redirecting...~

Once again, yes, I am still here. We've had a nice and peaceful Thanksgiving, December, Christmas, and New Year around here and are looking forward to getting settled into a normal routine again.

This year I intentionally planned to lighten up on school, minimally decorate, and did almost all our gift shopping online. The result? Our best holiday season ever in the Hutchison home :o)

For our family, and me personally, that is huge! The week after Christmas has always been the most stressful time of the year for me, due mostly to my children being the recipients of overly eager family members who love to shower them with enough gifts (all involving small, numerous parts, of course!) to bury them for weeks. I am making light of it, but in truth, it is absolutely ridiculous and brings me closer to tears and dealing with more anger and frustration than any other time of the year. In past years I've tried explaining, letter writing, gift-approving, and all other sorts of tactics, but mostly no one listens to me. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful my children are so loved (I should probably add that they are the only children on my side of the family), but there is a lot more to this than I can really get into adequately, so just take my word for it that this is actually a big issue for us :o)

What was different this year? Mostly, my attitude (I decided to just not get angry), but there have been some changes in my family that caused for a reduction in the amount of stuff, as well as, what I would like to believe, more of an understanding of where my heart is in the whole situation...but whatever the change, I am thankful for a really sweet last month or so!

The reason, actually, that I've not been blogging, is that something is wrong with my computer and it is totally blogger related. It is super frustrating! Glen is home over this long weekend (my favorite part of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's holidays!) so I decided to take a minute and use his computer to let everyone know where we disappeared to :o)

Anyway, I can read blogs, but anything involving signing into blogger (accessing my blog and leaving comments on my friends blogs) is impossible on my computer right now. Our good friend, Warwick, is going to look at it and hopefully get it fixed soon. When I try and sign in, I get one window that pops up saying "internet explorer cannot open the web page," and another window that says "redirecting" and I keep getting new "redirecting" tabs continually until I finally just close the whole window down. Who knows? I've hunted around online a little and tried a few different things, but still it persists....so here I sit...

Hopefully I'll be back soon!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season!