A whole New Year full of Beans.

Happy New Year!

I love saying Happy New Year.  I’ve been saying it for nearly a week, even though it just started yesterday.  I think it’s a really appropriate thing to wish to people to have.

I am starting the new year refreshed of mind, body and spirit.  No, really, I am.  It sounds silly, and it is kind of, but I didn’t come to work from the 21^st of December until Today.  Which is OVER a week’s vacation!  (Ok, I did come to work on Monday. I kept getting messages about this non-urgent issue, so I thought I’d just show my face to make sure everything was ok. It was, no one was impressed with good thoughts or a positive glowing attitude that I had come in, I checked my email and ordered a teapot, and went home.)  And, I billed all sick time! Because I needed to rest my soul!  Heh.  No, really.  That’s what I needed, and that’s what happened. I wonder if I could get a note from my doctor saying that?  I wonder if I’ll need to.  “Karina Jean could not come to work this week or during the holiday season at all because she was resting her soul, lest it be broken along with her spirit.”

So, 12.20 we had our holiday luncheon.  And let me tell you, it was a far cry from the holiday parties of years past.  I don’t know why, even, but there was a DJ and the dance floor was open.  I mean, sure, I danced, but it was a little weird to dance during a LUNCHEON.  After that? I went back to work.  But not for long! And then I went for drinks with my department at the Helmsley Hotel, which was fun, and weird, and then to the back of this bar that’s like a tree house, because it has a canvas roof and a tree growing through the middle, and that was also weird, and then Matt picked me up and we met Michelle at Cilantro’s for some fun. 

Sunday and Monday I furiously worked on holiday cards and gifts for people.  And I went home on the 24^th, and kept furiously working.  But I finished my mittens!  They’re great, even if they are very pointy (is that Latvian style?):

  

 

And I gave three presents this year that were unfinished (and this includes wrapping a ball of yarn labeled “Daddy’s Mitten” with one of my mittens, labeled “Kari’s Mitten”.  This sounds like it wasn’t too bad, but, I purchased three others, and I haven’t actually given several more, of which at least two are still being constructed, and at least two came very late in the year. And two of the presents I gave (mom’s!) were incomplete!  (really, should I send you that crock-pot in the mail? Have it shipped directly to you?) Plus, I haven’t finished sending out all of my holiday cards (ahem, new years cards).  But that’s ok! It’s a new year! All will be superfantastico!

Really, I did (re-)gain a lot of perspective while I was away.  I needed a big fat break from work and irksome things.  And the snow we got on Christmas upstate (nearly 2 feet!  Whee!) was fantastic, even if I did break my front tires enough to need new ones on a bad patch of ice.  And seeing my mom and nephew being hams?  Also fantastic.  And having quality down time with Michelle?  Again, fantastic.

   

(Daniel is not sick.  He’s just, um, thinking about something.  Really.  The restaurant was reputable and fantastic.)

It was a fantastic vacation. I am really starting to see the merit in making your employees take all of their vacation days by the end of the year, instead of allowing them to put off a vacation until they MUST take it or risk losing days – at least in a profession like engineering, where it’s easy to forget that the project WILL go on without you, to forget that you are not indispensable, no matter how important and depended upon you are.

Happy New Year!  (and no, I don’t know where the beans are involved. A hill of beans? The musical fruit? Sprouting, the seeds of life and scurvy prevention?  Cause there’s no scurvy in the new year! Yar!)