Happy almost New Year!

I’m sitting down with a bowl of ice cream (mistake #1) because I decided to start potty training today (mistake #2) even after weighing being terminally pregnant and with having a husband who’s out of commission due to sickness. But nap time felt like the moment to review my first year overseas, so here it goes!

As this post has rolled around in my mind for weeks/months, I’ve struggled with how to write this because I fear coming off overly complainy, especially when my heart isn’t one of ungratefulness for this year.  

But WHOA, 

Can I just say, WHAT. A. YEAR. 

LIKE. WHAT. A. YEAR. 

There's this part in the very beginning of Louisa May Alcott's  Little Women that has stuck with me for years. In a letter from the March girls' war-gone father (addressed to his wife), he says 

"A year seems very long to wait before I see them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these hard days need not be wasted. I know they will remember all I said to them,

that they will be loving children to you,

will do their duty faithfully,

fight their bosom enemies bravely,

and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them

I may be fonder and prouder than ever of

my little women."