This week I have a little New Years series for you with a couple of guest posts, some thoughts of my own, and a round up of this year’s most popular posts. Today, I have the hilarious Helen from Bubble Gum Chic. Her essays crack me up regularly with their straightforwardness and honesty and I couldn’t wait to hear her take on 2014.
When I look back on 2014 I think the word that will spring to mind first is “homeschooling.” Not because I am foolish enough to even consider voluntarily homeschooling my kids, ha, no. I may be a little bit crazy but I am not totally insane. However, my three young children had 43 snow days last winter. Being locked in a house in the snow with three young children and five pets is something I won’t soon forget.
But there were other memorable moments that we all lived through. Here are fourteen things I never would have anticipated happening had you asked me a year ago. And, for the record, had I known about the snow days I would have officially relocated to Florida for the months of December through April.
1. Who ever would have anticipated a weather pattern that expanded our vocabulary to include words like “polar vortex,” “cyclone bomb,” and for our friends across the pond “weather bomb”? I didn’t believe it either, but I checked with my friend Lance the meteorologist and it’s real. Who knew weather terminology could rival Shakespeare?
2. Had you told me last year at this time that everyone I knew would dump a bucket of ice their head, film it, and upload it to every social media outlet available to him or her, I guess I would have believed you because in 2013 twerking became a word, and the Kardashians are relevant, but still, it would have had me scratching my head.
3. I’m also not sure I would have believed anyone who told me that Americans would collectively spend thousands of hours watching elevator security footage. But I also didn’t know what “a billion dollars in an elevator,” looked like so hey….
4. Our vocabulary expansion wasn’t limited to new meteorology terms, we also increased our knowledge of medical terms thanks to Princess Kate’s second pregnancy being harder on her than her first. Teenagers who can’t spell Obama can spell “hyperemesis gravidarum,” thanks to our obsession with British royalty.
5. In a strange turn of events, George Clooney married someone whose brain size seems to eclipse her bra size. Wouldn’t have seen that one coming. No sir.
6. Speaking of marriage George’s buddy Brad finally married Angelina Jolie, which wasn’t as shocking to me as the fact that they managed to do so without adding any adopted or biological children to their brood.
7. Millions of hearts broke all over America when Ryan Gosling not only impregnated Eva Mendez, but kept it a secret until the kid was halfway down the chute. Women were devastated that he was officially off the market…because…apparently they all had a shot until he sired his lover’s child?
8. Typically what one remembers about an Olympic Year is a certain athlete, or at least an athlete hiring a mob member to attack another athlete. But what we will remember about the Sochi Olympics are unfinished hotels, grassy ski slopes and Russians running around trying to cover up manholes at the eleventh hour. #epicfail
9. I guess it should come as no surprise that Mark Zuckerberg, the man behind Facebook, taught himself Chinese during the twenty minute commute to and from work because he felt like it. But it still managed to surprise us all a little when he stood up at his meeting in China and gave a lengthy speech and did his Q & A in Mandarin.
10. Perhaps we should have had Mark Zuckerberg participate in the search for MH370 in his spare time because, well, it was rather unsettling when a plane the size of a medium-sized house disappeared somewhere in a ten thousand mile radius. We hadn’t heard “the plane, the plane,” that much since Fantasy Island went off the air.
11. Speaking of disappearing what about Kim Kardashian… she managed to outdo herself with her Vogue cover, book of a thousand selfies, and “tasteful” nudes. Good taste seems to be following that plane into the black hole.
12. Not since Wikileaks have people been as scandalized as they were by Scott Rudin’s emails. He managed to insult Angelina Jolie, the president, and Adam Sandler all in one lengthy and incriminating email. Really? I tell my five year old not to put things you don’t want other people to read in writing EVER. And that goes double for her body. No one deserves to have their naked selfies exposed, but on the off chance hackers aren’t on their best behavior when they snatch my phone, I try not to have hundreds of Nelfies (naked selfies) of myself on it.
13. We learned how the elite part ways. Gwyneth brought us the kale diet, the food free diet and now she is bringing us the acrimony free divorce. Welcome to 2014— the year we all heard the term “consciously uncoupling,” for the first (and hopefully last) time.
14. Anyone who has a child, heck, anyone who knows a child or crossed paths with a child between the months of January through June 2014 learned the lyrics to Idina Menzel’s “Let it Go.”
Here’s looking at 2015. I would be thrilled if the Kardashians filmed a new television show searching for the missing plane and there were no more weather occurrences that require the word “bomb” or “cyclone” in its makeup.
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Hi! I'm Jen, a freelance writer and girl mom who loves reading the newest children’s books as much as I love a good psychological thriller. I believe fiercely in the power of kindness, empathy, and really good quality chocolate. When I'm not knee-deep in glittery crafts and girl talk, you can probably find me sprawled out on my couch in the middle of a Netflix marathon with dark chocolate smeared on my face. The struggle is real. 
