That's it. The year is over.

I can't really say "thank goodness it's over", because it's truly been a good year. The motto was experiences: trips to new places, new experiences in volunteering, new experiences in education, new experiences in starting new businesses...

Quite amazing, really. Rather than telling you all about it again, you can go and check it out in the experience archive - and I'll just give you the scoop on what happened in December...

November was a big month in Auer house. While there may not have been a huge variety of new experiences, one new experience dominated the whole month: my husband started his own business (and I may have mentioned that on Facebook once or 44 times).

Judge Judy, surgery and another entrepreneur in the family - that kinda sums up how October went for us. Big things happened this month!

In anticipation of his knee surgery at the middle of October, my husband had to stop working at the beginning of the month - the pain was just getting too much and he didn't want to risk an infection that could have postponed the surgery. Anyway - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times....

Last year I wrote down a few things that I'm over and a few that I'm loving. Reading through that old post again made me realize that things have changed - and it's time to write another post; maybe I'll even make this a yearly thing!

You probably can't wait to find out what's on my list, so here we go:

Imagine you had started a year-long project and committed to blogging about new experiences once a month - because it was your year of making new experiences and of course you needed to write about it. And then suppose that at the end of every month you realized that time flies and holy shit is it already time to write that round-up post again? Exactly that.

Good news! You're actually not the one who committed - I am! And holy shit, is it already the end of the month again and time for a round-up post? I guess it is, so here we go...

August went by in a blur and while I was feverishly working towards September and the promise of school starting again, I just remembered: school is not starting because BC teachers are still on strike - and even if it were to start: my kids have decided to home school....

While this is certainly a new experience, true to our motto for the year, the verdict is not yet in on whether I will remain sane through all of this or not...

I'm finishing up month 7 of my new experiences for 2014 and there are two things that stand out this month - another road trip and my boobs. My boobs don't stand out literally (sigh), but more about that in a bit. Let's start with the road trip.

It was the first mother-son road trip I've been on and you guessed it - I took my son. We went to Echo Valley for a few meetings, but I had plenty of time for taking walks, biking, swimming and all the other fun stuff people do with their kids. This included sharing a bed and it was an experience that made me realize something: the kid needs his own bed, even better his own room next time we go anywhere.

Did you know that I'm currently married for the third time (and by "currently" I don't mean that that's changing any time soon - we're good!)?

Anyway - my lovely friend Laura at Mommy Miracles asked me to participate in her essay project Writing Vows. It's an essay project about marriage and I do have a thing or two or three to say about that....

Please come and join me there - and also read the other essays, it's a wonderful project and I'm more than thrilled to be a part of it!

We're still going strong in our third week of summer vacation - and I did indeed experience a few new things this month (remember, I declared 2014 my year of new experiences).

Here we go:

It's been a few weeks since my last blog post and I'm feeling equally shaky, excited and almost a little giddy. That could be all the caffeine I had today, but I'm attributing it to writing for sure.

It's not that I haven't written in weeks - I write every day, for my clients. And I'm loving it - even the times when I write about cleaning and restoration and exciting stuff like mold removal - but my blog and I, we have history, ya know?

Anyway - I digress. I came back here today to tell you about all the new things I experienced in May. 2014 is my year of new experiences, remember? 

Here's what happened:

Remember when I declared 2014 my year of new experiences? Well, I'm still at it! We had a month of great experiences and once again the whole family participated.

Here's what I/we experienced in April:

I am a writer.

That's what I say when someone asks what I do for a living. 

And it's funny - because the "online reaction" is quite different from the reaction I get in real life. I think it's important for anyone to surround herself with supportive people, people who have your back. It seems that's easier online - for me anyway. When I introduce myself as a writer in real life, I almost always get an "Oh" and an awkward silence. Then I get a sympathetic look and once I add "and a business consultant", finally a sigh of relief. 

My online community is what carries me and keeps me going - and one very important member of that community is Alison at Writing, Wishing. Needless to say, I was thrilled when she invited me to participate in a Blog Author Tour about my writing process! Alison wrote about her process last week and her blog is one of my favourite places to go on the internet.

This is my writing process:

The end of Spring Break is upon us and after two weeks of good intentions I wish I could add the Spring Break Experience to my lists of "firsts" this year. As in "wow, this was the first Spring Break ever when the maternal instinct to keep those kids alive was not what kept me hanging on by a thread" - but alas, I am hanging on by a thread as I write this, no nothing new to report here.

It's actually not even the end of March yet, and while I'm convinced I will make it to the 31st and thus to the first day of school being back in session, I have something really cool in the works for that day - so my monthly round-up is happening today. 

Two years ago I wrote a story about someone who had passed away and who was very dear to my family, especially to my son Marius. His name was Steve Carroll and he was the librarian at my son's elementary school. 

Steve was an extraordinary man and teacher, a huge presence in our community and a positive force in the lives of many kids. I chose to write about him because he brought so much joy to our lives and enriched it in so many ways, that I wanted to pay tribute to him and also preserve his memory.

Back then, one of his friends from Nova Scotia read the piece and encouraged me to send it to CBC's The Vinyl Cafe, hosted by Stuart McLean. I have to be honest - I had no idea who Stuart Mc Lean was, but I found out that people send stories to him and he reads a few of them on air. I submitted my story, because I think that everyone should know what a great guy Steve was.

Last weekend we said goodbye to our motorhome Gerdi. She was our (mostly) reliable camping companion for the last three years, and while we were sad to see her go, we are excited for a new chapter in Auer travels.

This year we're planning on taking some road trips in our new truck, to places we've never been before. First trip coming up: to Victoria, BC - we just booked our hotel and ferry this morning and we're excited!

We made a lot of good memories with Gerdi - here are a few...

Is it really already the end of February? What happened? I guess time flies when you're busy making new experiences...

In February, the whole family embraced our resolution to experience new things in 2014. As a family, we started year #7 in Canada and we also did this:

I woke up this morning at 6 am, and for once everyone - including the dog - was still sleeping. I got up, stretched and went into the bathroom. I sat down on the side of the bathtub, wondered for a minute what I should do with those precious minutes and decided on cutting my fingernails. 

While I was cutting and filing away I realized that I was actually pleased with myself for doing something useful and not wasting time. Wait, what????

*During my meeting with a client to discuss Facebook strategy for the week*

Me: "What do you want to advertise for the Deal of the Week?"

Client 1: "What about those buckets over there? We could do a deal on them and ask our fans if they already made a buckets list for this year...?"

Client 2: "Did you just say Fucket List?"

Me: "OMG, I am so blogging about this!"

(I know, I have the best meetings)

Can you believe the first month of the new year is pretty much over? I have no idea how that happened, but I remember that I set out to make 2014 the year of new experiences.

And experience new things in January I did (I am an Experience-Jedi. And maybe a little bit of a Star Wars geek. What?). Here's what I did in January that I've never done before:

My husband and I went on our first date in over two years last week.

How old are our kids, you ask? Why, they are 12 and 16 years old.

Could we not have date nights all the time, because we don't need a babysitter anymore? Why yes, but TV, laziness, internet, ... I think you get the point.

As a matter of fact, we didn't NEED that date last week either - until we went and realized that we really did.

At the dinner table:

Me: "I have been thinking about my "word" for 2014, sort of a theme or guideline I want to follow this year on my blog."

Son 2: "You mean like a Star Wars theme?"

Me: "No, lots of bloggers do this. It's a word like "faith" or "hope" or "growth" and it stays with what you do and write about all year."

Son 1: *rolls eyes* and gives me the I-can't-wait-to-hear-about-this-no-wait-I-really-don't-care look...