2009 and the 00's in Review

Well here we sit at the end of the year. I was looking back at the posts from the beginning of the year looking for that "Here's what I'm going to do this year post".

So let's see. I said I was going to learn photoshop. Done and Done. I find the program very useful and have gotten pretty good at taking good pictures and just touching them up to give them that bit of pizzaz and also using it to fix pictures that are totally screwed up due to bad exposure settings or what not.

My Dad, Jason and I had all planned on reading "I'm a Strange Loop". Didn't so much happen. But we can put that on the burner for this year.

Go to the YMCA ALL THE TIME! Yeah...seriously went like 5 times.

Travel to Zurich. Done and Done.

No where in that post did we talk about the the "Let's Try and Make a Baby" plan. Turns out that is what 2009 ended up being and go figure we made a pretty awesome little girl. The whole year ended up being somewhat consumed by preparing for her arrival. In the "Here's what I'm going to do this year post" I say, "Our little family unit is 180 from where we were last year" and I think I can safely say that again this year. This time last year Jason and I found ourselves seated at Sheffields most evenings for delicious beers and bbq, or out with work crowds downtown. Now we just find ourselves staring at the little one and wondering what the hell she is thinking and looking at and learning and it's just amazing!

And what will become of 2010? Who the hell knows but I can only hope that it's as exciting as the last few years have been. I like the being 180 from where I was the year before...although...you keep going 180 don't you just end up back where you started two years previous? Wait...what the what? Anyways.

2009 is also the end of quite a decade. I was talking to Jason and I was like...wow, at the end of the last decade I was 20. I mean..wow I can do math right? But seriously I was at a New Years Eve party in Chicago with friends from Indiana.

I was still an undergrad and only in my junior year of a physics degree. 10 years later and I have a PhD in the subject and had a ton of fun getting it. We got to work at the biggest lab on the planet at the time and I measured something more precisely than anyone else had (and it still stands as far as I know).

Jason and I weren't even dating 10 years ago. We were very good friends, but didn't start dating until May of 2000...wow that's so weird to think about. Now we are married and have this wonderful little person that is half of each of us.

During the decade we never really had any money but didn't let it stop us from traveling to Europe and the Caribbean and living in Chicago even though we were working out in Bativia. Of course if we hadn't done those things we probably wouldn't have been quite as poor...but I would never ever give up those days. We laugh now at the shithole apartments we lived in because we didn't have a choice, but I mean really the Iowa Street apartment? What the fuck were we thinking?

We grew up in the 00's. We dated, we broke up, we dated, we got married and along the way became even closer friends than I could have imagined. How many people marry their best friend? I mean really! I am so lucky. And little Lucy? Well she's going to grow up with two wacky ass parents. We of course aren't finding ourselves at Sheffields every night for beer and bbq, but we are still planning on a trip to Europe this coming year and because we can we are planning on Little Miss Lucy coming with us. Just because you have a baby doesn't mean that *everything* has to change. Of course....as long as Miss Lucy is under the age of two her seat on the flight is free....so that might have something to do with it.

And so we close out the decade miles and miles from where we entered it. I'm thinking the 10's are going to be just as amazing.