The End of 2009

It's the last day of 2009...a decade since the Millenium. I've read some great posts already today--fellow bloggers looking back over their years, the highlights, the regrets, the hopes and resolutions for next year. I'd like to do the same, but somehow it seems like such a task! How did they do it? Look back over a whole year and pick out the best, the worst, the most memorable? It would take me a very long time--and I'm not great at looking back, anyway.

Two thousand nine was a busy year, I realize now as I look back on it. It was a year of travel and health issues for me, growth and change for my son. We went on our second trip to Italy--the Amalfi Coast and Rome; we took my son out west to the Grand Canyon and surrounds. We celebrated our anniversary one month, then visited family the next month in Virginia. Over the summer, I drafted my son into working at my office, and it had a very positive effect on him in several ways. We started driving lessons around the cul-de-sac. He's continued to progress with his music and schoolwork. For the most part, the teen seems to have found balance between his father and me, without the love/hate thing that used to go on.

In mid-July, I started this blog--my first--and with this post, will have 61 posts in 2009. There were some times I wished I had written more, but I'm content with how it's gone. I love my new blogging friends, too!

Health has been an issue this year (my mother used to say you fall apart after 40--maybe it's a family trait.) I started the year with what used to be my constant wintertime sinus problems...then went to an ENT, an allergist, and soon started allergy shots, which have been a godsend. Then came the newly diagnosed hypertension, sprained ankle, and abdominal surgery...which took forever to get over. Finally, the bronchitis/asthma double whammy for the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years season.

As for the world, I've had to cheat a bit and look at summaries in the net news. (There are summaries of the year for almost every category out there--news, politics, deaths, celebrity news...you name it!)

We started the year with the Blagojevich scandal--(trying to sell Obama's Senate seat, if you can believe that!) and the inaugeration of the first black president of the U.S. Soon, '09 brought us Octo-mom, with her six other kids; the bank bailouts; and brought Slumdog Millionaire 8 Oscars. This walk down memory lane is getting fun! Soon came the collapse of AIG amid huge bonuses to executives; the exposure of Bernard Madoff's ponzi scheme which lost $65 billion for investors (many of them charities) and Chrysler declared bankruptcy in April and then GM first declares bankruptcy, then ditches Saturn, Hummer, and later Saab.

We still haven't forgotten "Swine Flu" (H1N1) which first hit the news in April; Justice David Souter retired from the Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in. There were the Somali pirates, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford "hiking the Appalacian"...really with his Argentinian lover; Sarah Palin resigning as Alaska's governor. This past year brought the deaths of Walter Cronkite, Edward Kennedy, Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Michael Jackson, David Carradine, Billy Mayes, and John Travolta's son Jett.

Also in 2009 "Jon and Kate Plus 8" fell apart but two very good TV shows began: "In Plain Sight" and "The Good Wife;" the "Beer Summit" at the White House after the Henry Louis Gates Jr. incident; pythons in the Everglades; "balloon boy" and his lying parents; Tiger Woods has a scandal; the healthcare debate; the Air France jet which was lost over the Atlantic near Brazil; the space shuttle mission to repair the Hubbell telescope (previously determined to be too expensive--so glad they did that!) while the two Mars rovers continued into their sixth year exploring the red planet (they were expected to last mere months); we were bouyed by the heroic work of Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger putting the Airbus A320 down in the Hudson; and the Phillies returned to the World Series but lose to the notorious Yankees.

It has been an eventful year all around! Happy 2010 to All!!