Will you still be sending me a Valentine?

Another year, another birthday. This is one of those boring once a year posts that occurs on my birthday (see picture at left). You could take a look at my life and see such a complete overhaul that you'd be knocked on your ass with shock ten years ago, but even if you look at the past year, I still think you'd be [pleasantly] surprised.

What's happened? What hasn't happened would be a better question.

In December, Pop died. Pop would be my maternal grandfather, and because they lived so close (and lived with us in New York), he was the grandfather with whom I was so close. It was rather crushing, but it was more crushing knowing that my Nan was now left alone without him. Pop's only wish before his illness took over was, "I just want her to die first so she doesn't have to live alone." That wish was not to be. Up to New York in January we flew for one of two memorial services in 2008.

By February, after tests, I was diagnosed with being SEVERELY allergic to cigarette smoke. While I "can" be around cigarette smoke, I try not to be, or hold my breath as the smoke blows past. I am not, however, allergic to cigar smoke or hand-rolled tobacco cigarettes.

On March 24th, I received a phone call from my dad telling me that Nan had passed away. April was Nan's memorial service (the second of 2008). It was not looking like a good year at all.

I had started dating someone sometime in April or thereabouts. By July, that was over. I do have at least one good thing to say about that. During that time, a friend from college (Dea) had biked the Oregon coast with one of her friends. I made a decision to get into biking. Motivation also came in the form of a photo taken in January at Pop's memorial service in which I looked like a green Christmas tree ball ornament. I changed my lifestyle slightly, and by the time I hit my cousin's wedding at the end of May, I had lost considerable inches.

I started biking more regularly, and started losing weight. By the time my parents had seen me again in August, they noticed a HUGE difference. I still compare my January and my June pictures to show people the differences.

Moving onto more positive things...

We started a social club. By "we" I mean friends and friends of PoolBoys (that are now my friends as well): Beer God, Amyee, Shannon, Jennifer, PoolBoy, Amanda, and whomever else. We call it the BC-squared Social Club, and we "meet" Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. It's good fun with even better people. It gives all of us a time out of our regular lives to relax and not think about the stress that we have going on. Our Sundays' meeting's soundtrack is performed by Galen Crader (http://www.galencrader.com/), a wonderful musician and even better guy.

I was approved by one of the top 10 German Shepherd breeders in the United States (who lives here in Georgia) to obtain one of her male puppies from a future litter (won't be for awhile). They breed West German Showline German Shepherds (kind of like what Tobey was) and have a very strict, almost FCI/European-tailored breeding program.

I started building a 20G tall vivarium for Poison Dart Frogs or Red-Eyed Tree Frogs (still undecided).

I'm getting married. (ha! just kidding)

I found a used bookstore that I'm addicted to!

As you can tell, there are some things going on, and some things aren't. All in all, I would venture to guess, without counting the horrid beginning of the year, that it's been a good year. It should be "interesting" to see what the next year will hold.