Out With the Old / In With the New

Date: January 1, 2015

Mood: Frustrated

Weather: Sunny & Cool

Listening to: Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay

Reading: Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister

WELCOME TO 2015- the newest of new years!!! It's been an interesting one so far, but I'm hopeful for all that is yet to come during the next twelve months. Every day can't be perfect, I know. So despite the very first day of the year sucking rather immensely, I know it's just a bump in an otherwise open and possibly best ever road [year] yet.

With the dawn of a new year everyone seems to be set on making their own personal resolutions. As is the case for most- I'm sure, I'm religiously bad at keeping them. I start off each New Years Eve with the best intentions of sticking to whatever resolution/goal I set for myself once that close tips over to 12am midnight 1/1. And then a few days, weeks, or months- if I'm real lucky, pass before I negligently brush this burdensome hassle off in lieu of something that requires less thought or effort. So, you know, I basically never succeed at fulfilling my New Year's resolutions, which begs to ask why do I bother making them? The answer is, I have no idea!

This year I chose to forego the whole idea in exchange for simply trying to better myself and my life clear across the board. Because, honestly, I can't say as there was any one particular area or idea that struck me as being at the top of my mind. Well, besides trying really really hard to actually apply myself to keeping a daily log of my life experiences here in Hong Kong and China. It's such an easy thing to do and something that I think I will really enjoy reading back through in years to come. If I made it a resolution I felt I was more likely to fall short, however, so we'll just see how it goes.

How about starting now......??

Since we spent Christmas in China with his mom and sisters, dh and I decided we'd take advantage of our two days off school to spend New Years in Hong Kong with his dad's family. Like I'm sure it is most anywhere in the world, New Years Eve is a time to celebrate big in Hong Kong. Of course you can choose to stay at home and celebrate quietly on your own, but for those brave enough there is always a huge NYE fireworks display over Hong Kong Harbor. It's incredibly beautiful if you can push your way through the crowds to locate a spot prime for viewing the show, but you'll undoubtedly be just one in a sea of millions who show up to watch.

Having missed out on seeing the 4^th of July fireworks back home this past Summer, I got the brilliant idea to take the whole family down to the harbor last night to take in this amazing fireworks display. I even invited and convinced mil (#2) and my two youngest sister-in-laws to accompany us. Father-in-law couldn't be persuaded. We left the house around 8pm in order to travel to the other end of HK, about an hour or so away depending on bus and train traffic, with plenty of time to stakeout a good place among the masses to watch the 8 minute long 12am New Years Eve extravaganza. However, by the time we made it down to where we wanted to watch from the crowd was already thick and growing thicker by the minute.

Sadly, didn't take long to figure out, that the next two hours were going to pass by ever so slowly while the growing sea of people surged around us. I was so excited for the monkeygirls to see these particular fireworks because I can remember going to see them once when I lived here as a kid. They were awesome. Plus mil and sils had never experienced seeing fireworks or any kind live and in person, but instead only on tv. What fun it would be to watch them watching at their first ever show, right? Wrong.

For starters, at that time of night the two youngest were in no mood to stand about twiddling their fingers while people pushed from all sides trying to crowd in tighter and tighter to a space that was already maxed out on available room. Then monkeygirl #2 decided that even though we made certain to use the bathroom before departing home that she then had to go and there were no “whats” “ifs” or “buts” about it. We tried to distract her and help her forget about it, but that only seemed to make it worse. Before we knew it she was full on bawling because she couldn't wait much longer and I was about ready to join her in the tears because I felt helpless as to what to do when we could barely move an inch to exit in search of a bathroom. Finally, mil decided she was going to take her youngest and monkeygirl #2 and fight through the crowds to find a toilet and then possibly her way home. It was evident that neither of them was going to willingly come back to our spot to continue the wait, and that was even assuming they could have found us again in the crown anyhow. Plus from our vantage point we were starting to doubt that the two littlest ones were even going to be able to see the fireworks. (Or mil, for that matter, as she's not much taller than my short 11 year old. =P )

That left dh, myself, monkeygirl #1, and my remaining HK sil standing in wait. And I won't mince words about it, the show was just as wonderful as I'd hoped for once the countdown to midnight hit “0”. It would have just been a bit better had everyone been together as planned instead of having to dramatically split up after all the effort to get there. (Which in retrospect was only half the battle as the trip home was in and of itself an adventure at that time of night and due to the ridiculous amounts of people we were dealing with.) We ended up getting back home to fil's house just a little before 4am. 4AM!!! That's quite an adventure just to see some colorful explosions in the sky. haha (Note to self: Next year this needs to be a dh and monkeygirlsmama ONLY venture out if we do it at all. The kids will certainly have far more fun at home playing and watching on tv than fighting crowds and standing for hours on end.)

It struck me as somewhat bizarre that as we were winding down from our 2015 welcome festivities here our family and friends back home in the US were still hours away from beginning. In fact, they were actually still enjoying the tail end of 2014. We were hours into 2015 already and heading to bed in not just a new day or month but a new and different year! Yep, that's weird when you try to wrap your head around it. Or is it just me?

New Years Day proved to be more hassle and pain than gain. Not the way I wanted to start my new year for sure. What made it so? Clothes shopping. Most anyone who knows me irl knows I truly dislike clothing shopping when it comes to clothes for myself. I always see things that are super cute and that I would love to own and wear, but then there's the sizing. Even as a sexy size 3-4 in high school I hated shopping for pants because finding the perfect fit was darn near impossible no matter how skinny I was. A good fit in the waist meant they were too tight through my thighs; likewise, a good fit through my thighs meant the waist was too loose. It was hopeless. Now flash forward 15+ years and 2 kids later and I really HATE clothes shopping. So you can imagine my frustration when, in the last few months, I've managed to get holes in both pairs of yoga pants and the only pair of jeans I own.

Today I thought I'd take advantage of a few hours of kid free time and go shopping for new jeans while the girls were with grandma and grandpa. Bad idea. If you ever want to make yourself feel like a fat, miserable cow make sure to go shopping for clothes for yourself on the first day of the year when everyone else out there is making resolutions about losing weight and dieting and then make sure you do it in a place like Hong Kong where nearly everyone is half your size. That's right, it won't matter how many stores you go to, including US/UK shops such as Gap or Marks & Spencer. You'll be too big to fit any of the utterly scrawny jean selections they have and you'll end up going home empty handed and heavy hearted. How's that for keeping the New Year's spirit alive? =/

At least the monkeygirls enjoyed their New Years Day with grandma, grandpa, and their aunties- mostly!