Closing Out A Decade

In just a few short hours, a year will end….and so will a decade!  To say that this year has flown by would be an understatement.   An old saying tells us that the older we get, the faster the time flies by.  I believe it!  Recent years feel like I wake up on New Year’s morning, blink, and it is suddenly New Year’s Eve of a new year!

New Year’s Eve is a day of reflection — closing out and saying goodbye to a year past and celebrating the beginning of a year to come.  Going through a symbolic closure is important for our ability to successfully move on.  So, in keeping with the tradition of reflecting on the past, here are some of the key events that defined the past year and decade for me:

2009:

• Made it up to Mom’s three times and she made it down to my home twice!
• My brother and his wife made their first trip to my home.
• Made it to Hawaii!!!
• Finally got all the white walls in my house painted some of the most beautiful colors and it looks GREAT!
• Joined the Carolina Animal Rescue and Adoption (CARA) board.
• Reconnected with several of my old high school friends and attended a great reunion get together with a bunch of them!
• The Girls stopped eating and tearing up everything in sight!

The movies I liked the MOST in 2009:

• It’s Complicated
• The Blind Side
• Up
• Taken
• Hotel for Dogs

The movies I disliked the MOST in 2009:

• The Box
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
• The Last House of the Left

And now for the things that defined the past decade for me:

• Watch the turn of a new century
• Earned my Master’s Degree
• Bought my house
• Took on a new role at work
• Lost my precious Puddles after about 16 years of companionship
• Traveled all the way to Arizona just to be with a friend of about 45+ years on her 50th birthday party
• Enjoyed a wonderful trip to Las Vegas with Mom – a first for both of us!
• Was shocked and saddened by the events of 9/11 and the failing economy
• Experienced some health issues – some pretty serious – and learned to live with them and make life style accommodations
• Started this blog

So, how did I do on my 2009 Resolutions?

Not bad!!!  I went back to read the post I wrote on January 1st and think I honored the promises I made to myself pretty closely! 

The first one was to “take care of me first and stop worrying about things I have little or no control over” – I took better control of my health, maintained and renewed a membership at Natural Balance Medical Spa for monthly pampering appointments, and consistently stopped to remind myself to not get so stressed when things were out of my control.  I think I did a decent job of this — but I can still use some improvement there, so will continue to work on it!

The second one was to paint the interior walls in my house – DONE!!!

The third wasn’t as successful as I had hoped — it was to go out to eat less and cook more!  The intent was to let me focus on renewing my love of cooking and polish an old skill that I was good at and lost some of!  Well, I did do a fair amount of home cooking and even upgraded my kitchen appliances to help!  But, I have to be honest and say that it wasn’t as successful as I intended it to be —- so, I think this one needs to go back on the list to work on this year!

All in all, I think the year and the decade was good to me — some low points, but a lot of high points — I’ll have to give some thought to what I want to resolve to work on this year and put them in another post. 

For now, I am thankful to be able to ring in the New Year with my Mom and do it with good health and happiness for both of us!  Life is good!