You were a good one, 2009

Despite my recent moaning & groaning, 2009 was one of the best years of my life. I married the Scientist (score!), bought a house (yipee!), got into grad school (d'oh!), went on a couple of really fun trips, drank more awesome wine than I should admit to & had so many good times with my friends, it should be a crime. I am so lucky that my family & friends remain healthy & present. Hearing of the 4th case of a young person (<40)with cancer has really hit that home for me.

For anyone who might be reading & wondering, I did go to my Aunt's house for Christmas Eve, though I didn't really wanna. Once again, I made a decision to please others but I guess I don't regret it. It just is what it is. My Aunt called me the day before & left me a voicemail telling me that we needed to have a conversation but that the holidays just weren't the time. She said that it wouldn't be Christmas without me & "you just need to come." So I went. It just made it easier for everyone. Do I think that conversation with my Aunt will ever happen? No. Do I want it to? I'm not so sure. I just don't think I want to go there & focus on that negativity again. I haven't had a single nightmare & my hip has basically stopped hurting--these are good things. I just didn't realize how much of that I was internalizing. Its totally insane.

Lots of exciting things on the horizon for 2010. In a couple of weeks I will travel to San Francisco to meet Tammy. We are renting a car & driving to Napa for a long weekend of wine, food & much needed catching up.I have some mild anxiety with the thought of seeing Kang again after 9 years. No set plans to do that but he does work at the French Laundry & we had talked about having dinner there. I had always planned to write a post about him when I was on the kick of posting about the men that I dated..now I'm not sure how the Scientist would feel about that. Is ruminating about exes & the horrors of the dating world an offense to the one you love & married? I don't know so I'm not even going to go there.

Looking forward to another trip to Seattle in April along with a cruise to Alaska. Can't wait to get back to the Inn at the Market, where we spent our honeymoon. Hopefully July has a trip to Ghana, Africa in store for me. We are slated to go to the International Sickle Cell Conference but as of yet, CHOP can't get it together to let us register & we've been trying for atleast 6 months. The hospital has backed us & we are hoping to present an abstract but again, no formalized plans. Not sure I will ever have this kind of opportunity again so I'm super excited & really hoping that it all goes as planned. I'm also looking foward to another trip with the Fishers. Look out Elvis, we're coming to Memphis.

We are also going to completely remodel our basement, including a new paint job, ripping up carpet, installing Pergo, buying new furniture, setting up the bar, etc. The goal is to have all of that in place by swimming season!! Oh, and I 'm going to try to stay in grad school & try to get knocked up!

So its going to be a crazy but fun year. I'm so glad that I have the Scientist to live in the craziness with me. I've heard that the 1st year of marriage is the hardest & I do think there is some truth to that. I feel very lucky that I truly believe we're both in it for the long haul (good times & rough ones) & I can honestly say that I love him more every day. Well maybe not every day, but atleast a little more each week. :)