Happy New Year!

Good-bye to 2008!
You weren't so great!

Okay, it wasn't that bad.

Some of the highlights of 2008 were:

Reuniting with old college and high school friends via Facebook. In May I met up with my friends Jon Brinkmann and Ken Corcoran. We were the majority of the Salem State College Department of Geological Sciences Class of '98. We were only missing 2 classmates. One is deceased and the other lives in Texas. We caught up with Amanda in November when she was in MA for her sister's wedding. Another college friend, Jocelyn Brotherton, came for a visit in July. We visited places of geologic interest in the Pioneer Valley. On one of my trips "out east" I attended Jocelyn's graduation party and got to see my old roomie, Stephanie Healey.

I attended our church's annual convention in Bridgewater, MA. I hadn't been to a church convention in a really long time, like 15 years or something like that. I had such a great time. I saw lots of people I hadn't seen in, well, a really long time. One of the things that happened at the convention was I got elected president of the National Alliance of New Church Women. I created a blog for them. I don't update it nearly as often as I do this one but it's there.

I applied to and was accepted at Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Classes start on Jan 31st. I'm going to be a librarian!

I'm volunteering at the Springfield City Library one afternoon a week. So far, my responsibilities are: searching for missing books in the stacks; replacing updated call numbers on books; and handling a few Library in Your Mailbox clients; and searching microfilm for death notices. The Springfield City Library is a beautiful old building at the Quad in downtown Springfield.

In October Trevor and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We went on a little trip to Cape Ann, Gloucester to be specific. We had beautiful weather and a great time. We're really good at that, having a great time together.

A year ago on New Year's Day I taught myself how to crochet from a book, The Happy Hooker. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to take a class at Webs. I signed up for a 6 week class and had a really good time. I put down my yarn and hooks and didn't really do anything until August when Beki and I crocheted owelets while we were at camp. I put down my yarn and hooks again until November when Beki, Emily and I went to Webs. I decided to crochet Christmas gifts and I was off and making chains, single crochets, double, half double, triple. Anyway, I made several trips to Webs in November. I crocheted the following:

• 6 Surfer Chick quick caps (one for Amy, one for Wendy, one for Beki, two for me, and one "leftover")
• a pink hat and scarf for Ivy
• mittens for Chloe
• hat for Mom
• bookmark for Mom
• hat for Pete
• 2 pink organic cotton washcloths for Sarah
• a little pink piggy for Chloe

I haven't stopped crocheting, just slowing down a bit. Right now I'm working on a giant granny square blanket and a scarf.

Here's my resolution for 2009:

I resolve to reduce my carbon footprint by signing up for e-statements and eliminate paper statements from banks, phone company, etc.