The Year Is Dying, Let Him Die

A fine title for this fine New Year's post. I always thought that was a funny hymn...but it is pretty, and I have a special fondness for it after singing it with my mom and Hannah in church last year (I'm talking about Ring Out Wild Bells for anyone that didn't catch that).

Shall we take a look back at 2009?

In January, we were living in Vermont and enjoying the way the snow falls by the foot up there. By some miracle, when we returned to Boston from our visit home to Minnesota, our car was completely snow and ice free. It was a Christmas miracle, to say the least. January is also when I started getting my cook on. For the first time in my life I enjoyed looking at recipes and trying things out in our funny little Vermonty kitchen. Jake enjoyed it immensely. Neither of us, however, enjoyed the continuing problems with the boilers in the SoRoHo. It was a cold month.

February kept me very busy with my new job at Vermont Law School and my continuing school. Jake was taking a writing class and enjoyed expanding his natural writing talents. We also travelled to Baltimore to the American Craft Council show where my mom had an awesome booth. We also got to stay with my Great Aunt Barbara and Great Uncle Ralph, which was very fun. We also visited the Boston Temple for the first time this month.

March was a boring month. We continued to have trouble with the heat, but we had our love to keep us warm! Oddly enough, turns out love isn't as valuable at maintaining your core temperature as a working boiler. But it is good for enjoying yourself while slowly freezing to death.

April was great. We spent a lot of time with friends, and more time cooking! Jake and I learned how to make tortillas! Our friends hosted a murder mystery party and we went all out for it. In the end, it turned out that all of us had tried to kill the guy...Jake poisoned him with arsenic and I shot him with a poison dart from my lens of my assassin's camera. We started spending more and more time with friends as we realized that our time together would come to an end.

In May, I attended the formal graduation ceremony for Vermont Law School. It was quite the pompous ceremony, but just small-towny enough for it to be thoroughly enjoyable. I had never walked in a graduation before except for the School of Environmental Studies, so this was a new experience for me! It was very fun, and I loved wearing my tam and hood. It was a bummer that I still had a few classes to finish up, because it was such a wonderful feeling getting that hood. Jake finished up his online class, excelling as usual. And we loved having some time off together.

In June our ward had an old-fashioned outdoor revival at Camp Joseph and I loved every second of it. We loved our ward so much out there. I also started taking an Indian Law class and found another huge interest of mine. In fact, I like Indian Law so much that I plan on getting a J.D. and practicing it one day soon. With the weather so nice out, Jake and I started taking lots of walks around South Royalton. We discovered some strange things about that town.

In July we went down to Boston with our friends and had almost the perfect weekend. We love Boston. And we love the Andersons. The two together were just awesome. We got to watch fireworks in the place I watch them on TV every year! And you all know how much I love fireworks. I also had my graduation celebration with all my fellow MELPs. I finished up classes as Jake finished up work, and we packed all our worldly possessions into our trusty taurus and began the drive back home. We had to stop at Eaton's Sugarhouse literally on the way out of town for a final indescribable breakfast smothered in tree-fresh maple. It was both sad and nice to be going home. We grew a lot out in Vermont, and made some life-long friends. Jake got to work in one of the world's best hospitals, I got to attend one of the world's best schools, and we both had the world's best time.

We found ourselves back in Minnesota in August, and our big dreams of fantastic employment started to slightly fade. We had a marvelous reunion with Aysia, and the rest of our families. We also came home to a new nephew!

Jake started school full-time in September, and we are incredibly blessed to have all those costs covered. I was doing a lot of informational interviews and getting to know a lot of people in my field. Unfortunately, everyone was (and still is) broke and not hiring. Jake turned 25 and Aysia turned 7 this month!

In October, I got offered two internships and a part-time seasonal job. Jake continued to rock in school and we enjoyed our early-morning ride to the transit station together. As I took both the internships and the job, my life got a lot less boring and doll-drum, something I had been eagerly awaiting for the previous 3 months.

I turned 23 in the beginning of November. I continued to work about 55-60 hours a week between all three of my endeavors. Jake really started ramping up at school, and although we were back in the basement and winter in Minnesota was near, our spirits were high...for the most part.

December was lovely. Although it was cold and snowy, Jake finished the school year strong with perfect attendance and stellar grades. I was offered the permanent job at T-Mobile, which I have taken, and we spent a lot of time both together and with our families. Jake's sister Jenny and her husband Erv welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Cora, into the world! That brings our niece/nephew count up to 3! We had a lovely Christmas and were able to have Aysia for almost a week!

Now that I look back on it, it was quite the year. I got a master's degree, Jake got amazing work experience and started school full-time, we had a cross-country move...

What a great year.

And you know what?

2010 is going to be even better. I can FEEL it.

Happy New Year to all!