Reflections on the year.

I updated my site a little early. So it’s not quite 2010 yet, but it says it is, because I could just tell that the next time I thought of updating the graphic would be sometime in February. Better to strike while the iron is hot, I say.

Right now I’m enjoying a beautiful sunset, with the fire and all my candles lit. I have to say that 2009 was a good year for me. It was an incredibly stressful year, to be sure: impending layoffs in February, which I fortunately wasn’t a part of; Casey getting sick in April and needing hundreds of dollars in vet visits and round-the-clock care; buying the house. My God, at some points I thought I was going to lose my mind. Fortunately, I didn’t, and even the stressful events had happy endings. Casey’s lost a ton of weight (from 19 lbs down to about 8 or 9), but he’s responding well to the medication and is practically his old cheery self (he’d be more cheery if Moocher weren’t around to hog the limelight). The house is everything I thought it could be and more, and for less money than even my most wildly optimistic estimates. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the new LCD television. And the holidays were great. Work was very low-stress with a reasonable workload, which borders on the miraculous. I’ve been able to take a few days off and enjoy the season. My family had a wonderful time at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we all got along great, also miraculous. Considering how many people spent 2009 trying to stay in front of an avalanche of shit, excuse the metaphor, I feel very, very lucky indeed.

So, what’s in store for 2010? Well, the Chinese are going to discover life on Titan and Dave Bowman is going to rematerialize in his interdimensional form. Just kidding. (Nerd humor.) I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to a few upcoming incidents. Once I get my W-2 in a month, I plan to file my taxes as quickly as humanly possible, and score that $8000 tax credit. After celebrating for about 5 minutes, I’ll then use that to pay off my car loan, which will be a huge financial coup for me (I’ve only had the car a year and a half). Since 2010 was something of an expensive year (TV, vet bills, paint for the house, etc), I plan to pay off my credit card again, and try to keep my debt footprint to a minimum. And I’ve decided that it’s high time I saw some of the world, so I plan to begin putting money aside for a vacation fund, get my passport, and start boldly going where I haven’t gone before, starting in 2011. I’ve got plenty of vacation time racked up, and I’ve been to Florida enough times that going there is a slightly more expensive version of staying home. Time to visit some new places and take some new pictures!

But tonight will be a calm and lazy night (as they all are, to a certain extent). Eat a few cookies, watch some Ghost Hunters, doze on the couch, play Sims 3 World Adventures. It’s going to be great, I can feel it!