So, every year since 2009, I've been doing this blog-thing at about this time of year where I compare the year I am just finishing to the years previous. I've come a long way since 2008, and this just kind of throws all that into sharp relief anymore. My only problem is that I'm gonna run out of colors soon...
2008: We lived in a falling-apart house with no heat.
2009: We live in a pretty nice apartment with gas heat.
2010: We live in the same apartment as last year. Have somehow managed to keep paying the rent. Praise God!
2011: We still live in the same apartment. I have an eye toward moving before the end of the year, though, because I'm close to being able to afford to at this rate.
2012: We have moved twice in 2012. The first time was to Gresham (in April) for a new job, the second time was to Milwaukie (in October) for the same company.
2013: Still living in the same apartment in Milwaukie, and sort of enjoying the stability. Have an eye toward moving to a house sometime in the next year or two, but there's no rush.
2014: Moved in January to a house (rented)! Yeah, I know I said there was no rush, but we found one accidentally at a price we could afford. Very much loving not having neighbors above and below.
2008: I was unemployed. All year.
2009: I sometimes wish I worked less, but I am blessed to have a job surrounded by good, godly people who are passionate about what they do and make working with them so much fun.
2010: Same job situation except it has dawned on me that I really don't like teaching. Okay, so I knew that all along, but now I'm really starting to get the urge to move along... still like the people I work with, though!
2011: I now work FULL TIME for the first time since 2001. I adore the people I work with, but I like teaching less and less. Looking to move on (and when I do that apartment change thing will probably shortly follow).
2012: I am now a full time, salaried property manager. Which sort of explains how I have moved twice this year, no? And look up there and see how psychic I was in 2011! I knew something was coming, just didn't know what... lol. Anyway, not only do I get free rent on a 1,200 square foot apartment, but also I am salaried for more money than I've ever made before in my life. I've had years where my total yearly income was barely $8,000. This is not one of those years.
2013: Still with the same property management company, but in a different capacity. I've moved up!
2014: Um... yes. To all the 2013 above. Same company, and I've moved up yet again, technically.
2008: I did nearly all my Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree, because it was what I could afford.
2009: I did most of my Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart... moving on up!
2010: Primarily Wal-Mart again. No huge change in this department.
2011: Again, no change! What can I say? I like Wal-Mart.
2012: Haven't done any shopping yet. Could I shop somewhere else? Yes, probably. Will I shop somewhere else? Eh... maybe. But it's hard to beat Wal-Mart!
2013: Well, I did some of my Christmas shopping in Hawaii this year, but still a lot of it at Wal-Mart.
2014: Wal-Mart! Wal-Mart! And some online ordering... I really need to get moving on that or I'm going to be giving people pieces of paper showing what I ordered for them that hasn't arrived yet....
2008: We got food boxes from a couple of different local organizations.
2009: An organization called to offer us a food box and I told them they could probably find someone who needed it worse than we do. After I hung up I realized what I'd just been able to say and I almost cried.
2010: Nobody even offered us a food box this year.
2011: I don't even get food stamps anymore. (Well, $16 a month, but that hardly counts, now does it?)
2012: Virtually no change from 2011 here. I do technically still qualify for the minimum amount of food stamps, but I often forget to use them. The only reason I'm still signed up is because I do it at the same time as the Chamaco's medical insurance (which I'm keeping, since I don't have health insurance myself to add him to).
2013: Actually no change since 2012 here, except that I'll be getting insurance myself come January 1st.
2014: This year, for the first time, I felt stable enough to pull a couple of tags off of the Adopt-A-Family board at church and buy a couple of extra gifts for someone that otherwise might not have gotten any. That was kinda cool for me.
2008: I carried my son upstairs to his bed when he fell asleep on the couch.
2009: I can barely pick up my son, much less carry him upstairs. This only happened in the last month or two. I realized today that soon I won't be able to pick him up at all... my baby is gone. I almost cried.
2010: I can still pick up my nine-year-old boy for brief periods of time
2011: My kid turned 10 this year. I can still pick him up, but I can't carry him much of anywhere. I realize that the only reason I can pick him up is because I routinely lift up to sixty pounds of child at work. He clocks in at about 74, last I knew.
2012: The boy will be 11 next week. And I can still pick him up, but only barely.
2013: He's 12. He's in middle school. Still trying to get my head around that. Sometimes he jumps on me and hangs, and I can stay upright but I'm not going much of anywhere.
2014: He turned 13 yesterday... Not a whole lot taller than last year, but I'm still trying to get my head around this whole teenager thing.
2008: My son was the sort of co-dependent that being the only child of a single mom will get you.
2009: I have an increasingly independent eight-year-old who more and more often wants to do things by himself. I told him that I was going to get Nancy's recipe for play-doh because the stuff we make at work is better than the store-bought stuff. I said this because I thought it would be something fun we could do together. He asked if he could do it by himself.
2010: My son cooked dinner a few weeks ago. I supervised him, but the only thing I actually did for him was turn the knobs on the stove, because he can't reach them yet. He's older but still short... lol.
2011: My kid can stay home by himself for increasingly long periods of time (I haven't yet pushed it past an hour and a half). He has a cell phone. As long as there is a microwave and a stocked freezer, he can feed himself indefinitely. This works out well for me going to Zumba classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
2012: All this moving and new job stuff has created the necessity for the Chamaco to stay home alone for up to eight hours a day if he's not in school. Somehow, against all odds, I have raised the sort of responsible, independent kid that can handle this just fine so long as he has a microwave and internet access.
2013: Same sort of situation here, except he can reach the stove knobs now. I'm still not letting him stove-cook without supervision, but I sense it's on the horizon.
2014: We're working on the whole "remembering to turn in homework" thing, but other than that he's pretty independent. I wake him up in the morning and then I leave for work. Somehow, miraculously, he gets to school and back home before I come home from work.
2008: I had a couple of friends, but mostly felt very lonely and isolated.
2009: I have some very good friends, some less-close-but-still-good friends, some casual acquaintances that always make me smile (hello CTG!), a pretty full social calendar, and sometimes wish desperately to just be home by myself for a few hours.
2010: All of the above, plus a couple of new friends... :-)
2011: Loads of new people in my life this year. Some of them are even male... lol.
2012: With the new job comes a new social circle. I must say I like working with a mixed group of men and women again... lol. The estrogen levels in my life were approaching critical.
2013: A few of my "new" coworkers (here at this job where I've been for a year and a half) have wormed their way into that circle I would call "friends". For my own sanity, I have taken to keeping Saturday for myself and having that be a day where I can just stay home if that's what I want to do, because it often is. I'm kinda busy these days.
2014: Well, my best friend lives with me now. I still have my friend/coworker circle, and church friends. I did lose a very dear friend in late January of this year... still miss you, Nancy.
2008: I was single.
2009: Still single... no change there. : )
2010: Despite some rumors you may have heard, still single. But I guess there were at least rumors this year. Maybe next year there will be something to them! ;-)
2011: Still single! But I did actually go on ONE date in 2011. Which is one more than in the previous eight years combined, so I guess that's progress... ha ha ha!
2012: I am... not single. Haven't been since September-ish. (Don't ask me exactly when, because I don't know!) Here's the funny part: Internally, I have always said two things... that I wanted to date someone I didn't date in high school (because all previous boyfriends and my ex-husband I dated in high school), and that I wanted to date someone who was my best friend (obviously, this required finding a male best friend). To which, I presume, God said, "Okay then... how about your best friend from elementary school? That's not high school!" You will never convince me that God doesn't have a sense of humor (as well as a keen sense of irony), but I am still very grateful to have Andrew back in my life after 19 years of absence.
2013: Okay, here's the big one! Andrew and I became officially engaged on December 17th, 2013, and we're planning to get married on March 22, 2014! I am thisclose to having a "squee" moment, and if you know me, you know I do not squee easily. See the previous post for how it all went down if you're curious, but know this - somehow I went from 10 years of impoverished single-mommyhood to being the sort of person who gets flown to Hawaii and proposed to on a beach. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone!
2014: Yes, my best friend lives with me because I married him earlier this year. Actually, considering we got married in March, we're getting pretty close to the one-year mark. Anniversary/spring break trip is already planned... we're going to Arizona. Grand Canyon, Sedona, all that. We're already well on our way to being old married people.
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