Christmas and New Year’s

Hello everyone; I know it’s been so long since I’ve made a post. My last post was about Thanksgiving. Since then there has been a bunch of changes on my adoptive family causing a bit of stress but it is all being handled. Christmas was pretty good overall despite some drama with the 3 siblings that showed up for Christmas Day.

On Christmas eve I called as many family members as I could and wished them happy holidays. Then on Christmas morning I got quite a bit of stuff I was hoping for because I actually gave my mom a list this year (like she told me to) and she got me like everything on the list. my My brother whom I live with and I opened most of our presents the day before Christmas, but I got some that were late in the mail after Christmas and he is still deciding what he wants my mom to get him for his room.

And of course I got Honey, our family’s German Shepard presents, I got her a new bed, as she had tore up her old one, I got her a dog bone toy for aggressive chewers that she honestly didn’t care about, and some cinnamon roll dog treats that she loved.

I still haven’t sent out Christmas cards, so I think I’ll do that next year, but other than that I was able to get meaningful gifts for everyone on my list starting with my 2 nieces and nephews, then my moms, then my siblings (all the ones that still talk to me), then my adoptive mom’s mom, dad, step mom and grandma on her mom’s side (my birth mom’s parents and grandparents are all passed on and i don’t talk to anyone on my dads’ sides of the family. then my dog, obviously, then my one cousin that I always buy a christmas gift for.

And now everyone is taken care of and there isn’t a birthday I need to worry about  until February when my 16 year old brother and my sisters son have their birthdays.

On Christmas morning, my mom, my 3 youngest brothers, and I all ate Christmas breakfast at Ihop. I got the double blueberry pancakes, and they were really good, just not the next day. After that, we went home and hung out together until it was time to go to Christmas dinner at my mom’s aunt’s house.

The only problem with that is that she lives like 30 minutes away and in a place where driving conditions were less than ideal. Everything was fine getting there and back, though. We just drove very slowly.

Dinner also went very well. Politics was only brought up once, and everyone got along great. The only people who weren’t there were my uncle and his wife as they were traveling somewhere else.

Sometime after Christmas, someone in my close family went to the hospital and stayed until yesterday, but they are doing much better now.

For New Year’s Eve, I just stayed in with my mom while my youngest brother went to a friend’s house. I watched the ball drop on Dick Clark’s Rockin New Year’s Eve with Ryan Secrest hosting. I watched with my adoptive mom in the room and with my birth mom on Facebook messenger.

I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions in the traditional way because those never seem to last for me, but instead, I made a list of physical health, mental health, social, spiritual and productivity SMART goals I want to achieve with set steps and deadlines. I am hoping I can stick to this new style of setting and achieving my goals better than just setting lofty resolutions that I end up breaking.

So that is how my holidays went this year. Now that they are over I am looking forward to the next chapter of my life which includes my first semester of my social and public policy master’s program online at Empire State University starting on the 13th of this month, so next week. I am going for that with an advanced certificate in community advocacy.

I have my books and most of my other supplies, and my current laptop is getting a battery placed hopefully by the beginning of next week (I’ll have to use my phone until then) then when my financial aid comes in I am hoping to get a new computer as I’ve had my current one for quite a while and I want one that can better handle high quality gaming graphics and much more hard drive space as I have Joined the school’s gaming community.

The next time I post, you will get an update for how I am coping with grad school and life stuff combined. Until then feel free to check any of the pages on this site out including the extensive resource page with new resources consistently being added. If any of the links on the page don’t work, please let me know. And have a happy, healthy day/ night, week, month, year, life.