Here we are on the last day of 2010. Eating eggs and bacon and watching Sponge Bob. We have no big plans for the night, but Audrey gave up a chance to spend the weekend with a friend because she wanted to spend New Years Eve with her family, so we better make it rock. The kids want to make homemade french fries and burgers for dinner. We will probably watch a movie and play some games, and watch the ball drop. Will has requested bubbly drink. I am pretty sure we will all make it to midnight, since we have spent the entire week staying up late every night and sleeping in every morning. It is just a little bit scary how good we are at being lazy, and how much we like it.
There is no news on our plumbing issues. I am going with the theory that no news is good news. And as promised, and before we get bad news on the sewer that will ruin my mood and make me want to swear, here are the highlights, humble though they may be, of our past year.
In January, after several weeks of looking, we finally found a house we thought we could call home: 3700 square feet, six bedrooms, 2 finished baths and another roughed in, and at the end of a quiet street in a nice neighborhood. We looked at it once and really liked it, but ruled it out, due to the unfinished family room in the basement and the lack of many things in the backyard. Like space. And a fence. And a deck. After looking at a bunch of other houses, though, we came back to this house, and decided that everything it lacked we could add, and in terms of space and location, it was the best deal for the money. And it had a front porch, which was was a huge draw for us, not to mention a gigantic master bathroom.
Which leads to the other good thing we did this year, and that was finishing our basement bathroom, and moving into the realm of an official three bathroom family. It was our first time doing any kind of room finishing, and boy did we learn a lot, especially about caulking in bathtub surrounds (you want to paint first, then caulk). And there are still a few weird little glitches, like the hot and cold water faucets are mixed up in both the sink and the shower. But it's stuff like that that make a house feel like a home.......right?
Home schooling was another adventure we undertook this year. We home schooled from March, when we moved, to June, so that Duncan and Will could start fresh in the fall at high school and junior high, rather than having to go back to junior high and elementary for three months. Home schooling was fun in lots of ways, and there are definite advantages that I wish we could have all the time. But I don' t think I was very good at it. And it was really hard to do while trying to work. But spending more time with my kids was a great part of the year.
Dan and I ran in our first 5k in May. We did the Race for the Cure at the Gateway in Salt Lake. I have never seen more people in one place. It was CRAZY but fun, and we got lots of swag. And I would swear that it was not really a 5k- it just didn't seem long enough. I was patting myself on the back big time, about what great shape I must be in, to knock out a 5k with so little effort. Then in July we ran a 5k in Clearfield. It was the 4th of July, but it was COLD. And uphill. And seemed waaay longer than 3 miles. And I realized I was not in such great shape. I was mostly just a slug still, with slightly improved lung capacity. Will we run more this year? That remains to be seen. We have been gym slackers for the past month, and if we don't get back into gear soon, it may never happen.
At the end of June, our house in Logan finally rented, and what a relief that was! We spent a good part of April and May fixing it up, painting and cleaning. The family living there has done quite a bit of work on it, and are good at doing some of the little repairs that just pop up. So far they have been really low maintenance tenants, and as long as they pay the rent, they are welcome to stay. Unless the sewer issues drive them away....
And then there were the day to day things that brightened up the year:
Our lost cat Hokey came back. Some of us were happier about that than others.
We finally got nightstands, after 22 YEARS of marriage. Don't ask.
In September, me and the kids did our White Pine Lake hike. That's worth mentioning, because it is as close to a camping trip as we got this year. And it was a most excellent day.
Audrey won the ward Halloween party costume contest for her Kraft Macaroni and Cheese box.
And that is about it. Those are our 2010 high points.
Hopefully, this goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway: Most of what made 2010 good was all the things that didn't happen, that we don't think too much about, partly because we take them for granted and partly because we don't want to think about those things unless we have to. We are all here together at the end of another year. We are employed, and even have new opportunities coming our way. We have a place to live, and food to eat. With the great big fat exception of our mortgage, we are less in debt than we were this time last year. We are all healthy. And on most days and in most ways, we are functional. What more could anybody ask for?
No comments:
Post a Comment