2008...a year in review

I have only been blogging on here for a couple of months now, but I really think that the last day of the year merits a glance back to remember the ups and downs and craziness that is my life.

This year, for the first time in quite a while, was spent entirely in one home and one job. It was wonderful. A full year spent in our new home has shown us the joys and the problems of home ownership. This home is ours to do with as we wish. We have gardened and arranged furniture and made plans for the projects and gardening and such that we hope to complete in the coming year. We also practiced using the home design software that we have so that when we are ready for some serious remodeling we can use the program to help us decide on colors, locations, and costs of materials and cabinets and so on. Also, we plan to use it more to plan out garden spaces this year. The gardening we did manage fell short of the plans, but we had only so much time, money and energy to spend on the yard, trees, flowers, vegetables, and bugs. Hopefully we can improve on it in 2009. Our respective places of employment were also satisfactory. The laboratory I work for went through a few personnel changes earlier in the year and we have ended up with a great set of techs who do the job well and are able to work together with only a few personality clashes. I think this is fine, because there is no way a group of people can spend that much time together and be able to get along for all of it. Shane's work is also doing well. Their project is continuing to be ahead of schedule and hopefully that means that the stay and complete bonus will be along sooner than we expect and can be put towards our mortgage. Hurray for paying off our home!

Our families are well and happy. My brother and his wife were transferred to hell...or at least its suburb, but are coping with the boredom that comes from living in the middle of the desert on a tiny base. Their little girl turned one year old in October and is growing so fast. She is a very cheerful child and loves to talk on the phone, which is a blessing since I have only actually met her once. My parents are happy and well and spent lots of time camping and going to the beach, which is great because that is half the reason they moved to that area. I was able to go on a visit to their place this summer while Shane was off at training classes. We also made it to their house for a long Thanksgiving weekend. Shane's parents are also well and are still talking about selling their house and finding a smaller one, something that they have been discussing since all of their children moved out two or three years ago. It would be nice for them if they do, but I admit that it is great for the whole family to be able to have beds when we are all there on the holidays. Shane's sisters have both made changes to their households this year. Gina got herself a little terrier mix puppy this fall, upon which she dotes. The only problem is that the puppy in not very friendly to strangers, even strangers to whom she is related and spent several days. There was quite a bit of barking over the Christmas holidays. Julia gave up on finding a nice apartment after searching for quite a while and decided to share living expenses and quarters with her boyfriend of several years. This is nice for her, since it also moved her a lot closer to work, cutting down a yucky commute in the metro area.

Hobbies for me this year were a mixed bag. I learned a couple of new things and have plans to take on a couple more, but I admit that I have fallen behind on my reading. I have not read as many books this year as I think I normally have. I also have not tried as many new books. This is something that needs to be corrected. Immediately. Some of the new books I have read are the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers, which I gave mixed reviews, the first few books of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, and a couple of books from the biography section at the library on Elizabeth I. I promise to do better next year and also to share with you the ones I find the best. I am pleased with learning to knit though. I have meant to learn for years and find it very enjoyable. I have done a couple of scarves and lots of practice patches and last night I tried my hand at perling and found it fairly simple, although the stitches seem to come out much tighter than my knit stitches. I will have to search around and figure out why and practice a bunch more. Alternating rows of knit and perl look my nicer that just continuous knitting. Also, I have spend more time cooking and baking and canning now that I have a nice big kitchen. I love baking and wish I had more excuse to. The big problem is that it is a spendy hobby if you cannot use up the baked goods and no one needs that many cookies. I am not sure if the last activity we have really gotten into counts as a hobby, but I love to entertain. Now that we have the space, we have been able to have people over for dinner, games, and movies. It is so much fun and I think it is much better entertainment that spending too much money on a movie and over-priced popcorn or hanging out in a bar or club. We have a large selection of games (which grew quite a bit over Christmas ) and videos and it has been a great pleasure to have our friends over so often.

In summary, I think that we have had a wonderful year and have many reasons to be thankful for our home, family and life. I hope that 2009 will be more enjoyable and lead to many new friends and opportunities for my family and for yours.