leaping leprechauns... I'm back!

This time of year just makes me feel like this picture (taken on Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea of The Fiancé... my own little leprechaun)... happy and carefree. This feeling may be induced (ok, is induced) by my brief hiatus from all responsibility... hence, no blogging, no working, no anything, really. Everyone needs that now and then, no?

We just returned from the holidays in New England with The Fiancé's family. I must confess spending the week apart from my parents, sister, brother-in-law and Bailee was more difficult than I'd anticipated. If we could shrink the surface of the Earth and make both of our families live close to us and to each other, that would be ideal. But that's simply not our reality, so the new reality is holidays divided between families. If I said I didn't deteriorate at one point and consider jumping on a plane back home, that would be a lie. However, the feeling was more indicative of my love for my immediate family than any lack of love felt in The Fiancé's family.

...Besides, The Fiancé's family exchanges presents (we gave up gift-giving in my family recently [I was the lone hold-out the past few years still demanding gift exchange...] once it was agreed that it was silly to buy presents for sane adults who are capable of buying whatever they need when they need it... oh, and then there's that whole wedding they're throwing us this year, making a request for additional gifts seem a bit superfluous).

The irony of the whole his-family, my-family holiday celebration division took a backseat, however, to the realization that this year, The Fiancé and I become our own family. (Or as the Fiancé called us, "our own corporate entity"... You'd think he was the attorney, not me). The new-found awareness of this fact hasn't fully sunk in yet. But I confess the feeling is somewhat akin to that photo up there.