Am I glad that's over.

Happy new year and goodbye to 2008- you won't be missed. I was talking with H over breakfast this morning, and we agreed that there wasn't much good about 2008. We were both officially granted tenure and promotion (a VERY good thing), but the deal was really done in 2007- this year was just a formality. 

Thankfully, nothing really awful happened to us, either- although having a miscarriage was pretty awful, I have to say. It shattered what we thought our family was to become and I think it made us even more persistent to keep trying. The failures of our attempts have taken a toll on us too, though and we've decided to throw in the towel for good. This decision has freed me to give away all of D's remaining baby stuff and I've had some fun the last few days picking out a few select things to send to my sister (who had a baby in May) and a good friend (who had a baby in October). We are giving some furniture and things to a friend's daughter and her husband who are due next summer and the rest is going to be donated. I've been reluctant the last year to really get rid of things with so much uncertainty. What if I get pregnant and we need those things? Now that we are done and getting ready to finish the basement, we really need to get things out of there. It feels kind of liberating and I really hated all the uncertainty, so it feels good to actually make a decision. It's not that I don't feel sad at all- I still do sometimes. But I find myself wishing more that we'd had another baby years ago, so that they would have been close in age. Even if we had succeeded in having a baby now, the age gap would have defined their relationship differently than siblings who are only a few years apart. 

I am not going to make any grand resolutions for 2009, but I do want to focus on a couple things:

• health- I have really let exercise slide over the last year and used lots of things to continue my lack of exercise: being pregnant, having a miscarriage, my skin surgery, my neck problems, etc. I will probably write a post over at the Active Academic about this, too. I also want to eat a more vegan diet. I already eat 99% vegan at home, but when we go out, I falter, or when there is frozen pizza around, I also eat it. 
• work- I need to get my act together and get out of the post-tenure, post-miscarriage slump I've been in. I am trying to have a positive attitude about things, so I hope that helps.

I know it's purely psychological to see a new year as a time make changes and say goodbye to unpleasant things from the past, but it works for me! I'll just leave you with one of the perks of living in Small College Town:

The bags come off next Monday!