Another year bites the dust

In a couple of days, 2008 will be so yesterday. We will officially embark on the New Year of 2009 and everything we'd like to accomplish and become during the year. Before we do that though, I always like to take a few minutes to look back and see how far we have come. If your year is anything like mine, it seems like just yesterday the clock was striking midnight on a new year.

• Blogging - 2 years and counting, love having this site to journal and share our on-goings with family and friends
• Exercise routine - Started the year out strong as marathon training progressed, endured injury which I cross-trained through, and now finishing strong with a focus on total body fitness (rather than just running) - regimen of yoga, pilates, cycling, strength training and running. Look for more details on this as I set goals for 2009!
• Annual retirement savings (max out) - Check...although, I'm still trying to figure out where it all went??
• Book a month - Love my book club for this and many more reasons. We got in some great reads this year, plus the books I read on my own: titles, titles and more titles
• Professional progress - Took on a new team this year and have seen us through numerous transitions, I'm sure the experience will benefit me one of these days!
• Stay in touch with friends - Had so much fun reconnecting with long lost friends on Facebook this year and look forward to staying up with everyone in 2009
• Travels - Had a blast on our big 10 year anniversary trip! We also got in a mountain weekend with the family, 2 visits to Las Vegas, Kansas and a boy's trip for Brian and girl's trip for me.
• Run a marathon - ING Georgia, not the marathon I had hoped for but an experience I won't forget!
• Take the girls to several theater shows - We saw Imagination Celebration shows, My Little Pony Live, Annie, Beauty and the Beast and Sesame Street Live
• Kindergarten programs - We did attend the charter school information night and have 95% decided to send Emma to our neighborhood school. The test scores were not significantly higher at the charter school, not enough to justify having her outside of our neighborhood school which also has high test scores. So, now it's just waiting another few weeks until online registration begins.

The only thing from my list that we didn't do this year was: Purchase new things for the house - mainly dining room furniture and new washer/dryer (ours are over 10 years old!). - This one will be rolling over to next year, as we shifted focus to getting some window treatments done and adding to our savings due to the economy and my desire to leave the workforce some time next year. Not a big deal since there was no urgent need, just a desire.

I'm still mulling over what I'd like to see out of next year...more to come after January 1!