i've mentioned this before, but last year was a very full year for me . . . for us.

the year didn't start off too well and i lost a couple of friends. one of those relationships is now on the way to healing, thank goodness. i don't think she knows how much i've appreciated talking to her again. i worry that i'm too . . . whatever it is i was when she decided she didn't want me around in the first place, but i also know that as much as i need to be considerate of her, i can't be someone other than who i am. unfortunately for some, that means bubbly, bouncy, energetic, sometimes pushy. but it also means creative, encouraging, accepting of others as they are, and a few other not so threatening things. so far things are going good. maybe the first experience has her better prepared?

and i know how that must sound. i like who i am, but i know i can be too much for some people. i don't want to be anyone different than who i am, and i know you can't get along with everyone - there are just some people who don't get along well even if they want to. that's just the reality of it, and i try very hard to not let relationship failures make me feel bad about me. you never know what you're getting into when you meet someone. so i try to see my time in someone else's life as a gift - the gift of themselves to me and of myself to them. if the gift isn't to our liking, well, there's always some small blessing in having known someone, always something you've learned from the other even if it's a small thing.

i set aside my dreams of an m.a. for awhile. there's the matter of time, of a family that needs the support my current degree allows me to give, of a husband who has set aside his education to help me forward my writing. the good news is that the year ended with both of us employed. it crunched the whole time thing even more, but it made the other two concerns easier to reach. you don't need a masters degree to teach middle school or to write a book. i still have my novels, which i am still working on quite busily as i can. in a few years, when we're all settled and things have been stable for a bit, if i don't have an agent or the novels aren't selling well at all, then i can look back into the m.a. for now, i think i'm content where i am.

i had some wonderful successes in my writing. i finished the third revision of my novel, I GOT MY FIRST PAID PUBLICATION . . . ahem, and i finished the rough draft of my second novel. i wrote over 250k in novels drafts, stories and their revisions, class lectures, and so on. i now have 11 stories and 4 poems making the market rounds, with more shorts and poems in progress. i also have 3 novels and a nonfic book in the works.

my father died last year. more accurately, my stepfather, but he did most of the raising of me before i was 12. after i was 12, i saw him maybe once a year until i was 17. there's not much to say about him - i didn't know him, he didn't know me, and the time passed too quickly for us to correct that. i tried once, gave up when he was nonresponsive. from what mcat has indicated, even time probably would not have helped.

somewhere out there i apparently have an adopted younger sister i never knew about. as with my father, there's not much to say about that. no one saw fit to tell me about her until i moved out here with mcat, and it was mjay who let that one out.

it's very weird having a family so fragmented that you didn't even know you had a younger sibling. weird and sad. i hope i've raised my kids better than that, i hope i've raised them with the sense that we are a family and need to stay in touch.

it was a tough year for us financially. what else is new, right? at least now we're employed and things look like they will finally pick up. all we have to do is hang on a little longer and get past the holidays. it's nice to know that we have more than a tax return to save our rears for once. it's even better that i actually like the job so far.

then there's The Move. from cali to georgia. it took everything we had, everything mcat and family had, everything a few others had. it stressed out adults, kids, and animals alike. it was exhausting. and that's before we even got in the car. several times it looked like it just wouldn't happen, but things kept finding a way to work out. there was a lot of prepping, a lot of waiting, flurries of movement interspersed with moments where nothing was done. the trip was nice, even if the pets hated it. things have been shaky since the move, we're still in boxes and have maybe a dozen pieces of furniture to our names, and there were a few times there when i wondered if it was a good thing.

but, it is a good thing. we're seeing that more and more every day now. we're going towards a stronger financial future and taz is doing so much better. we miss kitten and saxy's folks - it was a very odd holiday without them over for christmas day dinner - but it really was a good thing for us. for once we can see a future that just might not involve bill collectors, that allows us to meet needs as well as have a few luxuries without having to push aside everything just to have a good time, and just maybe we can stop telling the kids 'no' because we're so broke. no we can tell them no for other reasons if we want. course, the downside of that is coming up with other reasons. ;)

the only part of the move i haven't liked is losing my last year with my oldest. but she came to visit, and she's doing well, and seems to be being a responsible girl. i'm very proud of her. we're hoping she'll come out here to live after she graduates, but that will be up to her. the kiddles are all growing up, getting ready to try their wings. in this case, it just seems to have happened a little earlier than planned.

there were a lot of doctor visits for us. visits for saxy to get checked up, visits for my usual issues and to update my meds and make sure my medical stuff is all under control, visits for the kids for checkups and meds and all that, kitten's first gyno appointment, and on and on. there were more visits when we reached georgia to check on their sight and hearing and teeth for school, to update their shot records, for meds for the littles, and so on. and it looks like i need to get in to see a doctor again soon for my asthma, among other things. that's the thing when you have disabilities in a family. you tend to see the doctor a lot more than others. and we have 3 people with disabilities and health issues that require meds and monitoring. course, this year even the pets saw the vet a time or two more than usual. so, lots of doctor visits of all kinds. on a good note, we haven't been as sick as i feared we would be.

we didn't celebrate the holidays in the usual fashion in 2004, but we're all fine with it. even the kids seemed to be okay with it. we're already looking forward this year's holidays and thinking about what we want to do for them. we did spend the holidays with family and had a good time, and we did have a present opening when kitten and linnorm arrived. we also did our first mass christmas card mailing in years. so it's not that we didn't celebrate at all, just that we didn't celebrate in our usual ways.

i learned a lot about myself. i learned about what dosage i can tolerate with me adderall. i learned that i can indeed read and use a map - a big accomplishment for a woman who gets lost walking out her front door in an area she's lived in for years. i learned that i don't want to teach high school if i go full time. i learned i may have another allergy, but we're hoping it's just a reaction to being a new area with different bugs and such than the area we're used to. i learned i like being able to get out and get around. well, okay, i knew that already, but i had the opportunity to learn it anew. i learned my hermitism isn't a fatal disease and can be overcome. i learned that there are now changes in some of my medical conditions that have to be looked into and well taken care of. i learned my control is weaker when i'm tired than when i'm sick - and i've been tired a lot lately. and i learned i can get up at 5:30 on a rather consistent basis, and be asleep before 2:30 a.m. and that's a big step forward for this night owl. course, i always start migrating back to my night owl hours, if given half a chance - which means this next week is going to be tough. i should start working again.

see? a full year. and all of this was just the BIG stuff.

i don't usually make resolutions, but i think i'd like to try for one this year: a little more peace, a little less stress and drama. a quiet year would be great.

unless it involves publication, of course. i'll take that excitement any time. ;)