A look at the year past, and the year ahead

Things will be back full swing in the next week or so. It was fun to have some time off and to get to spend so much time with my family. Daniel has kept me in stitches! The older he gets and the more his personality develops, the funnier he is.

It is hard to believe it is a new year already. As cliche as it sounds, it REALLY does seem like just yesterday we were doing New Year's Eve 2008.

This past year held a LOT of changes for me and my family.

Jeff and I had plans to do a wedding in Sept of 2008. Around the first of the year, my company offered me a promotion to branch manager of a new office they were opening in Jackson, MS. We were not sure exactly when we would be moving, but we knew we would be so we decided to forgo the wedding and just go to the courthouse. BEST decision we have ever made. I got to wear my blue jeans to get hitched in!

On February 12, 2008 a very close friend of mine committed suicide. I still think of Mike on a daily basis and still miss him as much as I when it first happened. Probably always will. 17 days later, I got married. February 2008 was a roller coaster of emotions for me to say the least!

March brought my birthday and the news that I was going to Lexington, KY not Jackson, MS.

I left for KY on the morning of April 2nd. I spent 2 weeks on my own, looking for a place to live and getting to know the area. Jeff came up and found a job, and we headed back to AL to pack. 2 days later everything we owned was in Lexington with me and my husband was headed back to AL to work out his last week. He called me that Wed to tell me that his grandmother, who had been in the hospital for about a month, was not going to make it. I went back to AL for the funeral, and then we both headed to KY together. We spent a few weeks on our own and that brings us to May.

May 9th we headed down to AL to pick up Daniel from my parents. They had kept him for us until we got everything settled in and had found him a daycare. Both of our families met and we celebrated Daniel's birthday and Mother's Day at the same time. We headed back to KY as a family, finally.

June and July were spent exploring our new home, and taking mini camping vacations on the weekends.

August we headed back to AL so Jeff and his brother could go skydiving. Daniel was going to spend the month with my Mom and Dad, as they were planning on visiting over Labor Day weekend. Jeff and I enjoyed a bit of peace and quiet (that went by WAY too fast), and exploring more of our new home.

September I made a trip to AL for my best friends wedding. Then we had to turn around and go back down 2 weeks later because Jeff's Aunt died.

October I spent making our Halloween costumes, and decorating for my favorite holiday.

November I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. We spent a nice quiet holiday by ourselves. We also got our first snowfall of the year. I saw more snow in November than I have my whole life I think. Even if it did not stick it snowed.

December was spent making gifts for everyone and decorating for Christmas. We rode around and looked at Christmas lights and spent a lot of time as a family. We had a wonderful Christmas and I enjoyed some much needed vacation time.

The New Year was spent with some new friends we have made in KY, playing Wii games and enjoying each other's company.

In the past few months, I have been looking at ways to save money, live more simply, and look for ways to have less of an impact on the Earth. I am still learning and exploring new ways to do all of those things, and in the next few months I hope to share some of what I am doing and hopefully I can gain some new ideas from all of you who read my blog, and whose blogs I read.

I also am going to try and set up an emergency fund. Right now if one of our cars was to break down or anything major like that, we would not be able to afford the repairs or living expenses. My goal is to save at least a small amount every week, and build up a small emergency fund. Ideally you should have 3-6 months of expenses in an emergency fund, and eventually I would like to build up to that. My short term goal is to build up at least $1500 in SAVINGS.

I talked about Daniel-isms in a post a week or so ago. I am going to try and make that at least a weekly feature. Or at the rate he is going daily!

This has been a bit longer than I expected, but it got some of what has been going through my head the past few weeks out and in concrete form.

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year and will have a prosperous year to come!