Happy New Year! Welcome 2011

Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope that everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve - and a safe one. I don't know about you, but I was totally ready to put 2010 to bed. It was a very long, very stressful year for yours truly. Dearest hubby was very, very sick right at the beginning of the summer and spent pretty much the whole thing in hospitals. Which, of course, meant I did, too. Luckily, he's made a full recovery and is doing great; even better, he's learned from this horrible experience and now knows that he really does need to pay attention to his health. And he also changed his attitude to a much friendly, more positive one - which is great for me!

On the reading front, I read just as many books in 2010 as I did in 2009. I really wanted to read more, but again, all that traveling back and forth to the hospital wasn't overly conducive to my favorite hobby. Yes, I know - there are audio books for that! I've tried those before and for some reason, I just don't care for them. If I'm driving, I want my tunes playing, not someone reading to me. I did read some good titles, some so-so stuff, and some that honestly are best forgotten. I'm hoping to go for a bit more quality this year than quantity, although I'm aiming for an even 100 titles this year.

As far as resolutions, well, I don't make them. My baby sis blogged about her goals over on LiveJournal; check it out at mythicalgirl.livejournal.com. I'm proud of her for setting them, and I certainly hope she attains them. Me? I suppose I could do the same, but honestly, I learned things about myself last year that I didn't know, and I feel like I've pretty much met my goals. When hubby got so sick, it scared the you-know-what out of me, all of it - the trip to the hospital in the ambulance (and realizing that something was wrong enough to need that trip), the doctors delivering more and more dire news, the surgery that was needed to pretty much save his life, the doctors not being sure if he'd make it thru said surgery, and then the very, very long road to recovery. And I had to make all the decisions because hubby was actually unable to do so due to his condition, not a position I ever thought I'd be in. Thank goodness we'd just done living wills a few years ago; it made some of the choices a little easier, knowing that if it got that bad, I knew what he wanted. But it didn't make it any easier.

What I learned through the long summer of 2010 is that I have reserves of inner strength that I didn't even know I had. When the going got tough, I stuck the landing and then some. I remained as calm as possible, kept my head up, and thought things through rationally. I learned as much I as could from the doctors, then hit some good websites to find out more information. And I managed to do all this while still keeping it together where work was concerned, no easy task. Thank goodness I work with two of the best co-workers ever!

My advice to everyone for this year is this: take the time to take care of yourself. No one else can really do it but you; by the time others are involved, it's a much more complicated process. Eat as healthy as you can, get off the couch/computer chair and get some exercise, and make sure you have a good network of friends/family to talk to/turn to about your problems. Finally, tell the ones you love exactly that: "I love you" shouldn't be a foreign phrase in your vocabulary! You never know what tomorrow will bring, so stop looking forward and live for today. Carpe diem is going to be my motto for 2011.