Closing out 2009

As we started 2009, I wrote a Goodbye to 2008 in the blog. Nothing personal against 2008, but we were ready to see it end. The relocation to SE Portland didn’t go as planned. We’d accomplished something great with the house on Peacock Lane, but the real estate market situation caused us to realize we had to go back to where we started. Health issues for both C and I were worsening rather than improving. Animals were ill and R was having the worst struggle of his life so far with staying focused. It was a difficult time. We had just initiated some choices aimed at cleaning up the situation.  We entered 2009 with a house on the market and hopes that it would sell quickly. It didn’t.  At the end of the year-end post, I wrote:

“2009 will start with further cleanup. It is our supreme wish that we can keep the list ever-shortening. We want things to be much, much less stressful in 2009.”

Well, it took a lot of work, but the things that were stressing us did indeed clean up over the course of the year:

• N had his hernia surgery in February. Things got a LOT better for him after that.
• C’s tumor-site cancer scare turned out to be nothing. But her fatigue and joint pain worsened throughout the first half of the year.
• R quit gymnastics after placing second in the State Meet. He immediately took up fencing. This simplified a lot of things for us, logistically and financially. Fencing also allows the whole family to participate, something that gymnastics did not accomodate.
• Our renters in SW asked for an early termination to their lease. We granted it and moved back in. Though this project has been a lot of effort and continues to require some work, it’s for the best over the long haul.
• We were unable to sell the SE house, but did find ourselves blessed with AWESOME renters come October/November.
• NO car crashes and insurance hassles in 2009.
• R’s mental place was really pretty bad at the end of 2008; it’s much better now, as we finish 2009. We switched R’s ADD meds in March. The changes we saw at that time have reached a plateau, but we still see him growing and maturing dramatically as he catches up to his age group.
• We put down two elderly pets in 2009, compassionately helping them end their lives with dignity. We can now see how much maintenance Aki and Neko  required, after having gone a number of weeks without that hanging over us.
• In summer, C was diagnosed with a ‘polyp’, and ultimately ended up having a major surgery. Short-term hard; long-term good. After this surgery, C was able to dump her cancer meds entirely, resulting in a dramatic improvement to C’s chronic joint pain, memory abilities and overall positive attitude – an upward trend that she speaks openly about, and which continues.
• For this school year, the kids’ school offers bus service, allowing C to ferry the children a mere 3 miles to the bus stop, rather than the previous 11 miles each way to NE Portland. C now spends 30 minutes per day doing the school shuttle instead of the old-style two hours.
• We have a space for an international student to stay with us. We’ve already had a couple short-stays in the short time we’ve been back in SW. Looking for a longer-term student as soon as one comes up.

So, it took all of 2009 to get the work done, but we enter into 2010 with things better than we entered 2009. In today’s issue of The Oregonian newspaper, they’re running an article on how Americans thought 2009 was bad, and that 2010 will be better. The Typhoon was a year earlier than the trend; we got it out of the way with 2008 and have been trending up throughout.