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2008 is over? Really?

2008-12-31 - 9:32 p.m.


The last day of 2008 has totally snuck up on me. I�m sure I�ll be writing dates with the wrong year on cheques for at least a month, whereas usually by now I�m already starting to get ahead of myself and write the year coming up too early.

I moved so much during university, and for a few years after, that it still feels novel to finish a year in the same house as I started out in. Since we�re moving again in six months, I won�t have that sensation this coming year, but for now I�m enjoying the fact that we have two sets of Christmas pictures in this house. Last year I was pregnant at this time and had just �come out� as such to my co-workers so everyone finally knew. This year I have a six-month-old baby and am pretty certain that I won�t be having any more.

My mother made the most awesome stockings for my kids. I wish, wish, WISH I could take pics and post them for you to see, but they have their names on them and, well, I hate to break it to you, but my kids� real names aren�t actually Grommet and Biscuit.

Now that Grommet is almost 3, this year is the first year she�s really gotten into the Santa thing. She still couldn�t be persuaded to sit on his knee, but she was keen on the whole leaving-him-cookies thing for sure, especially since it meant having extra cookies in the house �cause you can�t exactly bake only three of them. In case you�re wondering, yes, we tell her that Santa is coming, but if she asks if he�s real we won�t lie to her. So far she�s just taken him at face value so we�re going with that. Also, in our house Santa is strictly a stocking-filler only. No actual wrapped gifts. We think the credit for a good gift should go to the person who actually thought of it and went to the trouble and expense of getting it.

I was pleased with the gifts we got for the kids. Certainly Grommet seemed to appreciate them all; from the Spiderman, Curious George and Disney Princess bandaids, right on up to the Bilibo. Biscuit got a couple of things that were definitely too old for him now, but that we felt he�d feel the lack of when he got older and his sister had them and he didn�t. For instance, we got them both aprons because I wear mine when Grommet and I bake together. They�ll be good for crafts too. He also got a Bilibo and, really, I do think they�re better in pairs since they fit together well.

It�s funny, but I really tried to not go overboard for these holidays. We set a spending cap with the �rents and I tried to keep the kids� gifts reasonable. They�re only 6 months and almost-3 after all. In the end though, it still seemed like an orgy of gifts. Partly this is because the grandparents� spending limit didn�t seem to apply to the kids, partly it�s because in the past J was the one who got Grommet�s big gifts so when Christmas was near and I�d been the one to get the majority of the gifts, he felt like he hadn�t gotten enough and was afraid there wouldn�t be much to unwrap under the tree. So, there was an eleventh-hour run to the store for a couple of bulky things to add to my carefully planned pile.

I can�t complain about how things turned out for me though: I got a lot of stuff I wanted, including a 50mm lens for my camera and a UV filter for it. I�ve also realized that the money I�ve been hoarding through little odd jobs and birthday and Christmas gifts has added up to a tidy sum that might just allow me to splash out on the newest version of Photoshop. Not that it�s covered the lot, mind you, but it�s reduced the amount that I think of as the part that I�d be out of pocket for significantly enough to maybe justify the purchase. Something to think about.

I�ve really got to make a decision though: if my photography is going to be a self-supporting hobby or not. That is to say, I don�t expect to make a living at it, but even if I�m going to try to make enough money for it to pay for itself in terms of equipment (camera stuff, software, printer, website, etc.) I�ll need to bite the bullet and invest a bit of time and cash on it soon. Well, I feel safe in saying that this is one decision I can leave until next year. Particularly since next year is, at this very moment, two and a half hours away.

Happy New Year everyone! May 2009 be all you hope it to be!

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