2009 review, somewhat late.

Well, let's see. I'm not going to do a decade in review post like so many you see. This decade has simply contained too much. I mean, really. Ten years ago I was a junior in high school. How can you NOT be different ten years later?

2009 was big enough on its own. I'm chalking it up to a pretty crappy year, but all things considered, we had our family, we had our health, and we had our daily dose of Bella, and that counts for a LOT.

2009 started getting stressful in February when my husband was laid off. The economy was tanking and there were no jobs to be found. I basically went back to work full time, which was an interesting test of whether I could be the breadwinner. I hated it. I was still nursing Bella full time, and people just don't understand what it means to have full boobs and NEED to pump.

In April, Bella turned one. That one caught me off guard. At the end of the month, we took a family vacation to the place we were married, Hood River, as a kind of last hurrah before Dave sold his soul to his new job.

July was a monumental month, as I got to be at a friend's birth and then Bella and I went on a wonderful two week trip to the east coast and tried to fit in as many things as humanly possible, driving from Virginia, to Pennsylvania, to New Hampshire, and back.

We came back to an incredible heat wave and all the stress started crashing down on us as Dave's job was still not making any money. That's pretty much where we've been ever since! Who knew that money could be so stressful, even when everything else in your life is going right.

In October we found out we were pregnant. We thought we'd "start trying" but apparently I forgot that you're most fertile between 18-24 months after you have your previous child... so once was enough, I suppose.

November sort of passed by with me in bed. Or on the floor. Or on the couch. Or in the bathroom. Occasionally smacking myself on the head for thinking this was a good idea. And then we moved into a house.

And then we stressed, stressed some more, Christmas came, so did my parents, 2009 left, and so did my parents. (We miss you terribly, parents.)

And here we are. I can only hope 2010 will be the year things turn around. Not so far, but maybe soon. I'd like it to go down as the year Dave got a good job, the year we got out of debt, the year we became a family of four, the year I started a successful business. I mean, it could happen, right?