I read this meme on the site of the gracious Angel and I loved the thoughtfulness that it sparked in me. So I decided to do it. I'm against passing meme's on, so if you want to do it, feel free. If not, don't bother.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? I could go with the sneaky answer and say that I turned 33, but that might be cheating. Oh well, I guess I'll go with filing for Bankruptcy. (Hopefully never again.)

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Nope. Not really on last years. I had a goal to lose 25 pounds and got down 10, which is an improvement, but not what I want. Here's to another 10 this year!!! I actually have a whole pile of resolutions and goals. I'm tired of being aimless.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Do my neighbor and the lovely Catherine count? If so, yes.

4. Did anyone close to you die? My cousin. He was 49 years old and had Down's Syndrome. His funeral was one of the most enriching, beautiful experiences of my year. He was universally loved because he universally loved.

5. What countries did you visit? Countries? Oh wait. . .I did go to Canada last year to see Kim. Other than that, Las Vegas is about it.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? Stability.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? The day in January when we filed for bankruptcy, a date in March that I will not reveal the date of or the why, the day in November when we found out Faramir lost his job. And the moments. Moments of joy with family. Moments of peace. Moments of pure misery. It's all there.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Finishing a quilt that I started 5 years ago. A wonky star Christmas quilt for my mom.

9. What was your biggest failure? losing my temper

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not out of the ordinary head colds and such. My kids sure spent a lot of time sick though.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Books. Lots of them. Piles of them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Seth. Anytime he is able to keep his temper, it's a cause for celebration and he's doing much better.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Me. Myself. And I.

14. Where did most of your money go? Rent. Bleh.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Faramir sleeping out for "Wicked" tickets. I know that it hasn't officially happened yet, but the fact that he slept out for them in December. . .

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? See the post below. "If You're Going Through Hell"

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer? (a) sadder right this moment, (b) thinner, (c) richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Play with my kids, and putting puzzles together and sewing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? wasting time on the computer (sorry)

20. How did you spend Christmas? Christmas morning was at our house. I quietly watched the kids open gifts. It was a hard season for me. The afternoon was at my parents house with an abundance of family.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Yes; it's amazing to me when even after 13 years of marriage I manage to fall in love with my husband all over again.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Extreme Makeover Home Edition, though I'm enjoying All Stars of Dance (I know, I know. That's this year, but I've broken the rules already.)

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nope Thankfully. There were moments. But I'm over them.

24. What was the best book you read? The "Mistborn" Series by Brandon Sanderson, phenomenal adult fantasy.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Mole People. I had the cd before, but it was fun to have my kids discover it with me.

26. What did you want and get? I lost a person for a while, but they are back.

27. What did you want and not get? stability--thought I had it. It's gone.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Oi. I don't like films. Most of them anyway. I can't even remember what all I've seen, and what I remember I didn't like. I'll update this if I remember.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 33 and I really can't remember. It wasn't that memorable. Oh wait, I made myself a delicious steak and potatoes dinner. Yumm!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A housekeeper. (On occasion I have kept Angel's answers and this one I couldn't possibly change.)

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Um, smaller (meaning I'm smaller) and thinning. I want to look good modestly so that teenagers can (maybe) see me and be reminded that they can be in style and modest too.

32. What kept you sane? The Holy Spirit, God's grace, and Jesus. (Couldn't have said it better myself Angel!)

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Who uses the word "fancy" anymore in this sense (Again, couldn't have said it better)? Really, I can't think of anyone to use in that context. I mean, Brad Pitt and Daniel Craig are hot, but do I really fancy them?

34. What political issue stirred you the most? Um, must I? It would be a long post.

35. Who did you miss? I missed LOTS of different people all year long. There are pieces of my heart scattered all over the country (Yet again Angel, what a perfect answer).

36. Who was the best new person you met? Charette for sure.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. That God loves me and will stand by me. I know I've learned it before, but it seems that I have to learn it again and again.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Wait, didn't we already do this with the song? Just go listen to the song in question number 16, okay?

Happy New Year to you!

As this has been a rather uneventful time in my life since the last 2 posts (which have all the exciting stuff in it) I haven't come up with much to write about. No life changing experiences. Mostly silly mundane. I've only read 1 1/2 books since then and they are both books I've read before.

So, what to write?

Random thoughts of course.

1--Does it ever feel to you like we are being forced, in a way, to go back to an agrarian society? We have lived through this fabulous age in which science has advanced us so far, and yet that same science is teaching us that we must, in some respects, go back to times before to survive.

Think about it.

A recession causes financial confusion which in turn makes us revert back to the good old fashioned "Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do or do without" philosophy.

The concerns in the environment and the high gas prices (yes I know they've lowered, but they are still high) cause us to try and walk more and drive less. They also cause us to stay closer to home, trying to save environment and money by doing things close instead of traveling far away. I wish I knew where the link was, but I even read an article where some dentist in Florida had started riding his horse to work to save on gas. Now, I don't think that we are all going to run out and buy horses, but it did make me stop and think about the decisions we are making.

Food prices cause us to cook our own meals instead of eat out--which is probably better for us anyway. And I know a lot more people who are canning for all their worth so they can save even more money that way.

Speaking of, I have got to get on my applesauce.

It's just interesting to me that we are practically being forced back to some old fashioned values that we as a society have been ignoring for years.

2--The fabulous Angel tagged me for the seven random things meme. I've done this before in another blogging life, but as most of you who read this now didn't then, I'll do it again. I wonder what I'll come up with this time?

1-As stated above, I do my own canning, but not as much because it saves me money as because I really hate the store bought versions of the things I can. Applesauce? If you've never had it chunky, you don't know what you're missing. Peaches? Store bought peaches are flavorless. And Jam? Also flavorless, although the lower sugar varieties get a little closer. I promise you I make better jam than the store does. I love making jam. It makes me happy.

2-I love puzzles. I buy them frequently--though not to an excessive level. Sadly, I don't have a place that I can just put up a puzzle and work on it, so many of my puzzles have never been done.

3--Fox in Socks is my all time favorite Dr. Seuss book. I take any excuse I can to read it out loud to my kids. I'm almost to the point where I can read it perfectly, but I get going too fast because it's fun to read and then I trip over my tongue. My favorite part is the Tweetle Beetles. The hardest part is Bim and Ben.

4--I'm not a vegetarian. I loves me a good juicy medium-rare steak. However, my favorite pizzas are vegetarian pizzas. Papa Murphy's gourmet vegetarian rocks the house. And there's a local joint here call The Pie Pizzeria (or maybe it's national and I just don't know it) and their vegetarian is the best pizza on the planet--in my un-humble opinion. I love it, right down to the fresh tomatoes sliced across the top after it has been cooked. My mouth is now watering and I just finished dinner.

5--If you want me to color a picture for you, give me colored pencils.

6--I live a double life when it comes to my clothes. I wear jeans and t-shirts most of the time. I love them. But I also love dressing up and looking sassy. In my imaginary/too expensive to make reality world I would shop at places like Anthropologie and look like Audrey Hepburn all the time. Of course, in my imaginary world I would also be thin enough to look like Audrey Hepburn all the time. In the meantime, I run around in jeans and layered t-shirts and dream of a time when I will have the money and the ability to dress like the sassy chick I want to be.

7--I'm a well trained closet Mary Kay consultant. Make-up makes me happy, and my favorite part of doing Mary Kay, when I was doing it for serious, was doing the makeovers. I loved putting some color on a woman that they would never do in real life and having them love it. However, since I'm a walking mass of contradictions, I rarely put make-up on in real life, especially as I'm no longer a real consultant. I'm trying to do better at this. My goal now is to get it on on Sundays. Once I conquer that I will work towards every day of the week.

3--I don't like Halloween. I've been to two Halloween parties this year. I actually hosted one of them. I didn't like being at the first party. Usually I can avoid the things I don't like about Halloween--the skanky/bloody/gory costumes and the skulls and all that crap. Unfortunately, this time around I didn't. Of course, I didn't know what I was getting in to. It was a family hosted party. There were three costumes that showed a bit too much of the people in question, and the food was all purposely themed to be Halloween-ish, like hot dogs wrapped as mummies. I could barely eat. And I felt bad, because these people are family. I would have had a much better time but about halfway through the time we were there a guy came in dressed as the Savior--complete with thorns and it made me sick. I got a bloody nose while I was there (no idea why or how, it just happened) and therefore was able to seclude myself for a while, but I felt as if a burden had lifted when we left. Next year, quite frankly, I'll be finding a way either to be busy that night or suggesting a separate party for our half of the family.

The one I hosted, on the other hand, went well. I knew no-one would come in a costume skanky or sacrilegious. It was the other side of the family and we had a donut eating contest, ate lots of soup and rolls and generally had a good time talking. The feel was incredibly different. I also have a church party (a soup-tack-u-lar where we all bring soup and sample soup and socialize) and then Halloween itself. I stay home and hand out candy while Faramir takes the kids trick-or-treating.

What I hope someday will happen on Halloween? We will stay home as a family, maybe let the kids invite some friends over, and watch a movie and eat good food. I'd rather avoid the whole thing all together. Unfortunately, that's not the general consensus in my house.

4--What do you think of this quote? I'm not going to say who said it, since I haven't checked my sources yet. If you know who said it, please don't tell just yet. I'm not going to tell you what I thought of it. I want to hear what your take is.

“But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”

5--How about this one?

"Real change is finally giving our kids everything they need to have a fighting chance in today's world. That begins with recognizing that the single most important factor in determining a child's achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from; it's not who their parents are or how much money they have. It's who their teacher is." (emphasis added)

Just curious to see if you react the same or differently than I did.