So… We’ve started a new year. The Christmas decorations are put back in the big plastic bin in the garage, well… Except for the fake wreath on the door, but who said that snowy pine wreaths were only for Christmas? Oh, and I’ve been really careful not to have to do the awkward date modification on my checks. You know, when you write – in ink – the previous year’s date and then try to write over it with the correct year and make it look like you meant to write it that way. Unfortunately though, other than not messing up my checks, this year has sucked more than one of those five-hundred dollar vacuums that have patented cyclone technology, and have to be dumped a lot because it sucks all of the dirt your previous vacuums neglected to remove from the carpet for the last ten years because the cheap vacs are all you could afford, but then you go next door to the rich neighbor and they feel bad for you so they let you borrow their pretty yellow suck machine for an hour so that you can get all of the dog hair off the floor before your guests arrive. Yes, that is a run-on sentence, but you have to understand the intensity of which this year is sucking.

“Why doth this year sucketh?” You ask in Old English, simply because you want to broaden your horizons in this wonderful new year. Well, for starters, I lost a good friend of mine, on the very first day of this month. It wasn’t from natural causes, which would have been sad enough, but still easier to accept. Instead, it was a random senseless act of violence that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. Then, since my friend was also my co-worker, I had to listen to all of my peers voice their theories on what they thought had happened. They had theories that just didn’t fit the character of my friend, so hearing them was a little hard to take. Maybe you can start to understand why I’ve already been tainted by 2013.

I don’t want to appear ungrateful as you read this, because I am very thankful that my family and I made it through another year. I am also thankful that my friend’s killer was indeed found and arrested this past weekend. So maybe I’ll downgrade this year from a Dyson to a low-end Hoover that was purchased with a ten percent off coupon from Bed Batman Beyond (I love their gadgets, especially the utility belts). I still feel like this year is off to a dreary start though.

As December was coming to an end, I was getting my goals together for the upcoming year and I was as positive as ever! I told myself this year I wouldn’t dwell on the past, and I would not allow others to get me upset and angry. Oh! I would also learn how to drive a stick shift. I’m starting to think that the latter may be the easiest of the three, even though the clutch on my husband’s car likes to skip second gear.

I guess “new” doesn’t automatically mean that something is going to be better, butI have forever been the optimist. I’m not a glass-is-half-full kind of person, I’m a cool-we-have-potable-water-and-Star-Wars-glasses-to-pour-it-into kind of person. The littlest things can make me very happy.

Last year was stressful, especially from October though December. If that stress could have gotten tossed into the trash with the calendars, maybe things this year would seem a bit better. Unfortunately, like the dates on most of your checks, last year is mixing into this year. I’m still having car and home repair issues that I paid to have fixed last year, but those expensive repairs evidently did not help. The issues still exist and therefore so does my stress.

Add to that stress the fact that I’ve been told by management that my job will be changing this year, and not for the better. Due to new tax laws, my paycheck is noticeably smaller as well, but my employer has a freeze on raises. Need I type any more? No… I really don’t. I’m sure you are feeling the stress of the new year also. I’m not stupid; I know that each and every person out there is dealing with something. Just usually one would think that the new year could at least start out with a few days of awesomeness.

I’m sure I’ll hear someone say this year is jinxed for everyone because of the unlucky number thirteen, but I’ve never been one to believe in the hoodoo of that prime number. It’s just a number, it doesn’t need to bear the blame, nor can it. I think the best thing for every one of us to do in this new year is to realize that each person around us is going through his or her own sucky times and make sure we don’t add to it! With that being said, I hope everyone has a happy poo… Ahem … New year!