Goodbye 2016, Hello 2017

The holidays are now over and I made it through and even had a bunch of smiles and laughs, along side the tears.  We made some new traditions and kept some of the old.  I think it was a good way to celebrate our first Christmas without Scott.  Papa Ron flew in from Iowa and we spent the later part of Christmas day with the entire Spoerl clan - Ben, Laura, Katelyn, Brooke, Jan and Ron.  Scott was with us in spirit and we felt his presence all througout the holiday.  The kids and I rang in the New Year with friends and that was fun and hard at the same time.  I feel conflicted about the start of the new year because although I'm happy to say goodbye to 2016 as it was, by far, the hardest year of my life, I am also facing the first of many years without Scott.   For now, I will just take each day one at a time as I have done for the past several years and continue to try to find the joy in each day.

On a separate topic, my mom moved to the Lantern Hill senior living community in New Providence over the holiday break.  My siblings and I spent the month of December and the week between Christmas and New Year's preparing mom for the move and then settling her into her new place.  I am so happy that she is only about 2 miles from my house.  The location will enable us to spend more time together and I can get to her apartment easily and quickly if she needs me.   My family is awesome  (Jen, Deb, David, and my kids) ....we all worked together to make this transition as smooth as possible for my mom.  It's not easy to move when you're 83!  She did great and I think she's going to love Lantern Hill.  We are now working on finalizing the sale of her previous apartment and that will hopefully be done by the end of January.

Happy New Year to all of you.  May each of you "Find the Joy" in every day of 2017!

xoxo,
Julie

My mom settled into her new apartment!