a lot can happen in a year

It's incredible how much can happen in a month let alone a year. Let's take a look at the major things that've happened to me in 2008 shall we.

January=bought a new car...my nice little blue cobalt. I also had my first full month of not having to worry about school in about 20 years.

April (at least I think that's when it was)=I voted for the first time like a big girl. I also threw a surprise 30th anniversary party for my parents with only the help of Mark. And to top it off, at the end of the month I started a new job at Entercom after being at the hell that was Amdoc for almost 3 years.

May=I was officially finished with IUPUI (even though I'd technically graduated in the previous December), had my grad ceremony and my 3D for Phi Mu, saying goodbye to all of my college days.

Then there were those few months where everything was pretty calm. I got used to my new position, handled not going to school better than I thought I was going to and even redecorated our living room. On that last one, I got a brand new couch (after having a hand-me-down from the 70's), new end tables (after using 2 from goodwill), reappholstered a recliner, bought a new rug and even painted.

Then we have September....

September=After about a year or two of knowing he had throat cancer and going through chemo, my uncle Larry went into the hospital...he never left. Early on in September he passed away. On September 11 (not a particularly great day to start with), we burried his ashes near my grandpa. I came home still upset and wanting nothing more than to take a nap. I fixed lunch for Mark (who was home sick) and me and laid down to watch a little TV. About two hours after getting home, we get a loud knock on our door. While that knock did save our lives, it also extremely changed them. Our entire apartment had caught on fire and at that point as far as we knew we had lost everything. We were finally allowed to go back up and thankfully salvaged everything but the big stuff. We had clothes, keep sakes and a few other small things. Our lives were then moved from a one bedroom apartment with just the two of us living there and back to my parent's house...just where we were before we got our apartment.

So....for the last (almost) two months we've been living at my parent's house. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, but it's just not my own home. I'd gotten used to living on my own (or at least with just Mark) and having a place for all of my own things. However, it did start to get a little better. I mean when we first moved back we didn't even have a mattress until my aunt Marcia let us borrow her air mattress until we finally bought our own real mattress....to sleep on the floor.

There are things to be thankful for though. We have a roof over our head and food to eat. We got all of our keepsakes and clothes out of the apartment. We are both still employed after this crazy economic thing.

As of October 31, I also have something even bigger to be thankful for. I bought a house!!! So maybe it was a blessing in disguise. As much as it sucked to lose what I felt like was my home, it turned out to be a good thing in the end. Although, I would have liked it a lot better if we could have just not had the fire and moved at the end of our lease. But hey we always said we didn't want to move again when it was cold.

So this house that I bought....is kind of a wreck. See my dad has lived in the same house since his family moved to Indiana in the 60's. He's done a ton of work to it and really made it the best house in the neighborhood. In later years (I'm gonna say the 70's), my great aunt and uncle moved in next door to my parents/grandparents. On the other side of my parents, there was an older couple. Well in the last year, both of them passed away. My parents were worried about who would move in next door to them, because as the years have gone by we have had all kinds of crazies move into the neighborhood. So we made an offer on the house and after the fire it was FINALLY accepted.

Now I'm a proud homeowner. However, we are still going to be living with my parents...probably until Christmas. This place needs a decent amount of work. It had blood red shag carpeting, cabinets that had been wallpapered both inside and out, dark brown and green paneling thoughout and basically smelled so horrible you'd need a mask to come in and look around. So we're working on it...my dad more than anyone. We've got all the cabinets down, almost all the carpet up, and 1/2 the living room paneling off. I think that's pretty good for one weekend of work. I'm hoping to put up pictures when I get a chance.

Honestly, I guess when life gives you lemons you make lemonade...or if your apartment catches on fire you buy a house...whatever the case may be. I feel accomplished and I'm starting to finally feel like an actual adult....at 24. I'm proud that I've been able to keep a job pretty constantly since Senior year of high school (minus a few months for school). I'm proud that I know how to manage my money, haven't ran up any credit cards and am overall generally responsible enough to buy a house and be a big girl.

I guess I really don't like change, but when I make one several other pretty drastic ones seem to follow.

So that's where I am in life after 10 full months have passed by. Hopefully, the next 2 will be a positive leap into the next year.