2017, yo!

Happy New Year! 2017 was great on a personal, inner circle level.  The rundown:

1. Our first year of marriage was...I don't know what word I want, but I have a HUGE smile on my face. Things were the same for the most part, although I do love saying "husband".  There's definitely a new bond between us. Maybe it's the...

OMG. So while I'm smiling and happily thinking of MD, he wakes up and I want to kill him. We've had a fly problem the past two months and couldn't figure out where they were coming from. This morning I realized the super installed a new ceiling light in our bathroom right around the same time. I used the fly swatter to feel around it and found a gap. I'm 100% sure that's where they are coming from. MD was like, "No, I don't think so." and walked away. YES YOU SHOULD THINK SO. Then he changed his mind and agreed with me, so we're fine and I love him again. This is the perfect glimpse into our marriage.  I love him and I want to strangle him.

2. My parents moved back to Brooklyn in 2015 (not sure if I wrote about it since then). I am really enjoying this new chapter in our relationship! I see them at least once a month, usually meeting in the city for dinner or a fun activity. For Christmas I bought them tickets to their first basketball and hockey games. They never really went out in Jackson, so I'm excited they are broadening their horizons and interests.

3. My absolute favorite moment of 2017 was St. Patty's Day with my dad. Last summer his best friend Philly passed away. He got sick pretty quickly and died in July. His funeral was on my dad's birthday. It was so upsetting. I think they were 13 when they met. They were both so excited to see each other more often once my parents moved back to NY.

The only day they did see each other for the past 30 years was St. Patty's Day. My heart broke thinking how upset my dad would be his first year without Philly. I thought we should do something really special for him, so we secretly planned to fly Rippie out and surprise him.

We killed it!! My parents were already at Smith's. I walked in and Rippie waited outside for about 10 minutes. My dad had his back to the door, so Rip walked in behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. I will never forget the way my dad looked at him, turned away, and looked back again and screamed. We all cried. It was perfect and we all had such a great day together.

4. Another great moment - Rippie and Veev just got engaged! I was in Pittsburgh when they called and I sobbed with happiness at a Panera Bread. Honestly the tears really surprised me. This was a deep soul cry. I was overcome with joy and now that I'm thinking about it, pride. I'm so proud of Rippie for opening himself up to love, nurturing that love, and now uniting with his love.

I am a fucking sap in my old age.

5. Travels! As I wrote in my last drunken post, I travelled a lot for work this year. It's exhausting and stressful (more on this later), but it is also cool as hell. Another favorite moment of the year is meeting MD in London. It was ridiculously expensive for him to take the same flight as me, so he flew in the night before. It was so fun to get to the hotel and have him there waiting for me. We're fancy!

6. Food! So much good food! For our anniversary we splurged and went to DelFrisco's. It was an amazingly expensive and delicious meal.

7. Entertainment! I read 96 books this year.  No one thinks graphic novels should count though, so as far as prose books go I read 45. That's a lot!! I also went to 22 plays, 24 movies, and two Mets games.

8. Money! I have a healthy savings, no debt, and my 401K is in good shape again. MD has some debt we're paying off together and we should be completely debt free by the end of the year. Woo hoo!

9. Health! I'm doing well! I had a handful of manic episodes, a few sinus infections, and a couple of back spasms, but it wasn't that bad! And this is coming from a negative and dramatic hypochondriac, so you know it's true!

I guess that's the year in a nutshell! I'm just really enjoying my time home. I didn't even go out last night for New Year's Eve. I did a puzzle all day, wrote in my journal, watched football, and stuffed myself silly with Indian food. MD slept through the ball drop. It was perfect.

Now there's a whole other not-so-perfect parts of 2017 to write about, but I don't think I have it in me right now. To be continued!