Happy New Year!

When will I learn?

When I have a blog halfway planned in my mind, I should never read other blogs before writing mine. Now I have everyone's Year In Review in my mind and, there are some really well written blogs that I read, they are a little intimidating.

It is difficult to believe another year has passed. It seems just minutes ago we were ushering in 2008 (ok, it was only about 2 weeks ago we were ushering in 2000), but January seems so long ago.

I am not sure how to categorize 2008.

The elections drug on waaaay too long, but, in the end, the country has a fine man ready to step up and do his best to turn us around.

The LeftLeaning household took a personal hit when BabyBoy lost his job in Aug and then DSD lost his in Sep. Neither of them have found work, although, to be fair, BabyBoy's class load was a bit too much for him to hold down a job, so he has only been looking for a couple of weeks.

The economy is in the toilet.

People are losing their homes.

But gas prices are lower than I ever expected them to be again in my life. After they got higher than I ever expected them to be in my lifetime.

Osama bin Laden is still on the loose.

Men and women are still dying on foreign soil. And many who aren't dying are not getting the help they need.

But there have been enough breakthroughs in AIDS treatment that contracting the disease is no longer a death sentence.

Homosexuals now have the right to marry in a couple of states, but their rights took a huge hit on election day with Prop 8 & Amend 2.

My son carried signs encouraging people to defeat Amendment 2 and voted in his first ever Presidential election.

I won $1500 in a 'Slot' tourney in Biloxi.

Many thousands more are without healthcare today than were without healthcare 1 year ago.

There is no peace in the Middle East.

So I guess, after reading this, 2008 could be categorized as lousy.

But, personally, my family is healthy. My parents are now in their early 60's, thinking of retiring and doing great. My brother's children are not pregnant and have not been arrested ('nuff said.) I am still employed, DSD has his retirement and we are not in danger of losing the house.

Here's wishing a happy, healthy, wondrous 2009 for the entire world. I hope all of our hopes, wishes and dreams, for our country, for our family, for our world come true.