The days have gotten away from me this week. It’s not been a particularly great week at school, and I’m counting the days until I can walk away from the building and do nothing but read for a few days. OK fine, I suppose I’ll have to do some of the cleaning I’ve been avoiding, but I fully intend to reward myself with a LOT of reading over Christmas break. Speaking of Christmas, I seriously need to finish some shopping, and soon…

And so, what we missed in this here reflection on 2012 thingy:

13: associate [LISTEN]

What blog/book/article spoke to you the most in 2012?

I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around this one, because this feels like just a repeat of the question from the other day, and my answer would be the same: Wonder, by R.J. Palacio.

12: toss [GROW]

2012 was the last time for ______________________

I can’t think of anything specific that I did for the last time in 2012. We said good-bye to the pre-teenage years and hello 13. So far it’s treating us OK, except for the whole growth spurt thing which I think we are currently involved in.

Sat through the last Junior High Football game. It will be interesting to see if there will be HS FB games in our future  as parents of players. Junior High is such a crazy quick time, you are barely in JH before it’s time to move on.

There are a bunch of other things that SHOULD fill in that blank, but they are a little more personal goal-setting, rather than something I’m willing to share publicly…

11: spend/save [LIVE]

Are you richer or poorer this year, compared to last year?

Well, based on my paycheck, I can assure you that I am never going to get rich working as a school secretary…

I am going to copy out on this one a bit and say “richer: because of the experiences I’ve had, particularly my Grand Canyon trip.” Have I mentioned that trip before? (LOL)

10: lose [HOPE]

Did you have to say goodbye to a person, or even a cherished object, this year? Take a moment to celebrate the memory

I am going to feel very stupid when I post this saying that I can’t think of any hard goodbyes, and someone says, “But what about…?”

I am in the position of having to attend a fair number of funerals, as I am often called by our local funeral home to play at funerals. It is very interesting to me to sit at the piano and experience a funeral from that perspective. So far, I rarely have a personal connection to the deceased or to the family, so it’s usually not hard for me to maintain my composure, but several times this year I have ended up in tears. At the most recent funeral, a daughter read a poem that she had written about her father, and I don’t know how she made it through, and I was grateful I had a few moments to compose myself before I had to start playing again.

My experiences have given me some definite ideas about what I do want when I pass away: cremation, and no church funeral, please. There can be crying, but mostly it had better be a party with a lot of really good music. And food.