ten important things that happened in 2006 (in no particular order, sorry)(and sorry if something happened and i forget to mention it ... i hope one of your resolutions was to forgive more easily).

1 - mike and i both turned a quarter of a century old. good glory, we're old. :-)

2 - debbie sue and dan got married. rachel anne and evan got married. laura and jeremy got engaged. william and gillian got engaged. bill and gretchen and mike and i celebrated our respective first anniversaries. sigh... ah, love.

3 - i got a job as a library associate (not a librarian) at a library in champaign where i learned more about being a librarian than i ever expected. this came in to play later when... i got a job where my job title is "librarian" in new york city and the job rocks. clearly do not regret getting a masters (for many many reasons).

4 - carey and greg had a baby and gave the family their first granddaughter!! (also of note - this means we won't reproduce right away ourselves because our baby could not rival sophia's beauty)

5 - we picked up kitten sort of by accident, named him baxter, made him part of the household, ticked off the other cats who eventually came to love him, and now he's the sunshine (and the nightmare...) of all our lives. (as i write this, both baxter and mitch are sleeping on us - i should say that all three of our lovely kitties are the sunshine of our lives, but you probably already knew that)

6 - we moved to new york. we painted the apartment walls blue. mike gave decorating tips. all of these things were totally unexpected.

7 - another person has joined mike in the quest for palau'amine. this does not guarantee that they will make it, just that they will have someone to complain to when things go wrong.

8 - mike decided that just because he hadn't really ridden his bike in three years didn't mean that he couldn't go on a really really long ride through four new york city neighborhoods (after all, what is it people say about riding a bike?). surprisingly, he survived. i will note, however, that he has not gone on any more long bike rides. (he claims his hurt ankles had something to do with this... i say ... "yes, honey.")

9 - i attempted to write the next great american novel, realized that had already been done, and decided to write the next next next next next great american novel (at the rate i'm going - 13,000 words - it will be that long before it gets published)

10 - i have stopped equating happiness with stability. several times since our marriage, our whole lives have been hanging on one decision (and sometimes a decision that we could not make) and yet we have managed to be happy together. you can insert some sort of sappy "as long as we have each other" but it's not just me and mike (and it's not even the cats!).

i remember being blown away during our wedding at how many people loved us and wanted to wish us well and help us on this crazy marriage journey and i'm even more impressed by how everyone has continued to show us that support even when we moved so many miles away. so thanks. and forgive my waxing sentimental. that's the new year for you.