A New Year

I can hardly believe a week of 2011 has already gone by! Before it gets too far into 2011, let's briefly recall the past year.

2010

- Adam got laid off early in the year.

- I started a full-time job at J&M.

- Adam did odd jobs, including roofing.

- Adam got a job with Metric.

- I felt like I was an idiot drowning in my idiot-ness most of tax season.

- I had lots of tears + headaches (because of the above).

- On my day off after tax season, I took Tori to do a fun day for her birthday at Pier Park.

- We took a short vacation to Atlanta, GA in May - it wasn't the funnest thing we've ever
done. Stone Mountain was overrated and it was a last minute trip on a holiday weekend so we
had trouble getting a hotel. But we did enjoy the Braves game and came home on Adam's
birthday.

- We were chaperones for our church's youth trip. Pastor went with us and we had a really
wonderful time.

- Adam bought a large, flat screen TV. And some guns at an auction at a really great deal.

- I studied & studied & studied from May-November for the 4 parts of my CPA exam. It was
exhausting and stressful and I cried a lot because I felt like my life was one huuuuge
responsibility and that everything that really mattered to me was slipping through the cracks.
In hindsight, I was tired and a little over-dramatic, but I did have to really let my family,
house cleanliness, blogging, scrapbooking, etc. pretty much take a total backburner.

- For my birthday in August, Adam & I went to Destin.

- I got a layout of Tori and a Christmas card picked up for publishing.

- For Taylor's birthday in October, we went out to Red Elephant + got an ice cream cake from
Dairy Queen + I made her a cute birthday shirt. She was so, so excited. (I still need to do a
whole post on this event - don't know how it has slipped through the cracks!!)

- We did our annual Peanut Festival fun - Taylor spent the night and we painted her nails silver,
bought a ride-anything pass and went really early to ride rides. (Have I missed blogging this
too?!!)

- We also found out that Meg + Stephen were expecting!!

- I savored every holiday and did nothing except be with people I loved.

- We moved to my grandparent's old house in an attempt to sell (and then pay off our debt) for
our upside down townhouse.

- In mid-December, I found out I passed the last part of my exam. There were happy tears and
lots of smiles. My work gave me a CPA celebration day, complete with balloons, cupcakes, and
lunch!

- On Christmas Eve Eve, we had the girls over to the house and gave them pink scooters + lip
gloss + clothes.

- Christmas was wonderful. We were spoiled on all sides of the family. We had lots + lots of
together time with our families and it was incredibly refreshing!

- Over the Christmas break, I worked on cleaning up our townhouse + getting lots of junk
organized for a yard sale.

I'm sure I'm leaving out some things, but this was a quick recap. Overall, 2010 was a very hard year for me. The above list is mostly highlights, but there were several very hard (really personal) situations that I don't want to broadcast, but DO want to remember. Not just for me, but also for some people that I loved dearly. I felt like in many ways, some of the things I took for granted were suddenly knocked out from under me. There were so many things pulling at my attention, and there were days I literally felt like I could just curl up, sob my heart out, and give up. But God, my heavenly Father, saw, knew, and helped me through every situation, and in the twelfth month, many wonderful things happened - I was refreshed, we DID get moved, and I passed my test. And as I reflected back on 2010 in that last week of December, I was (unbelieveably) grateful for everything I went through. I know that God was my keeper in this past year. He blessed us with jobs, a wonderful church home, and most of all, a deeper relationship with Him.

I am thankful for 2010.