Day 110 - Otherwise known as "Thank the Heavens, we survived!!'

I've been absent I know. With the back thing, and the work thing, and that little thing we call Christmas, life has been, well . . . crazy. I did go back to work last Wednesday, but between that, and popping pills for my back, and trying to get everything done for Christmas, and trying to get enough sleep - well I pretty much made a conscious decision to not do much else. So that kinda' including blogging, and emailing and all - so I apologize yet again and to all I didn't email whom I was meaning to email - I don't love you any less, but the month of December for a retail manager is all about just trying to survive it and arrive alive on the other side.

That being said . . . Whew!! We survived! Retail hell month is almost over! The "Rush Week" has now passed, and while we still have to get through the rest of "Boxing Week", the end is in sight and there is light at the end of this way too long tunnel. Considering we started prepping for Christmas what feels like forever ago, it seems like a long time a comin'!! I did have some crazy customers, some frustrating situations, and did fear for my life at one point - but I got through it!

Now comes the fun part and my absolute favorite holiday of the year. "What?" you ask? "It's not Christmas?" Oh no, not by a mile say I. My favorite holiday of the year, my favorite holiday of all time, is none other than . . . New Year's Day. Not New Year's Eve, mind you - although fun and frivolous, my heart belongs to what lie on the other side.

New. Year's. Day.

Oh to start off a New Year - fresh, clean, untarnished, full of hope and promise. Oh to open a brand new calendar, with its days free and unscheduled. Oh to have reached the end of one year and circle around to the start of another. I'm not kidding folks - I take my New Year's Day pretty seriously. I'm a firm believer in that how you start a new year greatly infuences how the rest of the year will unfold. I'm all about having as much of a reflective day as possible - letting yourself sleep in, eat a great meal, then spending the rest of the day just really relaxing and thinking and reflecting on the upcoming year. I always write in a journal on January 1st - I put a lot of thought into what my resolutions will be for the upcoming year, and I try to stay as chill and laid back as possible on that day. You'll never, ever catch me "out" on a January 1st. I really do become just very quiet and meditative and simple on that day. It may sound funny, but I just find something truly magical about January 1st - even as a child I think I would have said that January 1st trumped Christmas in terms of which was the better holiday. I'm super grateful this year as I also happen to have January 2nd off (as does my hubby), so I can extend my fave holiday into two days!! (Although the 2nd we'll spend doing something a little more "exciting").

Anyhoo - I do hope everyone reading this had a fantastic Christmas, and that you got to spend the day with those you love. As life is now getting back to a little bit of normalacy, yours truly promises to get her ass in gear and start blogging on a more consistent basis. Hopefully I'll have some exciting things to blog about soon - I'm working on three songs right now (two new, 1 is a song I recorded at a studio many a year ago which I'm working on rerecording soon), so I'll be posting updates about those - and well, who knows what else. This past year has been an intersting and eventful one to say the least, so I'm sure 2010 has some surprises in store.

"till next time . . .