2023 will be MY year. I’m putting myself first. For the first time, I’ll do what they say you should do with the oxygen mask in the airplane: First put on your mask, then help the others. You can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.

Now that the stuffiness of the holidays has lifted, now that your holidays expectations were met or crushed or maybe you didn’t even have any (attagirl!), now that the stores are open again and the unwanted gifts exchanged, regifted or put in a drawer for safekeeping, we can all turn the pages to a blank one.

What have I been doing? Read 3 out of the 4 books I got for Christmas, ate all the biscotti and the sugarcoated almonds and I wink at the fir tree every time I past by it to attend to the artsy genius up to her elbows in paint. After all, the tree is too handsome to end up on the dump. YET. As for the artsy genius, as much a darling as she is, I’ve made it very clear to her I hate all activities that require washing my hands after engaging in them. 😉 Like painting. Or modeling play dough.

Workwise I’ve been on a trip out of town already and yesterday a 6 days’ court case began, but since the defendant didn’t show up, we were free to go about out freelance lives. Do I love it? Yes, I do! I don’t know if I can go as far as to say I’ve missed interpreting over the holidays, but as I always remind myself on bad days, I never have a knot in my stomach when I go to work, the way I did back when I worked in an office. Besides, I’ll take work over small talk at Christmas gatherings any day. Life is way too short for small talk.

Happy New Year!

xxx, Alina