до свидания 2008; Živijo 2009!

Shalom friends and few readers!

While I realize it's been a few weeks since my last posting, it is nonetheless much shorter of a time period than my previous gap in sharing the gab. And, it is indeed an apropos time to post; a time in which to reminisce about my previous year--the smiles, the tears, the laughter, the pains...yes, it's all there friends. (Well, except for tears, but still...there would have been tears if I could bring myself to do it as there were plenty of opportunities in which to let a little saline activity occur.) To re-cap this year of so many changes in my life, I shall go in chronological order of monthly activity. I will not remember all, I'm sure, but there are some biggies mixed in.

January: Possibly the biggest event of my year occurred in Januar; I officially began my own company. Depending upon the day, this was either the best decision I've ever made, or the worst idea I could have possibly had. :) The stress and time commitment can't even be described; yet, neither can the satisfaction. Many who know me think I have no issue with being proud of myself; truth be told, I have a hard time allowing myself to be proud of any accomplishment. Starting my company, however, was enough to let me be proud of myself. I know what has gone into it and what plans I have yet to fulfill with it and I can safely say, it's not been easy nor will it be any time soon. However, if it were easy, it wouldn't be worth having. I am so excited about the plans I have for my business in 2009! This will be my make it or break it year...let's hope that one year from now, I will be typing another blog stating how well things went.

February: I like to not think of February. This was the month in which I had a disastrous break-up that resulted in me being stalked for seven months until I had to take legal action. That seemed to do the trick, however, and life is good. The bulk of the month outside of this was spent getting in inventory, getting it all set up, and uploading it to my site.

March: Ah, March. This was the month in which the site officially opened. It required a ton of attention getting it all going; I also had gone through several seamstresses by this point (or seamstri if you will, which I'm sure you will). However, I found two amazing seamstresses that are still with me. (I also learned to not put all of my eggs in one basket and split out my product lines to two different people. This was one very important lesson.)

April: I don't remember much about April and there's not anything outstanding on my calendar, so we'll skip this month. I'm sure it was lovely though.

May: Hmmmm...same seems to be true for May. At this rate, we'll be caught up on the whole year in no time.

June: June was a great month! Actually, I just remembered what happened in June, so that explains what I did in April and May...I got ready for June. My grandma's 80th birthday was in June and we threw a huge surprise party for her. The party was held in Idaho in the town where she and my grandpa lived most of their married lives, but she now lives in Utah. Being in NC made it a bit difficult to wrap up all the party details, so I went to UT for the week prior to the party and helped get it all pulled together. It was an absolute blast! It was also during this month that my family abandoned me for a trip to Hawaii. Not that I'm bitter...

July: According to my calendar, I painted the office walls in July and I certainly recall how fun that was. In even more fun happenings, however, I headed off to Tucson for a few fun-filled days with friends there. I had an absolute blast. I came back at the first part of August. But also in August...

August: The weekend after Tucson, I headed off to Boston to help get my sister, Kami Jo, settled in for law school. I'm so proud of her! She's done so well thus far! My mom and I went for a few days and played tourists too. I cut my hand while putting together her dresser, I do recall. Otherwise, it was an incredibly great trip and I can't wait to go back...when it's warmer. I also went tubing on the Dan River in Virginia with a group of friends; it was one of the funnest things I've done in a long time and can't wait to do that again this next summer!

September: September was a month I'd much rather just forget as well. It was during September that I had the disastrous time at the Raleigh Wide Open. Just a week or two ago, I finally settled with Allstate for 10% of my actual losses. (Note to all: Do NOT ever use Allstate for insurance. You are not in good hands.) I'd prefer to just move on out of September; besides, there's a blog entry regarding those days anyway if you want to read up on that mess. Oh, but one interesting side note before leaving the subject--the other night I was going through my DVR recordings, cleaning out the old ones, when I came across the evening news for the night of the RWO. I had heard I was on the news (or at least my destroyed booth was) multiple times during the morning news. In fact, my roommate saw it on the news and then called me; this was how I first found out there was damage. Anyway, I had recorded the evening news but couldn't bring myself to watch it. I finally did the other night. My destroyed little mess was on there four times in one story! I'm so proud... (Note the sarcasm.)

October: October started off so fun with a trip to the Virginia mountains with friends. We rented a beautiful log "cabin" (read: "mansion") and got to see some amazing country. It was an absolute blast and it reminded me of fun trips like that I'd make with a group of friends back in Utah. Definitely worth it to go. I came back to a little bit of hell...a tonsillectomy. Somewhere in the earlier months, I had thrown out my back and had done months of physical therapy, plus I screwed up my knee and was doing therapy for that too. It was while in the middle of this that I got strep throat for the third time this year and my doctor sent me off to the ENT specialist. He took a two-second gander at my illustrious tonsils and immediately asked when I wanted them out. As the flea market is closed in October (the FM is where I do the most sales for Second Coats), it worked out perfectly to do this then. My mom was a lifesaver--and I do mean lifesaver--and came to stay with me for about two weeks. I could NOT have made it through the ordeal without her. Well, without her and double-doses of Oxicotin. I lost 18 lbs during a three-week time period and was just miserable. However, here I am two months later and have re-gained 17 of those lbs AND I can eat and drink like a normal person again. I could not be more grateful to be past those hellacious weeks.

November: November is always a favorite month for me, because of my birthday of course. This year, Kami Jo came down to Raleigh to spend Thanksgiving with me. We had an incredibly relaxed and fun day...before deciding to shop Midnight Madness at the local outlet mall. It was Hell. Pure and simple. We left there, drove back to Raleigh and straight to Wal-Mart for me to buy my KitchenAid mixer...which I got for cheap (comparitively)! I was so excited. I have used it twice so far, which is saying a lot considering how little I actually do cook.

December: December has flewn by in a whirlwind. Darin came to see me one weekend, which was great, and I also had my first Shaggy Soiree for Second Coats! It was a goal I wanted to accomplish by the end of the year and I did it. I've been able to book parties off of that and hope that this side of my business continues to grow. For Christmas, I flew to Utah for the 24th-28th to experience a great time with my family...and a whole lot of cold and snow. However, it was nice to be able to spend time with them all!

Today: Today, of course, marks the end of the year; but I must say, it does not mark the end of lessons learned and experiences had during the previous 364 days. It has been a crazy roller coaster of fun, craziness, trials, more fun, and more trials. I head to the beach in about an hour from now, as that's where I'm celebrating New Year's. I wanted to be one of the first to welcome in 2009...and where else could that occur than watching the sunrise at the beach? I look forward to bringing in a new year of new beginnings, refreshed continuations, and all sorts of fun times. Sure, I know there will still be plenty of trials, but I also know that I will get through them just like I did in 2008. I feel so very blessed to have the friends and family members in my life who love and support me through thick and thin. They are all so truly amazing and I can't wait for another 365 days of experiences with them! I already have planned monthly trips through the end of April and am now working on my summer plans; I guarantee there will be some great memories formed during this time.

So, here's to saying so long to 2008 (a year I'm not particularly wanting to repeat) and hello to 2009, a year full of opportunity! Happy New Years!

~me

PS--For those of you who are the uneducated sort and don't know what my entry title means ;) , the pronunciation for the Russian "goodbye" is "do svi-dan-niye", while the Slovenian "hello" is pronounced "zhee-VEE-oh". And now you know. (Enter NBC's chiming bells that always accompany "The More You Know".)

Meanwhile, back at the blog...

So, it was a mere two months and one week ago that I last wrote a blog entry. Not bad, Kade. Not bad. Way to stay on top of it. Well, I had the best of intentions to stay up with it, but then life kind of got in the way. As you well know if you were in any sort of contact with me in October, I had my tonsils yanked out and the whole experience sucked beyond all suckiness. I can safely say that I would not wish a tonsillectomy upon even my worst enemy. (Not that I have a worst enemy, but if I did, I'd not wish that upon them is what I's jus' sayin'.)

Lying there day after day, hepped up on oxycotin and morphine, I had plenty o' blog entry prepared in my head. I even had pictorial representations (commonly referred to as "pictures") ready to help illustrate my experience. However, two things stopped me from doing this:

1) Did I mention I was hepped up on oxycotin and morphine? Enough said on that.
2) After sending one of said pictorial representations to a friend, the response was, "Ewwwww. Gross. Did you have to send that?" I deduced from this less-than-enthusiastic response that broadcasting said images would essentially just add more pollution to the internet.

So much for documenting my journey sans tonsils. Instead, I had silence. Lots and lots of silence. Heck, it hurt to swallow Jello, so there was no talking for some time...just grunting. Yes, I know. Very Neanderthalic of me. Fortunately, Dear Brenda (aka "Mom") was on hand to listen to my grunts and, except for the unfortunate incident that included a toilet bowl plunger and my ear, I do believe she translated these grunts quite effectively. Thanks, Ma!

After getting through this little rough patch, as we shall call it (as opposed to "the time during which Kade was experiencing absolute Hell and prayed for a respite from his excruciating pain"), I went on to live life...and lots of it.

So, here I am two months and seven days later, ready to conquer the world again...or at least the occasional blog entry. Since the holidays are upon us and Lord knows what that means--time with crazy relatives who are not safe from being mentioned in a blog entry--I have just one thing to say: Stay tuned.