Par-ty! Par-ty! Par-ty!

Hey! It's a new year! Welcome 2010!

Ages ago, when I was in college, 2010 was the address of THE party house for the theatre department, you know, "Party at twenty-ten!". I can't even say "two thousand and ten" -- it just won't come out of my mouth. I think that there was a standing order for a party there every weekend (and many a weekday). This is, in fact the location of the first kiss I shared with my not-yet-husband many moons ago... Like 17 years ago. Is that right? Holy crap, I'm old...

2009 ended in a vastly different place than I thought it would when I look back to where we were a year ago. Here's the recap!

January: Cold, cold, cold. I had good plans to exercise daily, even going as far as blocking off time on my calendar. I actually did pretty well with this goal, at least for this month. One of my supervisors left and I moved (temporarily) into her old office so that I was closer to students in that program. As a result of the move, I got to use a faster computer. This made me more effective for everything I did, so I was happy with that. I wasn't happy that the office was routinely only 63 degrees and had a breeze...

February: Why can't I remember this month? What happened?

March: Scott celebrated his three-dozenth birthday. He traveled several times, and during one of those trips I came down with an awful, horrible tummy bug and I vomit and pass out in front of my children. That was pretty bad. I don't want to revisit that experience.

April: Busy month -- Scott did a show, I traveled to my last skating competition, and the kids kept growing. Milo continued to follow daddy's interests in Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Violet learned to dress and undress herself. She started talking more, too. We began landscaping the backyard and talk of expanding the swing set because we're "going to be in this house for a while."

May: Scott traveled again, this time to NYC. There had been some talk of me going with him for part of the trip, but it was probably a good thing I didn't as I came down with a freak case of pneumonia and ended up arguing with my physician that she couldn't hospitalize me "because I'm the only parent at home right now!" I paid a babysitter $100 to stay over night in case I was too sick to take care of the kids. After all of the traveling, we managed to get some good family time in and we enjoyed the lush Iowa spring.

June: I got a new supervisor at work! Yay! Who could ask for a better birthday present? Then we traveled to California where we spent two whole weeks with friends, mostly being lazy, but also enjoying the sun, sand, and our friends. I got very excited thinking I might be pregnant, but I wasn't. The kids loved the beach and Milo got to beat Darth Vader in a light saber duel on his fourth birthday.

July: I participated in several committee meetings on campus and feel very good about the feedback I gave and received. I enjoyed getting to know my new colleague and turning over some of her new duties to her. I also sat back and breathed a bit about life in general. We refinanced the house, took a trip to Chicago to meet my on-line mommy friends, and otherwise enjoyed a busy month. Although my family very much enjoyed the trip to Chicago, I decided that the next meet-up will be a mommy-only affair as I was envious of the window shopping and cocktailing my friends did.

August: With both supervisors back on campus, we started gearing up for the new school year. Suddenly, the stuff I have to do seemed less intimidating as I'm not trying to do it and someone else's job. I enjoyed this feeling! We prepped Milo for school and he was alternately excited and terrified. Violet returned happily to daycare and was instantly the sitter's pet. Scott started working on one of the shows he designed. The fall looked busy, fortunately not as busy as last fall, but Scott's schedule, in particular, was daunting as the holidays approached.

September: Violet turned 2! Milo broke his arm! He went on his first ever field trip! I chaperoned my first field trip! We looked at a house and placed an offer on it! It is accepted! And holy-crap-we've-got-to-sell-our-home-ASAP. ASAP.

October: Well, what do you know? Our house sold ASAP on October 3, so we (me) started packing, packing, packing. Halloween was fun, but I can't remember much more than packing, packing, packing. And Milo got his cast off, yeah, that happened in October.

November: MOVE! Got used to driving a little further to work. Got used to having enough room for all of our stuff. I like that feeling! Bought six gallons of paint with the goal of having the entire downstairs (save the kitchen and my bathroom) painted by the new year. Started with the room in which the Christmas tree will live as the gag-a-liscious mauve bird poop faux finish will NOT appear in my Christmas photos. Also had a nasty cyst removed from my leg -- that bugger needed to be packed and dressed four times...

December: Oh, this month dragged on as Scott toured with the Christmas spectacular and took his annual deer hunting trip with his brothers. I had a ton of events on campus this month and raced about on a broken toe trying to photograph everything I'm supposed to shoot. Then I spent the last half-week at work in lazy party mode. Eh... I was even bored enough that I tried starting the novel that lives in my brain and wrote the most awful tripe. Yes, I deleted it. I painted two and a half more rooms and am 1/2 a room short of my goal of having the whole main level painted by the new year. I finished the half room on New Year's Day. Close enough! I also made a guest post on a friend's blog. It was kinda fun and I liked swearing in a blog post. I don't do that often enough. Fu#k. Da&n. Sh%t.

Spent the last night of 2009 falling asleep at 11:30 with Scotty whooshing away wearing his bi-pap next to me in our new home. Pretty good ending (except that I'm still not pregnant).

What will 2010 bring? Stay tuned for further updates...