January Reflections

January is marching along and I realized I haven't posted in a long time. I've just been focused on getting my proposal ready for defense, and may all the stars align to help me be successul next week!

It's been a long time coming, but it's time now to move forward and get this done! I can't wait to get out into the field and collect data... have already outlined my timeline so that I can complete this by September. Ever since I came back from Holland...

I've been in a more reflective state... thinking about everything and dissertating. Holland was a good break from everything. With my sister and cousin we planned a "cousins" trip for NYC in August while ASA was happening-- I could get hotel rooms at a discounted rate, so we thought it would be ideal...but it looks like it may not happen since one of the cousins has a personal conflict and so they can only come at the end of August-- which for me is very dfficult! School starts in September and those last 2 weeks in August are exceptionally busy for me-- so I don't know what will happen with our wonderful plans. It would be so nice to have a cousins vacation- maybe in San Francisco in 2014??? Holland this time was also one of those eventful trips because Ed's mother passed away and so I was on the phone with the US a lot. I couldn't make it back for the funeral, so when I got back home at 10 PM on Monday evening, the first thing I did was to pick up the dog, and then Fawn and I waited for them to come back from Kentucky at 2 AM. It was a strange homecoming. Since then I've been escaping and discovering and enjoying some wonderful expat blogs... one of my favorite is Random Walks in the Low Countries. It's interesting reading how others perceive Holland and Dutch life. There certainly seem to be plenty of Americans living in Holland! One of the ex-pat bloggers posted about

Kasteel Terworm in Limburg, and when I checked it out online, it really looked like a great place! So, I think it will be my next destination!

All of this led me think about goals...and I usually don't set too many, which may be one of my problems. Looking back at 2011, I can say that it was pretty uneventful and didn't do much, so I'd like to change that in 2013 and do LOTS! Travel and fixing up the house would be top on the list-- so I'll have to plan and see what I can do about making that happen. So here's to 2013!