Reflecting on 2008

So yesterday was an evaluation, today it’s a look back on the year that was 2008. There have been a lot of changes this past year.

Amy started third grade. Wow, that is completely different than it has been the past three years (K – 2). The homework load has increased, the things they are learning is definitely not what I was learning in 3rd grade. How many third graders do you know doing algebra? And her reading level, well that’s beyond elementary level now. I think her latest book she checked out what considered 7th grade reading level. Yes, she is that smart.

Traveling. We did a lot this  year. I was able to take a week, by myself, and share it with my aunt and mom, doing the things we enjoy most. We took a great family vacation over the summer, just the three of us.  A real vacation, not one squeezed into a business trip. Then we took another trip in the fall – a whirlwind trip, but we got to spend time with family that we don’t often get to see. Amy has gotten to see a lot of different parts of our great country, with many more to come. And it is my hope that she will get to see more of the world too.

Dean’s job took him to 3/4 time. And that meant a pay cut. But it also meant he would be home one entire week a month. And after traveling pretty much non-stop for a year, we were all ready for the change. We made the necessary adjustments to the budget (or so I thought), and were able to schedule things and do things that had been pushed aside for a time.

Then we come to our finances — did we really spend that much on the credit card? I mean we paid it off every month, but what in the world did we buy? Because of the previously mentioned pay cut, we did cut back our spending. But I am still baffled at the amount we spent instead of saved. I’m not one for new years resolutions, but that was a wake up call to see that so starkly and something will change, and before the new year too.

Our relationships. This is hard. Because we left what was our home church, to go plant another church in another area, and in the process discovered that some of the relationships we had were pretty one sided. And that hurt. A lot. I wasn’t expecting that level of shallowness and was quite frankly, blindsided by it. I’ve put it behind me now, but because of that, it has made me a little more guarded, and that is a part of me I don’t like. On the flip side of that, we have made new friends and taken some of our other relationships to another level that woulnd’t have happened if it hadn’t been for this change. So in the end, it’s all good.

Writing – in 2008 (at the age of 41) I finally realized after all these years that writing truly is one of my passions. I started when I was 9 and haven’t stopped. I do wish I still had some of my journals from years ago. But maybe it is better off that I don’t. But thanks to the encouragement I have received from many different friends, and even people I don’t know, I have given myself the chance to try at something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ve just been to scared of failure to do it. But I realized that if I don’t try, then complacency is even worse than failure. Even if I fail, as long as I try and learn something from the experience, I am better off than if I didn’t try at all.

So here’s looking forward to 2009 and what it has to bring.