, shuttled me around when I couldn't drive yet, and made sure my nails didn't look like shit, even though I felt like shit.
3. My sisters.
4. Laughter. At one point, after several long, agonizing days at hospice with my mom, one of my sisters said, "OMG, look at your Google histories!"   We scrolled through our phones and peed our pants laughing. [Google 'pinocchio p*nis tattoo at your own risk]
5. Lindt chili dark chocolate bars.
6. My cleaner, who knows that Olivia only sleeps with one specific cotton sheet, but everyone else is pretty easygoing about their bedding, and who cleans out my hairbrushes and refrigerator twice a week. Even if she does ridicule my portuguese and arranges the couch pillows all wrong, I still love her.
7. Electric tennis rackets, so I can hear the sizzle of winged carcasses when I whack at the mosquitos.
8. Having a job I enjoy is pretty sweet, as is FINALLY getting to wear all the shoes I bought "in case I ever get a job".  Unfortunately, now my feet are covered in blisters, but IT'S WORTH IT. Don't tell Mitch about the blisters, though, mmkay? For some reason he thinks I buy too many shoes I don't need. Like that's even a thing.
9. Jack Daniels and Marcus James
10. And finally, the thing I'm most grateful for about 2012 is that it is OVER, yo. 

 

 

Wishing you and yours a very joyful 2013

from Brazil!

 

[photo credit]