Blogging Recap

To prepare for the New Year I'm going to go ahead and steal Peggy's great idea of posting a blog recap from the past year. Not only is this a great idea, but I have two personal reasons for doing this. For one thing, I've had such a hectic year I've forgotten most of it and I wanted to reminisce. For a second thing, I think I have a selective memory and the part of the year I remember is the part I'd rather not remember so I'm going to psychologically reverse my memory patterns through blog therapy. So here goes:

January was cold (since we were in Minnesota). We said good-bye to my mom and brother's last winter-break trip to Minnesota, we went to many good restaurants and took a big trip to Chicago where I bought the coolest boots ever, and I procrastinated writing my thesis by doing taxes.

February was the month we discovered Neopolitan-style pizza at Punch Pizza in St. Paul. Oh, my, that's good stuff. We also went to a gay version of Swan Lake, we forgot to watch the winter olympics, I won boggle, and my Studly Hubby animated like a mad maniac. I did a crucial experiment necessary to finalize my thesis, but there's no mention of actually working on the thesis.

March was scary-busy. I remember it as The Nightmare of 2006, but looking back through my posts I see already that my blog-therapy is working because there was a lot of fun stuff in there too. I partied with my girls at a neighborhood restaurant, went to Orlando for a conference where I soaked up some sun and visited Epcott and Sea World, we got a heapload of snow, and my cousin got married! The part that sucked was that I gave my first conference-talk at the above-mentioned conference and I wrote an entire grant, plus I renewed my CPR training.

April marked the commemorative start of Dairy Queen season, and we walked there for the first time in 2006 on April 1. I also got my first electric toothbrush and made a mess of the bathroom trying to use it. I celebrated my birthday three days in a row, and then the big tornado hit Iowa City, IA (my hometown). I also got the bulk of my thesis written during April and scheduled my defense, although I only mention it in a few posts - another month where blog-therapy helps change my version of history.

May was the month I finally graduated. Unfortunately this seems like a small blip in the radar of the Nightmare Spring of 2006, but I did spend a great deal of time blogging about it - I cleaned house, had a party, invited my mom and brother up, and took a long weekend trip to Iowa to celebrate with my family. Then the next round of chaos started - my mom and dad (who live in separate states) both announced they're moving, I sold my horse, and two of my brothers graduated from high school. Meanwhile a good friend of mine qualified for the Boston Marathon. Whew!

June was the month I was hoping to catch my breath, but reading back over my blog posts I see now why I didn't. We started packing, I helped move my mom out of the farmhouse she's lived in for the past 20 yrs, and we took a short trip to Seattle to rent an apartment. Then I spent some time fretting about the apartment (the one I'm in now), and went to hot yoga a few times to ward off the stress. Meanwhile I was trying to get things finished up at work and trying to enjoy a little bit of spring (some cute squirrels were mentioned).

July was all about packing and moving to Seattle - and the dead cat we found in our backyard the first morning we woke up in our new apartment.

August was a string of new experiences: we explored Seattle, moved into our new apt, started new jobs, went to Boulder CO for the first time and I got traumatized by all the nature in Cold Spring Harbor NY during a conference.

September was a bit calmer (finally). We unpacked, explored greater Seattle a bit more (including a quite memorable hike at Mount Ranier), and settled down to watch some Netflix movies.

October was also a lot calmer. I talked about getting a dog a lot (never did get that dog) and we house-sat for a very cute schipperke. I posted some about the georgeous fall weather here and fall colors, then we went on a second and even better hike up Little Si.

November brought our first trip back to Iowa and four Thanksgiving feasts there (we are still recovering from all that turkey), plus a 10-yr high school reunion. I also voted, and got trained to work with RADIOACTIVITY.

December, and 2006, is about to finish up (in four hours) and mark my 5th month in Seattle. We started going to Quaker church, I worked on some radioactive experiments, and then my mom and brother came up for an awesome week in Seattle.

Happy New Year everyone! This has been one fun-packed year and I hope next year is even more fun (although maybe a little less packed).