See Ya 08, Wouldn't Want To Be Ya.

I considered giving this post the more cheery, "Happy New Year!", but I just couldn't. I started out 2009 by doing something I don't think I did in all of 08 - sleep in until 9:00 AM. Thank you to my sweet husband for keeping my early bird children at bay. The combination of a marathon of family parties (totally fun but exhausting) and chronic insomnia had finally caught up with me.

It is always sad to say goodbye to Bruce and Becca and their sweet kids, but you can be sure we spent as much time as we could with them, soaking it all in. I truly am blessed to have the best in laws a person could ask for. I married into a great family, and my siblings married fabulous people, without exception. It has been so fun being together over Christmas.

I am by nature an optimist. I always tend to err on the side of believing the best case scenario will unfold, maybe even naively sometimes. But I can't help it. It's the way I choose to see life and if I changed that I might stop finding reasons to get out of bed. I am famous for saying, "I can't believe that is has been X number of years since Y" or some variation thereof.

I have to say though that I CAN believe that 2008 is over. It has seemed much much longer than 365 days. It has been fraught with the kind of details that belong and will stay in my personal journal, rather than my totally public blog, but it suffices to say that it has had it's rough spots.

I am not naive enough to think that magically 2009 will solve all our ills. I do however take great comfort in knowing that the One (and I don't mean Barack Obama) who sent me here knows me and cares about me and my petty problems, and he knows you. I also can't help but notice that He doesn't have a history of removing all life's obstacles, solving all problems, and eliminating all adversity. But I do know that if I do all that I can, that I can turn the rest over to Him and knowing that is one of my greatest blessings. We are in tough times and even the optimists of the world have to acknowledge that '09 could conceivably see even worse times. Enjoy the ride (good and ugly), and keep the faith alive. Happy New Year!