See ya, 2014. It’s been weird as always.

If we’re being honest, I don’t love celebrating New Year’s Eve.

You get invited to parties that start at…what? 7?…and then last until past midnight. MIDNIGHT. (I am a strict 10-pm-bedtimer.)

So you’re stuck at a party for 5 hours minimum. Sometimes they’re great. Sometimes they’re terrible. And when they’re terrible? You cannot leave. It’s against every unwritten social rule to leave before issuing in the new year with awkward kisses and televised ball drops.

It’s just not my favorite thing ever, which is why I’m super excited to celebrate tonight at my house by playing a competitive game of rummy with my husband and father-in-law. (Seriously, can’t wait.)

That said, closing out that unpopular opinion, I do like the reflection that comes on the last day ever of each year.

One year doesn’t seem all that long until you start really thinking about how much 365 days can hold.

2014 was a year of ups and downs, joys and heartbreak.

In the past 365 days, I:

• birthed a child
• had my first real “I’m getting old” panic
• settled into a new home
• celebrated 5 years of marriage
• listened to Bethel’s “It Is Well” no less than 2342 times
• mourned the loss of 2 friends’ babies
• been amazed and heartbroken at another friends’ journey through her son’s medical struggles
• studied and loved random Old Testament books like Hosea, Nehemiah, and Jonah
• gave up dairy (and hated every second of it)
• obsessed over forehead wrinkles
• fought to find joy in the exhaustion that is small children
• accepted my mini-van status in life
• cleaned baby barf off of bedding, walls, floors, tables, clothes, toys, clean laundry, other children, my head
• battled a small addiction with Kindle Unlimited (as in read close to 30 books in 2 months, mostly ridiculous chick flicks)
• changed roughly 3,000 diapers
• turned 27
• upgraded laptops (after leaving the first one on the hood of my car)
• met my second nephew
• washed, dried, and folded (sometimes) around 500 loads of laundry
• love/hated that my first baby boy turned into a full-fledged kid with legitimate (sometimes) thoughts and opinions
• walked a turtle on a leash
• toilet-trained a human
• watched a few of my favorite people on the planet get married
• walked with teen girls through unimaginable family pain
• discovered She Reads Truth
• severed our dog’s tail
• met a new neighbor as she handed over our misplaced son
• watched a baby grow and develop from a squishy potato to a walking toddler
• gained and lost 25 pounds
• fell more in love and respect (can you fall in respect? whatever.) with my husband
• seen the beginning of dementia in someone I love
• went bald
• embraced sticky surfaces and dirty floors
• got chased by a gnat cloud because of the human poop on my leg
• learned about grace

And through it all – through the good, the bad, the hard, the funny, the painful, the this-only-happens-on-sitcoms-or-in-the-Brooks’-house – God was faithful. And merciful. And we’re excited for what he has in store for next year.

So, I guess this is goodbye, 2014.

We’re over and out. (Right after I dominate the Brooks men in our card game tonight.)