Two Thousand Great? Not So Much...

January 1st of this year, I posted that a coworker had said "Happy two thousand GREAT!". He was convinced that this was to be a fantastic year. I liked his enthusiasm, but I think his holiday revelry included some wacky weed. Hmm, is that what makes a year great? Guess I'll never find out the answer to THAT one!

I'm happy the year is behind us.

There were far too many negatives for many of us in the blogosphere. I won't rehash them all, but suffice to say, there was major suckage for nearly everyone I know. On the eve of the New Year, I'm going to look back at the positives.

1. I conquered Blog 365(6)! The last day off was in October, 2007. While the official event is over, I'll still keep blogging until I want to take a day off. It's so ingrained to post that if I haven't by 10:30, panic sets in. I don't think I can rewire myself all that easily. Heck, Joyce got accustomed to many days of the second half of the year having 2 posts!

2. I fulfilled my goal of commenting on at least three blogs a day. It was probably 5 a day, but I didn't keep records. The blog also went from 20-25 daily readers to 45 average readers. I'm happy to make the new friends, thanks for joining me!

3. I completed the Next Food Network Star Audition and submitted it. No, I haven't heard from them and probably won't, but it was a good learning experience. It was a lot of fun creating new recipes all year long.

4. Twitter and Facebook has brought many new (and returned old) friends into my life. Hitting a thousand tweets is a lot easier than a thousand blog entries (that will arrive in the coming couple of weeks-25 left to go!). Blogging has brought even more friends.

5. My leg has settled down and doesn't require weekly doctor visits. No, not great, but I don't want to hacksaw it off most days anymore! I've learned that the walker is my friend.

6. The kids have made good friends in the new neighborhood, though I'm still adjusting to having five or six boys in the house-LOUD is an understatement.

7. One of my online friends who we'd see when they visited WDW moved here in July. We feared that Maureen would think we were crazy people and not want to hang with us like Bob. Thankfully, she tolerates the strange well-and we enjoy getting together with them every now and then. Just wish it were more often. (on a similar note, I keep postponing meeting up with another online friend, but that's going to happen soon, right?)

8. I've learned what living on a shoestring really is that when I do have a job again? The bank account will grow quickly.

9. We dodge another hurricane, but it wasn't named after a relative, anyway! 2009 is worrisome, because Bill (my stepdad) will visit and Fred (Ed's uncle) is on the list, too. If we get to Peter, we're in a world of trouble. Then again, Bill lives here, so maybe the hurricanes that do come to call have to be named after relations that don't already reside in Florida-and we're not sure about Ed's family cursing us on the hurricane front. Soooooooo, batten down the hatches for Peter!

10. Might as well make this an even ten, right? According to Neil at Citizen of the Month, the color underwear you are wearing to ring in the new year symbolizes what you desire for the coming year. Red for finding love, yellow for money in Mexican culture-and yellow brings positive energy to the Peruvian way of thinking. Black is bad juju.

I'm going to cut this short, I need to go buy some yellow underwear. Just as soon as I get all these kids out of my house.

Happy New Year, everyone. 2009 certainly will be an improvement over 2008!!!!