Happy New Year!

Once again, it has been a long time since I've last posted. Considering I've only written about four or five posts over the past two months, I think that my New Year's resolution should be to do better at keeping up with my writing.

I suppose that using the excuse of being too busy to write because of work and life is getting old, but that's the only excuse I have. Things have been busy, and although it gets exhausting at times, I guess that is a good thing. It's better to be too busy than to have no work at all. The past year at work was a tough one because the economy hit us hard. We went through a furlough period and were forced to take pay cuts and time off. We lost some employees and couldn't replace everyone, so we've been doing more work for less money. By the end of 2009 our paychecks were back to normal, but the morale wasn't. It would be an understatement to say that people have been frustrated, angry, bitter, and resentful; the mood in the office has been awful and toxic. Although it's been a tough time, I've been grateful just to have a job, and, as ironic as it might sound, everyone should be grateful just to have a job and a small paycheck to hate and complain about. Personally, I'm counting my blessings.

In other respects, life has been wonderful. I went home for Christmas and we also made a quick trip to Vegas to see more family. It's been over fifteen years since I've last been in Vegas, so a lot was new to me. I'm not much of a gambler and wasn't there to get drunk or "hook up" with a stranger. (Apparently that's why most women go to Vegas, judging by what they were wearing on the Strip.) I wanted to explore the hotels and casinos to check out the architecture and different designs. Yes, I'm a nerd. It turned out to be a wonderful trip and it's always wonderful to be around family.

This is a long weekend because of the New Year holiday, naturally, and I've just been spending it relaxing and doing some little chores around the apartment. Because I've had two vacations and so much going on lately, it seems like I haven't cleaned my home in two months, so that's what I've been doing lately. And because this is the New Year and a time for new beginnings and all that, it's when I usually like to do my major cleaning, organizing, donating, and purging. Or maybe I'll just be lazy...