a new year

our family took off for its first vacation of the year. our good friends, clint and andrea, invited us to stay with them in scottsdale and the thought of wearing no socks and getting to wear my new ermie dress was too good to pass up. i was of course panicky about helen's first flight but that seems almost foolish now. she was the star of the plane. the flight attendants spent the majority of the flight gawking at her (which she loved) and she got a kick out of just looking at all the people in line for the bathroom (we had the last row on the plane).

after a few days in scottsdale and a not so good for my pocket book trip to barneys (could not pass up all the sales and when its nice to be a "larger" size in a place where the majority of women there are size 2. most of the clearance was all in my size. just too good to pass up) we headed north to flagstaff where we rented a cute little A frame. the highlight was definitely hiking around sedona. we made our way to a vortex where i SWEAR helen was feeling it. she was super giddy and laughing the whole time. i'm a believer.

i will say traveling with an infant is exhausting. between lugging around the carseat and working around nap schedules it can be a bit much. however, i also came home feeling like we won the amazing race. WE DID IT. then i slept for two days.

..............

now it's 2013 and for the first time in my life i am so happy to be done with the previous year. helen, of course, made the century for me, but a summer with severe ppd made me just want to get 2012 over with. speaking of - i know i said i would be blogging about my experience with ppd and it should be posted soon. its been harder than i thought it would. to regurgitate such emotions takes its own toll, but i am looking forward to sharing my story with all of you. cheers to new beginnings.

I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past- then I choose to begin at this very second. 

Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives. - rilke

xx